I have been making comments in my critiques about croppping: too tight, too loose, bodyless heads, heads on a stick – these are some of comments that I have made. In these comments I have mentioned a “bust”. A “bust” is something that maybe is used to put a wig on at the dressing table. A “bust” is actually the head & shoulder portrait that sculpturers made. To understand what a bust is, here’s a picture of one (I rubbed out what wasn’t needed in PS)

(Her complete portrait is somewhere below)

This is, by and large, the most succesful cropping for portraiture. It is aesthetically pleasing; it follows the rules of thirds perfectly, it has a perfectly balanced negative space, the head has a foundation (enough of the body) and there is no doubt of the intent of the image and it’s subject.

I loved weddings for portraiture! Why? Everyone was done up to the nines – hair, makeup, clothing, etc. but most of all they were receptive to having their portrait taken! It is an exciting event that had (generally) been planned ahead for a long time, organised, and wanting nothing but the best for the day and within the budget, no expense spared!

What follows may appear boring to a lot of people because it’s all the same! It is the same because it was taken one image after the other on a tight time schedule before the wedding in a portable studio in the brides mother’s loungeroom. And though one may feel “it’s all the same – I’d be more artistic, more daring” remember this: as a paid portraitist your job is to deliver not a work of art according to your imagination but a portrait that fulfills their requirement that shows them in their best light and is executed with skill. Remember too, the simplist things in life are often the best! and that goes for portraiture too.

Speaking of the mother of the bride, this is Jan

Jan has two daughters, Raywin and Tracey. This is Raywin, Matron of Honour

Note something here: Her head is in the identical place in both shots but there are two things different
1. her body is turned away from the key light in the first shot
2. the key light is a little closer to her in the second shot, increasing the contrast in the image.
Note: with the body turned away from the key light, the chest does not reflect as much light – it isn’t as bright and that is important! This portrait with the body turned away is actually aethetically more pleasing – it has a better structure to the image. The triangle is broader and fills the image better.
I do this to offer variety to the client and some people look better in one and not the other and visa versa.

Finally Tracey, the bride.

Standard Portrait (same pose as Jan and the first one of Raywin)

Front On (not successful)

Opposite direction for the body, lower camera angle.

You’ve seen this done before from me: lower camera hight than normal – about sternum hight

but not this: higher than normal camera hight – about forehead level

Note that with these images the background illumination changes. Why? Because with every change of pose the key light has to move to keep the lighting on the face correct and the camera angle / hight / direction had to change to compensate (see below).

TIPS

1. The eyes look in the same direction as the face is pointing.
This is a general rule for good portraiture and it’s one that can be broken successfully without depreciating the portrait. Conversly, it can be broken with devastating consequenses.
Here I found that to get the lighting right for split lighting, the head had to be turned away from the camera slightly into the key light. As it was not much of a turn I could get the sitter to, without moving her head, look into the lens at me.
Note:
Jan – looking in the direction of her face
Raywin 1 & 2 – head only slightly turned so it works
Tracey 1 – same as Raywin
Tracey 2 – head turned too far and the eyes should have been looking in the direction of her face so it failed. Another reason that it failed will be discussed below.
Tracey 3 – head turned too far but in this case I have gotten away with it
Tracey 4 & 5 – same as Jan

2. The body should always be turned away from the camera – never square on!
Note:
In the 2nd picture of Tracey she is square on and therefore she is too broad in the body and her head is too small for the body size in the image. It could be rescued with cropping but as it has two major faults (the eyes being the worst). I included it complete to show how little things can cause a portrait to fail.

3. The closest part of the body (that is visible) should be the face no matter what camera hight is used.
With these images I used a posing table and gas lift stools

The sitter is sat on the stool and the camera on tripod is set to eye level. I then arrange the pose by getting them to lean forward onto the table so that their face is forward of their body. This is not a big lean, face about in line with their knees. Remember – keep their back straight! The head is then lifted up to be square on with the camera. Final adjustments are made to the head tilt etc. and the image captured. Because they are leaning a bit it puts the camera hight at about top of head level.
Note that the near shoulder is sometimes physically in front of the face but not closer to the lens as the camera is higher.
Note also: looking at the background gives a good indication of the camera hight. As I move the camera the bright part of the background moves. If the camera is high, the bright part extends above the head, if its low the bright part doesn’t extend above the head. The vignetta used causes the background to have the bright circle and dark edges. Without the vignetta the whole background is illuminated and a shadow from the sitter may be thrown onto it. Vignettas are God’s gift too photograhers but fairly useless on anthing less than medium format.

A bouquet was placed at the front of the posing table to add colour to the bottom of the image (out of focus) to add a base line, and to hide the table. Works well!

4. The ideal focal length of the lens for all portraiture (group and single) a lens with about 26 degrees angle of view on the diagonal. This is supposed to give the most pleasing aspect ratio. With the DSLR I like to use about 90mm ~ 135mm as the depth of field on the the shorter focal lengths is too great. F8 gives about the same DoF of about f16 on the 150mm medium format lens.
This equates to:
4”x5” Camera 300mm
Medium Format Camera 150mm
35mm Camera 85mm
DSLR Camera 55mm

TECHNICAL

1. Camera Gear used
camera – Rollei 6006, 150mm Lens, f8, 6×6 film (120)
film – Kodak VPS 160 ASA
Manfrotto Triaut Tripod (058)
Home made vignetter in a matbox
Hasselblad Softar filter (from memory)
2 x Elincrom 500WS lights. Both in an umbrellas – fill at the back of the room.
1 x Elincrom 250WS light. Floor mounted for background.
Minolta IV Flash Meter

2. Background
100% cotton double flat bedsheet. Dyed by squashing the sheet into a bucket of dye and kneeding it, pull it out and do again a few times. I made green, purple and dark gray (black dye) ones. I squashed them in to make them mottled. I found that the green ones worked the best for formal portraits like this.

I used to shoot about 100~120 shots on a full wedding with about a 95% success rate. I cringe when I here of of digitally shot weddings going to 400+ images. However, I understand that the times have changed!

Hope that you find this helpful in some way.

N.B. All this can be done outdoors with natural light – studio lighting only emulates natural lighting but guarantees us our lighting consistancy.

Chris isn’t the first picture of the bride taken from a high viewpoint? She is looking up isn’t she? The camera seems to have been well above her forehead for that shot? Was she sittng and you standing perhaps?

Is the green border seamless paper? I have never had any experience in a phot studio so I have no clue about what the background could be. It certainly is not a boring colour!

Oh very cool – I love the shots at sternum and forehead level! Thanks Chris!

Thanks for taking the time to put this together! Very helpful!

We will make you proud LOL! :)

Jan, to run one first has to walk, to walk one first has to stand, to stand one first has to crawl, to crawl one first has to be able to control ones limbs, to be able to control ones limbs one first has to have limbs etc.etc. etc.

We all gotta start somewhere and sometime and once we start it will all come…...