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Last night I was out and about and took some photos. I have a canon rebel and the lens I used is a 50mm f/1.8. I know the dof is limited, but I really like it so much better than my kit lens. Many of these photos are candid. I was trying to move quick, so they're not that sharp. Any how, I'd like to start gaining experience with artistic portrait photography, or maybe urban portrait photography. They all started as color and I converted in elements to B&W. Any advice you have will be greatly appreciated.
I have a canon rebel and the lens I used is a 50mm f/1.8. I know the dof is limited, but I really like it so much better than my kit lens. Many of these photos are candid. I was trying to move quick, so they're not that sharp. Any how, I'd like to start gaining experience with artistic portrait photography, or maybe urban portrait photography. They all started as color and I converted in elements to B&W. Any advice you have will be greatly appreciated.
Several comments...
The camera isn't significant, the lens is. DOF isn't really very limited with a 50mm f/1.8, at least compared for example to a 85mm f/1.4 or maybe a 200mm f/2. What is interesting is that something called "bokeh" is a hot topic in recent years, is often misunderstood, is rarely used for effect in the way you have... and the bokeh of a 50mm f/1.8 lens is considered very "harsh". You've used 50mm f/1.8 bokeh to an advantage!
People pictures can of course be many things to many people. Yours are not the normal concept of a portrait. Snapshots show the color of someone's clothes. A portrait should show the person. A good portrait should show a person's soul? But take it one step farther, and as an artist generate an image that communicates to the viewer the very soul of what you saw in the soul of the subject.
To do that of course requires understanding how art communicates with the viewer. Study Picasso's works as his life progressed, and use the same concepts adapted for photography! Use symbols instead of excessive detail. It's the psychology of how humans perceive what they look at that is important (in composition, framing, etc).
Here's a short quote from the introduction to an essay you'll want to read:
When nothing superfluous is included and nothing indispensable
left out, one can understand the interrelation of the whole and
its parts, as well as the hierarchic scale of importance and
power by which some structural features are dominant, others
subordinate.
That is from Rudolph Arnheim (1904-2007), who was a "perceptual psychologist". The full essay is online at "Entropy and Art", Arnheim, 1971.
The concept matches an idea attributed to Albert Einstein, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."
Composition and framing sometimes amount to totally removing objects that are superfluous, but often that is just a little too simple. Instead each indispensable visible characteristic of a photograph needs to be arranged in that "hierarchic scale of importance". That is what composition does. Sometimes it is the angles, other times the brightness, or the sharpness that affects how objects in an image relate to each other.
It appears to me that you 1) understand people very well, 2) have a lot of talent for composition, and need to 3) hone photographic skills (learned techniques) to help you use photography as a communications medium. Things like learning what different lenses will do for you. Things like examining your images and using post processing to re-arrange the importance of different objects by blurring something a little bit here and sharpening something there... or just removing objects entirely. That is also something to study in terms of the original framing and composition done with the camera.
All of that said, critiquing individual images is exceedingly subjective. You can't go back and move a foot to the left and reshoot them either. So these comments are what I would want to do or to learn if it were a picture that I took. Your message to the viewer is different than mine though. These are not ways to make better photographs, just ways to make photographs that I happen to like.
panhandler.jpg: I don't like vertical or horizontal lines from objects in the background that dissect my subjects. So I try to avoid that when composing with the camera, and when it's there anyway I try to blur it or in some other way remove the distraction. I'd make a selection around that guy and make the background less distinct. I wouldn't want to change one hair on the guy though!
panhandler2.jpg Same as above, except there is no way to cure this one. One thing you might want to think about, is that each and every one of these shots is straight on level with the person's face. I would have wanted most of them to be from slightly below eye level, looking up at them. Looking down has a different effect that is less often suitable. From below you give the subject stature, from above you take it away.
street-performer.jpg and antonio.jpg These two are so nearly perfect I wouldn't touch a pixel.
Street-performer-2.jpg I would try to tone down the highlights on the right side behind the microphone, and then sharpen the microphone and maybe increase the contrast on it. I'd like that microphone to stand out very distinctly. I'd also get rid of the two vertical light colored stripes in the background above his hat. (He's perfect, don't touch him!)
street-performer-4.jpg This is a really strange image. I don't like anything in the background individually... but when I try to visualize the image without any single one of those objects, it loses something essential. I might try to reduce the contrast away from his face and increase it on the face. I like that face...
There is a pattern to those comments... because in each and every case I think you've captured the face perfectly. The other parts are what I'd change, in order to emphasize the faces even more. It would be interesting to let you loose with a 35mm lens and then with an 85mm lens too, to see what you'd create with them. (I like to be less involved with the subject than what obviously works for you, so I prefer between 100 and 140mm on a full frame camera, which is about like 150-210mm on yours.)
As you've already noted yourself, these are not that sharp. And in portraiture, sharpness is quite essential. Using a wide aperture like 1.8 means that you have to nail focus perfectly, because even if you're off by a tiny bit, the very small DoF means a critical part may be out of focus. And in some cases, you may have to stop it down a bit to get all key pieces of a face in focus (if that's what you want). With such a shallow DoF, be careful if you're using focus-and-recompose, since that can throw off the critical focus point in the final image.
