Office Strobes
Ok, so I haven’t been shooting much lately, and I find that kinda sad. That’s why I make it a point to pick up my camera at least once a month and try to shoot something. This month, I kinda influenced the secretary of our VP to update our company’s management head shots. They use these thumbnails for news letters and other announcements that they blast in our company web portal. But really, it’s more of an excuse for me to scratch my shutter finger itch.
Of course, I had to practice my lighting set up, but I wasn’t really paying too much attention to my light. I was focusing more on the fact that I was shooting “real world” people. One of the biggest hurdles when shooting “real world” people, is the “i’m not photogenic factor”. Some people actually believe they don’t look good in pictures. Totally not true, IMO. I believe that each and every human being on the planet is beautiful in their own way. As photographers, all we gota do is find that beauty and capture it. Cheesey, I know, but it’s true.
A lot of people are conscious about imperfections on their face. Could be anything, from their double chins because they’re on the heavy side, or their crooked teeth. Bottom line, people will always have something they hate about their face.
All faces are the same when it comes to features. I mean everyone has eyes, eyebrows, cheek bones, a nose, lips, a chin, a jaw line etc… For starters we have to find out what features are particularly “strong”, then find an angle that can accentuate those features. It’s good to note that choosing how you will light your subject can help here too.
First off, it’s a good practice to pay extra attention to a person’s jaw line. If you cut up that jaw line real well, you’ll be cooking with gas in no time. Getting that jaw line out there almost always gets rid of the double chin. It’s not Photoshop that gets rid of the double chin, it’s the angle and position of the neck and chin. For this exercise, I made sure I found an angle that almost completely hid those double chins. For some people it will be there no matter what, but you can make it less prevalent by finding that angle. Shoot a bit higher, make them turtle their neck, do whatever it takes to get rid of that excess skin. If you find that angle, your subject (specially for the fat faced ones) will love you.
Next are the eyes and mouth. Our eyes (with the eyebrows) and mouth / lips tell the story of how we are feeling. Whether if it’s feeling flirty, confident, cocky, sweet, sinister or whatever it is, most of the work come from the eyes and mouth. Learning how to manipulate those muscles in our faces will have you get those expressions.
Most importantly you have to understand that all this stuff will depend on how well you make a connection with your subject. You won’t get any flirty eye action if your subject is not comfy doing flirty eyes at you. Any portrait shooter will tell you that this is the most important thing you have to establish. No connection means no expression. Work on that, and you’ll get interestingly beautiful expressions.
Till next time. Cheers!
