Starting taking Portrait Shots

[CatherineA]

Sorry to be late to the party, but a most interesting thread.
Best wishes to you Catherine, I started a similar journey photographing my daughter, whom we warmly refer to as the ‘Fashionista’
I can say with 100% conviction that I learnt everything about Portrait photography right here at CinC.
I agree with Manfred today as well, plenty to be done with no extra gear, the first thing I did buy was a reflector, to direct the natural light.
Having said that, any extras sometimes require an extra pair of hands.
Getting out just you & a camera & your subject is a great way to practice.

My one tip of advice I received which holds true very time, is to get your subject away from the background if you can & have a neutral or even pattern background.
I started with a brick wall.

My very best wishes to you, as we keep learning together.

Thank you Kay! I will try a neutral background and indeed I had my son against the wall. I will experiment. I was adding new things in the background partly because my wall colour - which I chose thinking that it would be like a bit of warm sunshine in the home - looks a little bilious in the photos. So today I did the following photo. It isn't something I love but I was going to try and work with a variation of it tomorrow. But maybe the background detracts too much after all. Digital makes trial and error easy.

And my very best wishes to you too!

[William W]

Catherine:

A general comment about the 'Flash' traffic in this conversation (pun intended)–

In the Opening Post, you mentioned options regarding ". . . or [buying] another point and shoot camera but one with a bigger sensor. Do any of those sound worthwhile?”

To my mind, all the comments regarding the learning Flash for Portraiture, etc. in this conversation are quite relevant for learning and planning, even if such are not 100% practical at the moment to employ while you are using your P900.

One point that I think you need to understand and fully appreciate, and one which might have slipped by you, is in Post #24 where Kathy describes and mentions how an OPTICAL sensor on an external Speedlite can be triggered by your camera’s Pop-up-Flash, (my bold and underlined now for emphasis):

consider off-camera lighting . . . You don't need a new camera to do this (although having one with a bigger sensor, RAW capability, and a flash hotshoe might make things a little easier). But I think your camera does have full manual mode, and that's what you really need.

The Godox TT600 is a bare-bones manual-only speedlight. . . . But it does have a built-in optical sensor and S1/S2 slave modes that can fire the flash remotely when the pop-up flash on your P900 fires.

(As I confirmed in Post #38 your camera does have M Mode, [also A Mode and P Mode]).

So, my main advice if you are considering employing Flash for Portraiture, is you will likely desire, (quite soon into your learning), a camera which has an HOT SHOE and also FLASH COMMUNICATION with the Camera (communication to camera is commonly referred to as “a ‘dedicated’ Flash”).

There are quite a few Point and Shoot style cameras with an Hot Shoe and employing Flash communication.

In the mean time, I do agree that there are many (lots and lots) of Portraits for you to make with Available Light, with or without the use of Reflectors and Modifiers.

Also it is my strong belief that Mastering Available Light Portraiture (well, I mean having a good understanding of it – Mastering anything is a bit limiting), is a fundamental precursor to learning how to effectively employ Flash for Portraiture.

To this end, I printed and framed a comment which hangs in my office: it was concerning the FUNDAMENTALS of good FLASH PORTRAITURE and it was made a while ago, here on CiC:



WW

[CatherineA]

Thank you Bill, you've explained much to me and have been really generous with your time. And I am glad too that you emphasized points that Kathy and Dem have made because I had more to absorb from them that I was got the first time round (although I really did learn from them both the first time that I read their posts). I will print out this thread and read it over again. It feels like the beginning of something fun and I'm excited.

Not only is this community talented and smart but really patient. Phew for that.

[William W]

You're welcome: yet "time" is absolutely useless, meaningless and valueless, unless it is used for purpose.

. . . one way I learn is to print and read and make my own notes/comments on the paper: one key element for me is having a printed version on which I can scribble. Reading/learning from a screen is not my bag at all, perhaps you are similar

...onward, ever onward.

Bye for now.