Advice on Professional Portraits

[ChiILX1]

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Thanks for your help.

 

My best friend is coming to town on the 21st and wanted me to take some pictures of him for his professional bio on his website. He's a baseball announcer. I want to get it right and really help him out.

 

I have a Leica X1, M2 with 50mm collapsible summicron and 90mm collapsible elmar, and a Minolta XG-7 with 50mm 1.7 rokkor-x and 200mm celtic (celtic being my least favorite lens). I have a 5 pack of Porta 160 VC for the shoot. My friend will also come with his 1.2 50mm Canon on his 5D mkII. My girlfriend has a Nikon 40D I think it is with a 18-55mm zoom. Anyway that's the gear. I also have a reflector.

 

I've never done a professional portrait before (meaning the portrait will be used for professional purposes- not calling myself a professional). I'm looking for advice or even galleries to check out for ideas.

 

From the few I've been able to find online outside of a studio (I will do it outside downtown Chicago somewhere- still looking for perfect location) I like the look of compressed images taken with a 90-200mm lens for cropped face shots or busts. I also like wide angle shots - like landscapes with the person inserted into the landscape. But I think those might be a little dramatic.

 

I want them to be good professional shots but I don't want them to be pretentious or dramatic. I don't want someone to look at his site and think "this guy spent too much time on his image rather than his announcing style." I want to disappear as the photographer and just get him to show up as a personable person.

 

I was thinking maybe to buy a prop- like an old radio microphone- for a few images. someone else suggested a few serious indoor shots of him just sitting in a leather chair leaning forward. I definitely want some to communicate with the background that he's in Chicago because that's where he'd ideally like to stay, but he also grew up here and loves the city so they would be valuable shots beyond the professional purposes that way.

 

What are everyone's ideas for this shoot and do you have any online examples I can check out? what kind of checklist of image types should I have with me when he arrives?

 

Thanks.

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[Jeff S]

Here is a short video from TOP on an actual photo shoot. Much may not apply to you, but you might still get a few ideas, especially regarding the importance of scouting, on-site preparation and alternatives. Hopefully you won't be as time constrained.

 

The rest is just good photo technique...only you can decide your skill in that regard. Portraits can be shot with any of the equipment you have. Choose the gear that you're most comfortable with, and of course that which complements your framing and perspective intent.

 

Jeff

[tobey bilek]

Google professional portrait lighting so you learn lighting.

 

Look at some pro portraits to see what you like and figure how it was done.

 

Choose a background

 

Find a patient subject and practice with some cheap film or digital.

 

After the first roll, see what you do not like and practice some more.

 

This is harder than you think, much harder.

 

Then you might learn a bit about retouching.

 

In 3 to 6 months you will be ready to go.

[Jeff S]

One of the good aspects of the video I posted is that it minimizes the use of artificial (or mixed) light. That's a whole other matter as noted above; one that I recommend you avoid unless necessary, and unless you really want to cram. Hence the need to scope out locations with good natural light, assisted perhaps by a reflector or such.

 

Preparation and practice is key.

 

Jeff

[honcho]

Talk to him to understand what he is looking for. You are not confident in this, my advice would be to borrow the two dslr's so that you can see instantly if things are working out as you intend. You can always transfer the exposure settings to your film camera if you feel you have to shoot on film, although I cannot see why you would want to for something like this.

 

As the image is intended for his website, put him in an environment that says something about what he does, how about a local baseball ground?

 

Communicate with him to get good expressions and control the light with reflectors or off-camera flash.Take a variety of images from different angles, standing, sitting, leaning, head and shoulders, 3/4 length and full length in landscape and portrait formats. If using digital, meter manually from his face, bracket exposures and control the white balance, shoot raw and process the files correctly for intended end use.

 

Once you have some basic portraits that you are happy with, try something a little more creative to improve your confidence.

 

Be honest with him about your ability and inexperience.

[ChiILX1]

Thanks everyone.

 

I found these amazing portraits: Dan Winters Photography

 

One person mentioned a baseball field and another mentioned a chair. I took notes on that video / article and will scout locations this week. What other possible context-appropriate or clever locations would be a good idea to look into do you think for a radio announcer? Thanks.

[wda]

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Thanks everyone.

 

I found these amazing portraits: Dan Winters Photography.....

Thank you for the link. Some interesting uses of backgrounds. I thought there was too much emphasis on rather sterile expressions in his portraits; but overall, very impressive work.