Recap Elaine Gates

Portrait Photography is not my favorite thing but Elaine gave us some tips that might make it more enjoyable for me. Elaine said that to take good portraits you first have to have a model thats willing to take pictures with you. If the model feels awkward or uncomfortable in front of the camera then the portraits will not turn out as good as someone who likes getting photographed. To make people feel less awkward Elaine said that she tells her models that they're just 'going for a walk' and in doing this she finds interesting locations to shoot at and the models relax more. Also, the angles on a portrait are one of the most important things about taking the shot. If the angle doesn't flatter the model the picture won't turn out good and the person won't like the shot. You never really want to take a portrait from bellow the model. This will make the person look really big and usually people don't like to look gigantic compared to the background or other aspects of the picture. Taking pictures slightly above the model makes them look smaller, which is good, and for some reason they also look better from this angle. It's all about finding angles that flatter your model. During the photo shoot with the person be sure to be looking at minor flaws in the pictures that you can fix right then and there, like fly away hairs, rolled up shirts, trash in the background, etc... The last really important thing Elaine said to us was to try to capture the person interacting with the camera or showing their personality. This is important especially in pictures of children and senior pictures. I really liked all of Elaine's pictures she showed us so I'm going to use these tips to try to make my portraits better than they are.