Quick Tips for Taking Simple Portraits

Alright I'm guilty - I took the week off for Christmas time. My family is spread out all over the United States (including Hawaii) and I took a little break to enjoy them as they were all in town for the holidays. I hope you enjoyed your Christmas as well! I'm lucky to have three beautiful sisters that I get to photograph for different occasions; this sister o' mine wanted to get a few portraits taken while we were together. Some people might think in order to get good head shots, you have to go to a photo studio, have expensive lights or pay a lot of money to go get them done. I am going to show you how we took some simple portraits over the weekend just using window light and a simple backdrop. 

For these photos, this was my simple setup.

I carried my backdrop and stand up to the master bedroom and placed it at about a 45 degree angle to the window. I made sure to ask what her 'good-side' was (the side of her hair she liked better to show in photos; at least 90% of women I photograph prefer one side over the other so I always like to ask... maybe you don't need to ask men ;) and faced that side closest to the window light.

I like to have a chair or a stool for my subject to sit on so I can shoot some of them sitting as well as some of them standing. 

It was easy getting my sister to relax and laugh to get a genuine smile because she's my best friend. If you try to have a conversation and get to know your subject, rather than focus so much on posing them and fabricating the shot, you'll probably get better results that show their personality and look more natural.  

Her new baby is every bit as sweet, and then some, so I couldn't resist snapping a few of her as well. I shot all of these images at f/3.2 with my 50mm lens. 

If you don't want to spend the money, you can make these even more simple and have an assistant hold up a white sheet behind your subject as a backdrop. If you know you'll use a backdrop in the future, I'd highly recommend buying one! It will make life much easier. Here is a great backdrop support stand that you can find on Amazon for only $34.99. That is hard to beat! It has great reviews. You can also find a roll of seamless white backdrop paper for $37.30. This is about a 4.5 foot wide roll, if you want a much wider backdrop, look into the 107" rolls like this one, they are more expensive but are twice as wide if you need the extra space. You can get both a stand and a backdrop for only $70.00 and start shooting some great portraits. 

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