Informal Group Portraits: Get Them to Smile!

Not everyone likes to get their picture taken (me emphatically included), but the trick to shooting happy portraits is to make your subjects look like they're having a grand time. And the secret to that is getting them to smile--and not just a 99-cent fake smile for the camera, but a genuine happy smile. The best way I've found for doing that is to have someone else doing the dirty work for you--preferably someone that your subjects like and have fun being around. In this case is was the father/grandfather who was kidding with the three women just a few feet off camera. By having someone else interacting with them, as opposed to you saying, "OK, smile" it gives you a chance to watch for nice moments and keep your face pressed up against the viewfinder (or looking at the LCD) and paying attention to camera controls. Also, it helps if you're shooting from a slight side angle because then your subjects are interacting naturally with someone off camera and looking directly at them rather than into the lens. By the way, all outdoor portraits work best when they're shot in open shade with just a touch of flash to open up the face. If you set the white balance to "cloudy weather" it will warm the flash up nicely too.

Pet Portraits: Focus on the Eyes

When it comes to taking interesting photos of your pets one great piece of advice is to focus on the eyes--both figuratively and literally. Anyone who has ever owned a cat or dog (or a hamster, for that matter) knows that animals have very expressive eyes. You don't have to live with an animal long to know when they're apologizing with their eyes for knocking over your favorite lamp. Personally I think animals are well aware of the power of their eyes and alternately use sad/loving/adoring looks to mooch extra snacks.

Using the eyes as a focus point in more physical terms is also a good idea because, as with human, eyes are the most interesting part of their faces. Since most portraits are shot with medium-telephoto lenses or zoom settings where depth of field is minimal, focusing carefully on the eyes also gives you one certain point of sharp focus. People looking at your portraits won't even notice if the ears (or whiskers) are slightly out of focus as long as the eyes are sharp and bright.

Photograph Everyday Stuff

Weeding the garden might not seem to be a particularly photogenic activity, but if you're a gardener it's an important (and all too real) part of life and often we ignore documenting those mundane chores in favor of photographing more glamorous activities. But in terms of building a well-rounded family album, it's those everyday moments that probably create some of the nicest memories. After all, you probably spend more time with your family doing chores around the house and yard than anywhere else.

A few years after my father passed away I was going through some boxes of old photos and I came across one of him cooking dinner and I was just thrilled. There he was, just living life and cooking for the family as he so often did. You can't go back in time and photograph those moments because once they're gone they're gone. But when you unexpectedly discover a shot like that, it's like finding a rare old gold coin that you didn't know you had. Considering the fact that he was also a professional photographer, there is a surprising dearth of snapshots taken around the house, so whenever I find a shot like that I am ecstatic. It's those little moments that fade fastest into history and photos of them really bring the past back sweetly.

These days I keep a camera with me around the house and in the yard almost all of the time. In fact, one of my point and shoots lives on the kitchen counter (and thankfully the cats haven't turned it into a toy yet) and I shoot pictures of the silliest things: the veggies I've just picked in the garden, that cats sitting on the porch watching the birds (so far no litter box photos, but I'm sure they're coming), fading flowers in vases on the kitchen counter and even just the mess of books that clutter up my desk all of the time.

Today there are a lot of people involved in "picture of the day" groups in photo-sharing communities. These folks shoot a photo every single day, without fail, even if they can't think of anything to shoot. They shoot their dinner on the plate, the laundry piled up by the hamper, the kids watching TV and anything else that crosses their path in their daily lives. I think this is a fantastic idea. Photographs of beautiful sunsets and pretty scenics are great (they're partly why I got into photography), but it's the photos you take of your spouse or kids out in the garden, covered with dirt and working with a smile on their face that will warm your spirit those winter nights when you're updating the family album.

Soften Portrait Backgrounds

As long as we're on the topic of portraits, here's a quick exposure tip that will soften backgrounds nicely: use the portrait exposure mode. This mode, usually indicated by a silhouette of a head on the exposure-mode dial, automatically selects both shutter speed and aperture for you, but it gives preference to selecting a large aperture. Because large apertures create less depth of field (near-to-far sharpness) your portrait subject will be sharp but the background will be naturally soft.

Other things that contribute to a shallow depth of field are the focal length of the lens you're using (longer lenses and zoom settings have less inherent depth of field) and subject distance (the closer you are, the less depth of field there will be). So if you want to help the mode along at creating a soft and pleasing background, shoot portraits with a medium telephoto lens or zoom setting and work close enough to fill the frame with your subject.

And don't forget to read yesterday's post about using flash with outdoor portraits!

