Portraiture is something I’ve increasingly aspired to as a photographer. I love a good landscape- in fact, my landscape shots are often what people seem to enjoy in my shots. Portraiture is a different skill-set though. While light changes over a landscape in such a way that you may only have a few minutes to get the shot you want, the challenge of portraiture is even greater- you may have just fractions of a second to capture the image that you have in your mind’s eye. On top of that, a really good portrait often communicates far more power and emotion to the viewer than any landscape; it’s the human element that makes it special.
The basic rules all apply, of course. You want to think about composition (the rule of thirds is a pretty reliable starting point), colour (one of the joys of travel photography are the different colour palettes you can find in both the natural and urban environments) and lighting (shooting in the tropics presents visceral challenges with regards to fierce overhead lighting, washed-out skies and high-contrast backdrops, but dust and moisture can enrich late afternoon sunlight to make it magical).
I’m sharing some specific pointers I’d like to suggest for taking a decent travel photograph. They’re not exhaustive, nor are they unique to travel portraiture, but I reckon if you can nail these, you’re well on your way to capturing the sort of image you’ll want to bring home and share with friends and family when your adventures come to a temporary halt. (I’ll leave it to you guys to decide whether these shots fit the title or not…)
Note: All these photos were taken on a 3-day field visit in rural Niger in September this year.
1. Create a Connection
This is true with any portrait. I find the most powerful portraits are those where the subject is looking straight down the camera lens. It can feel (as a viewer) as though the person is looking straight out of the photograph at you. To achieve this, you generally need some sort of relationship with the person whose picture you’re taking. It might only be a momentary one- a glance in the street- or you may have asked the person to pose for you.
In travel photography you’re often communicating across language barriers, but respect is universal, so always put it into action. Just pulling out a camera and shooting willy-nilly is a sure way to upset people. I rarely take a photo where I haven’t signalled my camera (usually pointed upwards) and waited for an inviting smile or nod, or made eye-contact with the person and waited for them to acknowledge me in some way. If I sense hesitation or hostility, I smile and move on. Even asking in a foreign language, people usually get the idea of what you’re wanting and can communicate a reply.
While in photojournalism there’s a power and pathos that comes with shots of human suffering or deep emotion, I find the photos that people go back to tend to be ones where the subject is joyful. People are naturally drawn to beauty. With that in mind, have fun. Laugh with the person you’re shooting, give them a big smile, turn it into a game. That won’t work in all cultures: for many, having a photo taken is a serious business and they want to look their formal best. Kids, on the other hand, usually love it, and in many African countries they’re overjoyed when someone points a lens at them.
Earlier I’d asked this girl if I could take her picture, to which she’d agreed, and I got a really sweet little shot of her smiling shyly while clinging to the trunk of a tree. A few minutes later she came back to me with a cheeky smirk asking me if I’d take another photo, and when I raised my camera she giggled. I speak no Hausa and she spoke no French, but as you can see, the communication worked just fine.
2. Consider your Background
When you’re taking a portrait, the person is your main point of focus, but they exist in a context. In fact this is the major difference between travel (and candid) portraiture versus studio portraiture. With the latter, you control the background ahead of time. With the former, you need to manage it on the fly- itself a challenge that can be both satisfying and heart-breaking.
Background can become a part of your visual narrative, or it can distract from it, so think about the effect you want. Environmental portraits frame people in a shot with items that contribute to telling that person’s story. A merchant in a fruit stall, for example, may be best photographed standing with all her colourful pineapples sharply in focus. For this you probably want to use a wider-angle lens (not too wide, as wide angles distort images and can stretch facial features unnaturally) and a reasonably small aperture (f/8 and higher, light-depending). Again, the joy of travel portraiture is that backgrounds are often exotic and full of interest.
On the other hand, a child on a busy street may get lost in the clutter if you don’t defocus your background. Use a mid-range telephoto lens and open the aperture wide to get a really shallow depth of field, which naturally throws the background out of focus. Just make sure your point of focus is spot-on, or you may end up with a fuzzy subject too.
If the background is unremarkable you probably want to use this technique too. In the photo at the top of this page, the background was burning white sand- totally uninteresting and threatening to wash out the photo- so blurring it into white made the most sense. This has advantages (declutter and an element of the abstract) but also disadvantages (the photo is placeless and has no context).
In this first photo, I chose to use a really shallow depth of field as the background was fairly dull, and I wanted the farmer to stand out. Using a small f-stop number (f/1.8) also means that the part of the shot that is in focus is REALLY sharp. The blurred green trees give just enough information to let you know you’re in the countryside, but don’t pull the eye away from the man’s wrinkled face.
