portrait photographer

All posts tagged portrait photographer

Photographers That You Should Know About – Dorothea Lange

Posted by scottbourne on February 13, 2012
Posted in: Technique & Tutorials. Tagged: , , .

Ms. Lange and her car - Photo Public Domain

I’m starting a series of sorts here at Photofocus. The goal is to get you to realize the value of studying (or at least knowing about) the work of the photographic masters. No – I’m not talking about the cool kids with lots of “fans” on Flickr or Facebook. I’m talking about people who never lived to see such things. Now instantly, some of you who are young will decide this can’t help you because after all if it isn’t new – it isn’t cool – but you should read on anyway. You might just learn something.

Let’s start with Dorothea Lange. She was born in 1895 and died in 1965. Ms. Langue studied photography at Columbia University in New York City and in 1919 moved to San Francisco where she made her living as a portrait photographer. Her early life was somewhat tragic in that her father abandoned her and she contracted polio, but she used these negative experiences to help guide her to a life with meaning. While she started as a simple portraitist, the Great Depression became the pressing social issue of the time, and she abandoned her work as a portrait photographer and became a documentary photographer.

She understood the importance of photography. She used it for good. Ms. Lange thought that photography could be used to bring about, or at least document social change. Her work had great purpose. She photographed displaced families during the Great Depression and then the Japanese internment camps started during World War II.

Her work was so on target, so compelling that the U.S. government censored it. The government was worried that her compelling images of the suffering she documented would undo the plan to keep the camps going.

If you study Ms. Lange’s work you’ll note that she focused on the subject’s mood more often than not as the theme of her imagery. She managed to make character studies that conveyed more than just the information you might want about a single subject – but about the time she was living in.

Migrant Mother by D. Lange - Photo Public Domain

Her most famous photo – “Migrant Mother” is a good example of that. If you want to think about photographic storytelling, look at that photo.

She did achieve some recognition during her lifetime. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for excellence in photography and none other than Ansel Adams invited her to accept a position on the faculty at the California School of Fine Arts – hanging out with other notables including Minor White and Imogen Cunningham.

She co-founded “Aperture” magazine and her work also appeared in “Life” magazine. After her death, she was shown at the Whitney Museum and inducted into the California Hall of Fame. A school was named after her in Nipomo, California where she made the “Migrant Mother” photograph.

When I think of photographic heroes – Ms. Lange’s name always comes to mind. She overcame incredible odds, coming from a poor, immigrant family whose father left her – polio – a world where women didn’t have equal rights, etc. Yet her eye, her compassion and her desire to use a camera to tell stories left a legacy that will last well beyond her.

Take some time to research Ms. Lange’s work. I guarantee you it will make you a better photographer, and probably a better human being too. I know it did me.

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Three Solutions for Working with a Resistant Photographic Subject.

Posted by scottbourne on January 26, 2012
Posted in: Tips. Tagged: , , , .

Guest Post and Photo by Tamara Lackey – Follow Tamara on Twitter - twitter.com/tamaralackey

One of the more difficult things for a portrait photographer to do is start the shoot with a resistant subject. You can light them stunningly well, pose them beautifully, and place them against the most perfect backdrop ever – but if your subject is not choosing to engage in the experience of being photographed, it’s quite difficult to achieve your best portrait work.

What’s a ready-to-go shooter to do?

1. Get to the root of the resistance. Are they self-conscious? Have they had a bad / boring / harrowing previous experience?

With adults – and children – I ask them quite directly. I ask them to specifically tell me the details of their previous experience, and then I try to get to the root of why it was so detrimental. I will close the discussion by explaining, in exhausting and often humorous detail, just how this particular experience will not mirror any previous negative ones.

2. Are you automatically hearing from your subject that he or she never looks good in photographs?

Many people have a self-image that conflicts with how positively others view them. One of the perks of this job is to show another how you beautifully you see them – and how you can enhance that through great lighting and posing.

An excellent tool at your disposal is the act of mirroring. Show them how you think they’d look best – play with various expressions and engage them through your sincere interest in truly wanting to show off their best attributes. Tell them they need do nothing but mimic at first. As long as you’re willing to play along, that takes the pressure off of them – and, if shooting digitally, you can show them how you are actually getting attractive photographs of them, which does wonders to boost confidence.

3. Are they simply running in the opposite direction?

This applies frequently to children and pets. Hopefully not as much to brides – but there’s a lot of pressure out there, so you can’t really rule that possibility out in all cases.

With children and pets, I let them get it out of their system – often encouraging more running and activity right out of the gate, if I see that’s what they need. In terms of the photographer, this requires a good sense of perspective, a basic understanding of the sheer power of bottled-up energy, and an active willingness to wait for the right moment.

With brides, it’s a whole different issue and usually one best suited for a relationship counselor. And that’s pretty awesome because, every so often, it’s nice to know that we photographers don’t have to do everything.

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This Post Sponsored by:
Viewbug - Fun Photo Contests - Animoto – Great animated slide shows from your photos / BorrowLenses.com – Renting Canon, Nikon, Olympus & Sony, bodies, lenses, etc. / SmugMug – Professional Photo Sharing / Digital SLR Store - Cameras, lenses, accessories and everything else.