Use Fill Flash for Outdoor Portraits

Though most of us tend to think of flash as something to be used indoors in dim lighting, in fact, one of the best times to use flash is when you're taking informal portraits outdoors. Outdoor portraits are nice because there's a lot of available light and also, it's easier to find a simple and attractive background. The problem with shooting in portraits in sunlight is that the sunlight often creates a lot of dark shadows in eye sockets and under chins and noses.

The solution is very simple: just turn on the flash. Most digital cameras will automatically adjust the exposure between the flash and the existing light and create a very pleasing balance. This "fill flash" provides just enough flash to prevent dark shadows while still exposing for the ambient (daylight) correctly. And I have to tell you that automatic fill-flash is a genuine miracle of simplicity compared to the calculations and math that I had to perfom with the manual accessory flash units that I used when I was learning photography.

By comparison built-in flash is totally simple to use. I shot the portrait here using my Nikon D70s's built-in flash and didn't even look at the exposure settings! I trusted the camera to create a good balance between flash and daylight and it did. I also intentionally placed the light behind the two young woman so that they wouldn't be squinting into the light. I knew that because I was working within the distance limitations of the flash, the flash would provide enough light to correctly fill the shadows.

If you are using a DSLR with an accessory flash you'll have even more control over the balance between the flash and ambient exposures. Most flash units will let you set the exact flash-to-daylight ratio, increasing or decreasing flash power as needed. If the skin tones are coming out a tad too light at -1 stop flash exposure, for example, you could switch to -1.5 stops of flash exposure and just tone down the flash a bit. Your flash manual will explain the use of fill-flash in greater detail.

Next time you're taking portraits outdoors, turn the flash on and see if you don't like the exposures much more. Your subjects will be a lot happier without all of those dark shadows and because they'll no longer have to squint into the sunlight.

Give Kids Something to Do

One of the tough parts of photographing kids is that they get bored with it pretty quickly. You can ask most kids to "smile" about three times before they decide that they'd rather be chasing the dog or digging for worms in the garden. But most kids are really good at taking instructions (most adults should be so good!) and they also love a creative challenge. If you give them something interesting to do they will pretty much ignore your camera.

The trick is to find an activity that keeps them relatively calm and in one place, yet is also something they like to do and that also makes an interesting photo. You obviously can't ask an eight-year-old boy to climb a tree or you'll have to climb up after him to get a close picture. But there are lots of fun passive activities that work nicely--drawing with chalk in the driveway, coloring Easter eggs or even just reading a book out loud to you. Just be sure to set the shot up in an attractive area with good natural lighting so that you don't have to rearrange things once you start shooting.

You also have to put a time limit on the photography part of the session, even if they want to continue on with the activity--otherwise they'll start to get tired (of your camera mostly) and withdraw. My friend Alice was only four when I photographed her blowing this huge bubble and she'd never done it before! I was amazed (really amazed) at how good and patient she was a blowing bubbles and at how huge they were. After about 20 minutes though she let me know that photography was over and so we put the cameras away and just blew bubbles. There's a time for pictures and a time for bubbles and let's face it, bubbles are a lot more fun.

Tech Notes: By the way, you might want to know that the way I got the background out of focus was by using a combination of a moderately long lens (the equivalent of about 105mm in 35mm terms) and a small aperture (the lens was almost, but not quite, wide open at f/5.6). The combination of the long focal length and relatively wide aperture created a limited depth of field (near-to-far sharpness) and restricted sharpness to just her face and the bubble. When you do limit the depth of field though, be very careful to focus on what you want sharp. In this case I focused on the area around her nose and the bubble. I also worked close to her and that helped keep the background out-of-focus, too. And I chose a location where the light was fairly bright on the shrubs behind her so that the scene would have a light, airy feeling. I did do a bit of careful softening of contrast in Photoshop and I warmed up the colors a tiny bit. The scene is pretty much how it came out of the camera, however.

Listen to the Light

Whenever the light gets low photographers reach for the flash. And in some low-light situations flash is your only option. But often turning on the flash is like using dynamite to clean out a gutter: it's a bit of an overreaction. Instead, sit quietly for a moment and "listen" to the light around you. Unless you're sitting in complete darkness, light is speaking to you, luring you to its presence--you simply have to be still and hear its call.

It's surprising, for example, how many wonderful photos you'll find just by listening to the quiet light pouring in your north windows; soft, curvaceous and very neutral, window light is the portrait light the masters' used. I found my cat sleeping in the dim but quiet light of a bay window and while I was tempted to pop on the flash, instead I let the gentleness of the north light speak and shot only with existing light. I rested the camera on the arm of a couch to steady it. Light will speak to you, it is there, just perk up your eyes and listen!