The significance of portrait photography
The significance of portrait photography lies in that it can stimulate feelings and make viewers think, even for a short time. A celebrity said that photos have two kinds of beauty: one is visual beauty; One is that people have shocking beauty. These two kinds of beauty can stay in the mind of the viewer, and the feelings they bring will be infected and inspired for a long time. This is the meaning of paper portrait photos.
When we practice in the portrait photography training class, it is better to ask the model to take a picture of our relatives and friends. Here are some things to do when shooting people around you:
1, to find out the family's attitude towards shooting.
2. Eliminate the shyness of family members facing the camera.
3. Select some important photos to develop.
Capture those meaningful moments when communicating with relatives or friends around you. It is best to shoot in the most familiar place, which can make the subject more relaxed and natural. Being able to take pictures of people or things that you are most familiar with is a progress in photography technology.
Four artistic realms of portrait photography
Like photography, it seems simple, but if you really want to take shocking photos, you need to practice hard. The following four realms are the result of admiration from many people.
First, it is pleasing to the eye.
Pleasing to the eye is the basic requirement of ordinary people and photographers for portrait photography. Whether it is business portraits, family photos, news portraits or even portraits involved in any photography field, whether it is the subject, photographer or viewer, as long as there is no special purpose, they all want to see pleasing portraits, and making the audience and the audience physically and mentally happy is one of the most important goals of any art form. First of all, pleasing to the eye has become the common goal of commercial photographers and customers. With the development of modern photography, many problems that were difficult or impossible to be solved by previous photographers have been solved technically, so it is relatively easy to achieve a pleasing realm. Used for commercial photography. This kind of portrait photography not only needs the photographer's own quality, but also depends on some objective factors, such as: excellent makeup artist, beautiful clothes, exquisite props, high-grade photographic equipment, advanced lighting, advanced equipment studio, advanced photo post-processing system, exquisite mounting and careful editing planning. For the field of portrait photography, the biggest defects are the excessive involvement of non-photographic ontology language and the desalination of photographic ontology language.
The so-called photographic ontology language is a unique expression of photographic technology and art, including the use of film, exposure control, photographic lighting and composition management. Non-photographic language mainly refers to non-photographic means of expression that originally played an auxiliary role in photography, such as makeup, costumes, props and so on. In these portrait photography, the photographic ontology language is generally diluted, and most of the few remaining photographic ontology languages have become a fixed pattern and routine, and even distorted. For example, in terms of light consumption, in order to cater to the tastes of the public, more positive light and soft light are used; In terms of exposure, overexposure is often used to make the skin appear whiter. But all this is for the customer, and there is nothing wrong with it.
Pleasure is to make customers and the general public feel physically and mentally happy. Therefore, this portrait photography itself is an important part of photography art, and it is this pleasing photography that attracts thousands of people to the studio and becomes an important economic pillar for the development of photography art in China, especially amateur photography art. Since photography works have the ability to attract the public, it shows that photography works have the ability to guide the public's aesthetic tendency. This pleasing commercial portrait photography has been popular for ten years, and the aesthetic tendency of the public is also changing quietly. Moreover, in recent years, with the outstanding contribution of a group of young photographers with great artistic expression to commercial photography, the current portrait photography is showing a booming trend.
Second, realistic.
The appearance of photography makes people reappear? Similar? The problem becomes easy, and the development of contemporary portrait photography seems to be out of this development direction. In particular, the current popular business portraits are less and less like themselves, and the distance from life is even more distant. Of course, the vividness here is more than simple? Similar? But on the basis of pleasing to the eye.
Portrait photography in this realm generally has the following main characteristics: 1: Correct use of photographic ontology language and non-photographic ontology language. The use of photographic ontology language is not only based on whether it is pleasing to the eye, but also on whether it can express the expression characteristics of characters. Natural and elegant lighting, accurate exposure, reflecting normal skin color and texture. Cosmetic props should not be too ostentatious and grandstanding. The purpose of makeup is to hide something from time to time, not to set it off. Props are just decorations, not expressions. 2. Capturing subtle expressions and shaping eyes' expressions is the eternal theme of photographers, and it is also the key to whether a portrait photography can be lifelike. In the feminine contemporary portrait photography, it should be said that it is very good at this point. There is a lack in the shaping of eyes. This is mainly due to the dim light used in photography. The high profile created by the soft light on the front makes it difficult to highlight the eyes. Therefore, using light to express the characters' eyes is the key to achieve this state in portrait works.
Third, flying personality.
Personality publicity in portrait photography can be divided into two aspects, one is to publicize the personality of the subject, and the other is to publicize the personality of the photographer. From the photographer's point of view, the purpose of taking portraits is nothing more than to remember, appreciate and show their personality charm. From this perspective, the photographer is helping the subject to show his personality charm. From the photographer's point of view, as a creator of works of art, he should express his photography creativity by means of photography and with the help of the performance ability of models, to reflect his photography style, and even to tell his true understanding of life through photography language.