In this next shot, the girl is standing against the wall, so both she and the wall are in focus. The wall is painted with a map of Africa. Although the girl herself doesn’t stand out quite so much from the background, the colours and textures are pleasing to the eye, and the map itself tells a story and gives the girl a context which (in my opinion) adds something unique to the photograph that might have been lost had she been against an empty or blurred background.
In this third shot, the boy is in focus while everything forward of and beyond him starts to blur out. There’s just enough detail, however, to give him a context- the cows, the harness and the water containers, as well as the rural backdrop. Because he alone is in focus he still holds the viewer’s eye, but there are other elements in the image that contribute to telling the viewer something about who he is and what he does. Note: You could argue that this photo would have benefitted from a broader depth-of-field (something around f/4) to keep the cows sharp but still blur the background, and I’d accept that criticism, although I also like how isolated the boy is from everything around him; you can see just how precise the depth is by looking at how much of the yoke, front-to-back, is actually in focus before it blurs out.
3. Be Ready for the Right Moment
Facial expressions are fleeting, as are connections. If you’re in a place where you think you might see something interesting, have your camera out and switched on, with the right lens fitted, the correct mode selected, and your eyes scanning. You might be looking for a gesture, an emotion, or a fleeting glimpse of eye-contact. People may be moving. Think about your shutter-speed- will you be able to freeze motion given the light available to you? And think too about point number one and the importance of communication and respect; even in a crowded place, have you made eye-contact with the people you’re wanting to photograph, or made sure they’re comfortable with the camera? Stand-off lenses are all very well, but as a photographer you need to be asking yourself these ethical questions.
In both of these photos, these kids made eye-contact with me for just a few seconds where they were caught in a crowd of others. The children there had been watching me for some while and I’d been looking back at them and smiling, and noting those that smiled back at me and at the camera. I already had the aperture opened up so that when my opportunity came I knew I’d be able to isolate whichever children gave me a moment to photograph, and these two did.
4. Go for the Eyes
If there’s a cardinal rule in portrait photography, it’s this one. Eyes are all about moment and connection. They communicate emotion to the viewer, and a simple glance of a couple of degrees off-lens can make the difference between a missed opportunity and a wow moment. This is particularly true of close-ups.
For eyes, think about placement; rule of thirds is usually the way forwards here, so try and get one eye onto that sweet-spot at the intersection of the thirds-lines. An eye-line straight down the barrel is usually what I go for, and almost all of the portraits I’ve loved have involved that sort of eye contact. If using shallow depth of field, ensure that the eye itself is the point of focus. It’s all too easy to accidentally focus on the forehead or the tip of the nose, and even with a really strong facial expression, you’ll lose some of the punch of the image.
These two shots were both taken at a school in Niger (one inside the classroom and one outside), and they are both among some of my favourite portraits of all time.
5. Tell a Story
This is optional, but the difference between a techncially good photo, and a photo which makes people sit up and take notice, is that with the latter, they’re experiencing something new. The beauty of travel photography is that there’s always a story to be told, something new to see, something that’s exotic to the viewer back home, so try and think of what that story might be. A facet of daily life, a curious setting, some exotic produce, or just an unusual face that communicates a sense of place or time- it can be any number of things. Put this together with capturing the right moment and working on your background, and you’ll have a photograph that will really help you remember a place.
In this photo, I managed to combine moment, background, eye-contact and connection, and the setting was such that I’ve been able to capture a little slice of existence in this rural African village. Girls in Niger, as in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, are the ones mostly tasked with collecting water- even quite young girls like this one. Here, I love the colour, the bright light, her expression, and the pouring of the water all framed crisply against a blurred backdrop of other women and girls waiting at the well behind her (and again, contrast this with the image at the top of the page which has no background).
Travel photography- and portraiture- is a personal thing, and it’s up to you as the photographer to decide what you want to remember, and how. Really, if you take a photo, and it reminds you of something special, and you’re proud of it, that’s all that matters. I wish you all the best of luck out there, and most of all, I encourage you to have fun. If you’re not enjoying yourself with you camera, seriously, what’s the point?
I like how example of number 5 encompasses all the tips. Beautiful photography and great tips, thanks!
This is awesome! good job!
Beautiful work! I love the ‘feel’ of these portraits & you also give great tips! Thank you,
Holy cow! Those photos are AMAZING! The composition is spot on! Great work! 🙂
These are great photos and wonderful tips. I will be sure to apply them in future photos. Always love to learn something new!!
http://www.runtobefit.wordpress.com
I’m glad to stumble upon your blog, and congrats on being featured on Freshly Pressed. Your portraits here are stunning, and I love the one of the girl against the colorful, speckled wall. I don’t do much portraiture, but I do like your comments about backgrounds and how sometimes they are significant, but other times they aren’t depending on the place and where the subject is. I recently shot a couple in San Francisco and while they wanted iconic backgrounds at times (the Bay Bridge, a trolley car), I noticed the strongest shots were ones with nondescript, simpler backgrounds (an alleyway, a brick wall, etc.).
