My Approach to Portraits

Since most of my work mainly consists of (female) portraits, I wanted to give you an insight into my workflow and what I focus on when shooting portraits. Disclaimer that this is my subjective opinion, I never learned photography in any school or by books, that's just the way how I find it aesthetic and visually pleasing. I try to incorporate 20-plus years of painting and drawing into my workflow, which might reflect my style of photography. 

First a brief history of the Portrait: It all began in 1839 with the first self-portrait, and became more clinical later on, used only for documentation. Pictorialists changed this by shifting the focus from an objective representation of the subject to a more creative expression highlighting the subject’s beauty, composition, atmosphere, and tonality. 

When talking about portraits, most people will think about a shot framed from the chest upwards with a very blurry background/or a plain white one, right? In my opinion, there is so much more to a portrait, even considering the environment in which it was shot. 

A good portrait doesn't necessarily mean perfect exposure, sharpness, focus, or following a rulebook, at least in my opinion. It has to capture a moment of emotion, movement, and dynamics meanwhile still portraying the model in the best possible way. 

My favorite shots are often random moments I could capture, freezing the dynamics of a movement or laughter. 

Harsh shadows and contrasts are a great way to give an additional layer of mystery to the shot if there are still enough facial features left to see for the viewer. 

I would recommend giving the model a small task, or sequence of movements to repeat, to achieve a more natural flow of motions since I absolutely hate doing basic Instagram poses for pictures. It also helps when you as a photographer engage with your model so that maybe one or two laughs can happen, which look great on camera. At the end of the day it should be a fun experience and not a chore.

My final advice would be to try out as many things as possible and to shoot with as many models as possible, or even just take pictures of friends, family, or strangers on the street (just don't be creepy, this should be the rule number 1 actually). Practice makes perfect, and the goal is that you see your final shot even before you hit the shutter, or at least have a vision ready. 

Remember that this is only my opinion, your taste might differ! 

Hope this little post gave you an insight into my mind during a portrait shoot and will help you as a photographer, have a wonderful day, and take some amazing pictures!