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Photography Tips by Pablo Raw – A Few Thoughts on Taking Portraits

By Prince Of Petworth

The photography tips series is written by Pablo Raw.

When I first wanted to learn about portrait photography (I am still learning!), I asked a friend if I could take her picture. I set my camera on a tripod, had a cable release attached to it and I even had some living room lamps set in a way that would light her face in a nice way. Since I really liked the results of that photo session, I decided to show the results to a friend who is a much more experienced photographer, and asked him to give me his sincere opinion. And he did: “Well, this photo would look really good on a driver’s license…”(ouch!)

Still motivated, I decided to get some lessons from the old masters of portraiture at the National Gallery of Art. Walking around and observing their work, I realized that two of the most important things for a good portrait are the subject’s pose and the illumination.

By now you should realize that I’m not talking about photographs but paintings. Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, and others. None of them had fancy flashguns or other artificial sources of light; most of their portraits were done under natural light. And for sure no one can call their portraits a driver’s license picture!

Continues after the jump. (more…)

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