Anyway, keep up the excellent work.
Cheers,
Cheri
Wow, these are gorgeous. I especially love the ‘boy in crowd’ photo. It helps to have an eye for beauty, which is the gift in photography. Not everyone has that.
Gorgeous photos! Thanks for the tips as well. This goes well with another set of tips I saw today regarding photo editing on the New York Times blog.
Beautiful photos! Thanks for sharing your tips!
Fabulous pictures and great article!
Thanks for the great tips. These are wonderful photos.
An excellent article, lots of interesting tips and some beautiful images
ouh..all of them are inspiring.
love it!
I believe your tips are wonderful 🙂 Thanks, will use them for my next travel !
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stunning pics! really!
3-ed is really good.
Your photos are fantastic. These tips are invaluable. I will use them in my travels.
Your pictures really tell a story. Thanks for the tips. I like photography as well but I don’t have a very nice camera. I thought about getting one but I know when I travel i won’t want to lug it around. That’s where the personal vs. professional preference comes in. Thanks for sharing.
http://lonestargayle.wordpress.com
These are beautiful!
Very informative post. I enjoyed the images and absolutely loved the “Brother and Sister”.
you’ve found your latest fan in me… amazing..keep up the great work!!!
regards
$
🙂
I thought this was amazing.
Every photo and its subject was breathtaking and beautiful.
I enjoyed your images. Some are so heartbreaking and others do the job by telling a story. Congrats on getting freshly preessed.
Your images are stunningly beautiful and you have written information clearly, concisely and with heart. I enjoy doing street photography and capturing people going about their everyday life. The ideas you have shared are important for anyone taking photographs of people. Do you use model release forms? Thank you for a great post.
Amazing photos. You are very talented!
I will take these tips into consideration the next time I take a portrait photo.
I love the one of the young lady (and others) reading!! She looks like she has a lot to say and I want to listen!
Hi,
I also wrote a recent post on my blog about taking good portraits, although you wrote about it much better than me.
Keep up the good work.
sincerely,
Scott D. Weaver
http://www.scottweaverphotos.com
scott@scottweaverphotos.com
scottweaverphotos.wordpress.com
Absolutely gorgeous portraits! Your tips are priceless – thanks for sharing.
You’re the first blog I want to subscribe to lol. I really enjoyed your post. I’ve been trying to get some professional shots through friends of mine who are semi-experienced photographers and the photos they gave me looked not so good. I want to show them these tips you posted since they apply to regular portraiture too.
Amazing work!!! All the pics tell deep compelling stories of African daily life. On the surface (via print media) we only hear about the negatives and heart-wrenching stories of famine, epidemics and war-torn countries. You pictures tell truly different stories. Human Stories, from the eyes of kids! Thx for sharing.
With your permission, I’ll definitely repost them!
ciao,
dian – san diego
http://www.dianhasan.wordpress.com
http://www.enchantingeden.wordpress.com
http://www.endangerededen.wordpress.com
love the b&w! thanks for the practical tips!
amazing portraits! So much passion behind these. Couldn’t tear my eyes away from these photos for awhile long enough to finally comment! Truly beautiful
Your photos are amazing. How did you manage to get such a great catch-light in their eyes on the fly?
In theory, this is information I already know. In theory. The reality is you have beautifully written and illustrated this post so that anyone taking photos can benefit, not just beginners but the more seasoned as well. Great work in both the writing and the photography. Congratulations on being “freshly pressed” today, well deserved.
Beautiful. I feel like I just took a class and came away enriched. Hopefully I will be able to ‘do’ what I have learned.
These are so expressive – what kind of camera do you normally use? I’ll be in the market for a more professional camera soon and am trying to get a shortlist of favourites!
Excellent. Incredibly engaging and helpful. A perfect balance of technical advice and emotional vitality. The picture of the girl in the school actually affected my heart rate, made me jump, and made my eyes water. No other photograph has ever produced a physical reaction in me.
Beautiful.
Thank you.
Congratulations on this wonderful post. I have forwarded this to my son who is travelling through India, with the hope it might be able to learn from your advice. Thanks.
Beautiful, beautiful photos…so full of emotion. These gave me goosebumps and for some reason got me teary. I absolutely love these!!!!