Portrait photography in this realm usually has the following characteristics: 1: unique photography language. In terms of the use of photographic language, the use of photographic language in the first realm portrait photography is generally dull, the use of photographic language in the second realm portrait photography tends to be natural, and the use of photographic language in the third realm photography focuses on highlighting. Light is the most unique ontological language of photography. For example, Mo Xie's "Two Feelings to the Shadow" skillfully uses shadows to create a wonderful illusion, which is unforgettable. Another example is Zhu Enguang's saint Colin? Thomas's "A glimmer of light", Saab? Alexandra Sutton's purity and so on. The beauty of photography noumenon language is vividly reflected. 2. Unique and concise drama plot such as Adler? In the Shadow of Life shot by Mousavi, the hero and heroine in the picture tell an intriguing story in the light and shadow effect painstakingly managed by the photographer. It's not a TV series, but it seems to say more than a TV series. Of course, this work is also unique in lighting and composition. 3. Show a unique understanding of the relationship between man and nature. Pure portrait photography may not include nature, but in this special era of environmental crisis, many photographers aim at nature and the relationship between man and nature. Or enthusiastic eulogy, or sharp criticism. Whether it's Carl? Cowley's Man and the Sun and Yi's Man and the Sun both express the desire for the integration of man and nature. 4. Strong visual impact Whether it is clever light and shadow, clever composition or innovative and bold lens application, its purpose is to produce strong visual effects. Publicizing the subject's personality is to make people look unique and dramatic like photographs. The publicity of the photographer's personality should show his understanding of photography, the subject, portrait photography and even life through his own personalized photography ontology language, so in a sense, photography is the photographer's silent confession.
Fourth, the interpretation of life.
Great portrait photography is great because it depicts the souls of characters, because it eulogizes the greatness of life, because it records the spiritual outlook of an era, and because it records the joys and sorrows of human society. From the individual point of view, great portrait photography profoundly records the inner world of the characters, whether sad or happy, or thinking or shouting. It is precisely because it presents the inner world of the characters that such photographic works give people a spiritual shock. At the same time eulogize the preciousness and greatness of life. In the face of such works, every audience will be proud of having life.
From the overall situation of human society, great portrait photography records the mental outlook of people in an era and the great joys and sorrows of human society. The significance of great portrait photography has completely surpassed the significance of ordinary portraits. It is a symbol of society, times and history. In this sense, the significance of portrait photography is far more than the publicity of the photographer's memory and personality. Great portrait photography usually has the following characteristics. 1: Strong emotional shock 2. Reflect the value of life, eulogize the greatness of life 3. Reflect the joys and sorrows of human society 4. Reflect the special personality charm of the subject 5. Fade the language of photography, such as the "little girl with big eyes" in Jie Hailong Hope Project series photos, because it captures the eager eyes of out-of-school children and carries the hopes of countless out-of-school children, and she shocked countless people. For example, Martin, a Hungarian photographer admired by Bresson? The photos taken by Monkasi of three black children rushing to the conference, although they didn't even see the faces of the three protagonists, made all observers realize the preciousness and greatness of life. The positive spirit of human society shown in this photographic work may make the viewer unforgettable all his life. Another example is the shooting of Churchill by Halsman. His cold face and sharp eyes all show the inner world of this iron-fisted politician, which is also the spiritual symbol of that unforgettable era. And his Einstein has almost become a representative symbol of science. It is said that Einstein was lost in meditation on the atomic bomb that exploded in Hiroshima when he took this photo. As you can see, there is a heavy sadness in Einstein's wise eyes, which is also the most touching place of this photo. Of course, the success of these two photos is not unrelated to the special personality charm of the subjects. These great photographs all seem to have a common feature, that is, the language of photography tends to be dull.
Characteristics of portrait photography
An excellent portrait photography is the sum of many successful factors: expression, posture, composition, lighting, exposure and production, which are all components of a whole.
Portrait photography is different from ordinary portrait photography: portrait photography takes the description and expression of the specific appearance and expression of the subject as its primary creative task. Although some portrait photography works also contain certain plots, they still mainly show the appearance of the subject, and a considerable number of portrait photography works only explain the image of the subject without specific plots. Figure photography focuses on the events and activities that the subject participates in, and its main task is to show the specific plot, rather than showing the appearance and behavior of the subject with vivid images. The important difference between them is whether they describe the appearance of the characters in detail.
Whether it's a single person or a group of people, whether it's a snapshot in a scene or a pose in a photo studio, whether it's a plot or not, as long as it's a photo that mainly shows the specific appearance and mental state of the subject, it belongs to the category of portrait photography. Those photographic works that mainly show the activities and plots of the characters and reflect a certain theme of life, but the appearance of the subject is not very prominent, whether it is close-up or whole body, can only belong to the category of character photography. Of course, in a broad sense, it belongs to people photography.