Awesome pictures with great tips as well.
I love your photos. The girl in the pink scarf is stunning and you captured her perfectly. Thanks for the tips – I can’t wait to use some of them.
Great photos! Keep up the good work!
Cheers from a fellow photographer
Wonderful tips, and wonderful pictures. I love photography, and I will most definitely use your pointers the next time I travel somewhere. Congrats on getting Freshly Pressed!
I really enjoyed this post. Your pictures were wonderful and photoed with perfection.
You’ve taken some truly beautiful portraits here. I see exactly what you mean about the power of your subject looking directly into the camera, it really speaks to me as a viewer. Happy travels!
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Gorgeous pictures and great tips too! I’m going to keep this post in mind when taking pics of my pups too…thanks! Oh and congrats on being Freshly Pressed!
thanks!
great tips, I’m starting in this world and your tips will help me a lot. Witch camera do you have?
Your photos are really gorgeous and I’m impressed that you got many great ones of people! In my experiences, I always feel a little shy asking for a picture. Some cultures seem less open to it than others… any more advice for how to approach people? I especially love the photo with “AC” and the baby.
great post;^)
Spent the weekend trying to take the perfect shot of three people – parents and a baby, wish I would have seen this first.
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I have yet to master portraiture, and as such, feel that the story of my own very cherish nomadic lifestyle is only half told. I often look back through photo blogs and lament that I have only rarely (and inadvertently) captured the peoples of the lands traveled. I hope to put your tips to good use. Thank you and safe travels!
What an interesting article! 🙂
I rebloged it on my blog – there’s another great photographer in the Photography category.
Im curious: does this not take away from your immediate experience of the place?
when the trip is just 3 days is there no danger of it becoming just a photo-taking exercise or is it more reason to preserve memories?
Great photography and beautiful work put into this post.
Fantastic ^_^ i reallly love the second photo in “4. Go for the eyes topic”
smiles do make people became really beautiful.
Great tips my friend, and thanks for sharing !!
I thought article was about how you could better document your travel while you being in the photo itself. hehe
great tips! my worry when it comes to photography is that my finger is not fast enough for the shutter
You’re very good at what you’re doing to judge from the pics you posted. Great stuff 🙂 I don’t do portraits – I just read the paper 🙂
Best regards from Lenny ( from http://www.kontakttyskland.com )
This is amazing. You’re portraits look incredible. I love the eye contact. Thanks for the tips. 🙂
Great photos! I especially love the vibrancy of the colours without losing any detail. That’s hard to do, but just the way I like it.
http://www.aaronandsheri.wordpress.com
As a Peace Corps volunteer trying to capture some of my experience, I’ve been hoping I would read something like this. I’ve talked with other volunteers, great photographers, but I’ve been waiting for a well said bit of advice like this about getting portraits, which I find so difficult.
THANKS and congrats on being freshly pressed.
Beautiful…
Beautiful pictures!
Fantastic photos and an inspiring article; I really like the blurred backgrounds.
http:\\phoblo.wordpress.com
Wow this is great! I will definitely keep your advice in mind.
Great tips! Thanks so much for sharing! I love the photos, especially the one of the girl at her school desk with her head in her hand. I like how there is another arm in the foreground that mirrors her pose. Really Beautiful.
how thoughtful of you to share these valuable tips. thanks!
Your portaits are absolutely amazing and beautiful. I do a lot of traveling myself and will definately use your tips on my next journey. Thanks so much for the great content.
Nice post. The black and white schoolgirl staring at you past her schoolmates is one of the most arresting photos I’ve ever seen. “Wow.” I see why you’ve been Freshly Pressed, congratulations.
-Wineguider, http://www.wineguider.wordpress.com
Great tips and beautiful blog graphics. WOW!
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Love the photos and thank you for your advice as well! Your photos seemed to take me right in as if I was standing there with you looking at the kids and farmer. I sure miss having a camera after seeing these stunning shots. Congrats on Freshly Pressed! LB
Beautiful, beautiful work! Thank you for posting.
love this! great tips! 🙂
Wow! So amazing! Thanks for the tips and for sharing your photos.
Wow. The picture of the girl studying in the classroom is all poignant and beautiful and connected and stuff; her eyes are incredibly intense!
Amazing images! Very good tips
Congrats on freshly pressed!
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good tips, thanks! I was wondering do you have any tips on photographing while on a field trip? I find it difficult to multi-task, e.g. both concentrating on the work at hand and photographing at the same time! any suggestions appreciated 🙂
Thanks for the tips. I am sharing them with world traveler friends of mine. I like the first photo…sometimes simplicity opens up the imagination.
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