Another thing that is helpful in portraiture is running your eye around the edges of the frame when you're composing/shooting, to see what's included or excluded. When you're doing close-up posed portraiture, you want to frame the body at "natural" break points, e.g. at the elbow rather than the middle of the arm, at the knee rather than the thigh, etc.
panhandler: Looks like the whole image is a bit blurry, possibly from camera or subject movement. What shutter speed were you using? Secondly, part of the left arm/shoulder is cut off, which has an intriguing tattoo (and therefore draws the eye).
panhandler2: The focus seems to be on the hair. Also, the hand seems to be a key part of the image/story, but is cut off abruptly.
street-performer: Very nice and sharp. The ropes (especially the foreground one) and the bright background are a bit distracting, but you obviously have to work with what you have. My eyes keep getting drawn to the bright background parts on the right.
antonio: Very nice, my favorite of the bunch -- you can just tell the personality, which is what portraiture is all about. But unfortunately, the focus is off -- seems to be on the hair, and not on the eyes.
street-performer-2: Focus seems to be on the hat, rather than on the face/eyes. His eyes are looking out of the frame, which pulls the viewer's eyes out too. Usually (but not always) you want your subject to be looking into the frame. Otherwise the viewer is wondering what more interesting thing is happening off-frame. And for a pose like this, personally I'd include a bit more of the scene to set the context -- e.g. what instrument is he playing? But again, that's just my personal preference.
street-performer-4: Focus seems to be on the tip of the nose (or even closer), which is too bad, because the eyes seem striking. Did you use a flash for this? The lighting seems a bit harsh.
The hardest thing about street photography/portraiture is the fact that you're moving fast and don't have time for perfect composition. Nailing focus is often the first to suffer (which is key for portraiture, but not as much for street photography). But given all that, this is not a bad start at all..
I always learn from better photographs/photographers. For ideas/inspiration, check out sites like Flickr, SmugMug, 500px, etc.
For street photography, I like this group: Flickr: HCSP (Hardcore Street Photography) (http://www.flickr.com/groups/onthestreet/ - broken link)
For posed portraiture, I like these guys:
Flickr: billyphamphotography.com's Photostream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/baohpham/ - broken link)
Flickr: jordanvoth.com's Photostream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jojo2fast/ - broken link)
As you've already noted yourself, these are not that sharp. And in portraiture, sharpness is quite essential.
Your comment goes against the tide of history. A "Portrait Lens" was typically a bit soft, simply because "sharpness" has never been considered essential to a portrait, and is often considered to be slightly detrimental.
I don't disagree with much of the rest of your comments, but some parts of it just stand out in need of a counter comment.
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Using a wide aperture like 1.8 means that you have to nail focus perfectly, because even if you're off by a tiny bit, the very small DoF means a critical part may be out of focus. And in some cases, you may have to stop it down a bit to get all key pieces of a face in focus (if that's what you want). With such a shallow DoF, be careful if you're using focus-and-recompose, since that can throw off the critical focus point in the final image.
Another thing that is helpful in portraiture is running your eye around the edges of the frame when you're composing/shooting, to see what's included or excluded.
All of the above is very good advice.
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When you're doing close-up posed portraiture, you want to frame the body at "natural" break points, e.g. at the elbow rather than the middle of the arm, at the knee rather than the thigh, etc.
This again goes against what is generally considered to be "correct". Do a web search on "40 rules for good portraiture".
"Rule 18. Crop Between The Joints, Not At them. Cropping at a joint makes the subject appear amputated."
Granted that the author of that list of "rules" is primarily a studio photographer rather than a photojournalist or street photographer, but he's not wrong on that one.
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panhandler: Looks like the whole image is a bit blurry, possibly from camera or subject movement. What shutter speed were you using? Secondly, part of the left arm/shoulder is cut off, which has an intriguing tattoo (and therefore draws the eye).
That is some pretty good observation. The blur of course is beneficial in this image, and the framing is actually pretty good. That has to be, simply because it breaks another rule and the overall framing and composition has to compensate: avoid portraits with sleeveless clothing, because bare skin attracts all the attention. So in that shot the trick was to prevent the bare arms from being the only thing the viewer can see. I thought it was composed rather well towards accomplishing that. The effect of juxtapositioning the tattooed arm on one side of the dark swath of the shirt in opposition to the man's head and the other arm works rather well, mostly because the face and arm are soft, the black swath of the shirt running vertically is at about 1/3 of the way across the image, and the image is cropped to put the bright whiteness of the sunglasses in the upper left corner to cause a diagonal line for the viewers eye to follow, from the glasses to the tattoo.
I think if you try recomposing that picture there is only one way to improve it. It should be cropped to a 5:4 aspect ratio and the left side should be sliced off as close to the hat as possible. That trims a little off the tatoo also, but it positions the shirt better too.
One other fault is that there is nothing that actually goes to black! A touch more contrast...
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panhandler2: The focus seems to be on the hair. Also, the hand seems to be a key part of the image/story, but is cut off abruptly.
Cutting off the hand is what makes the image! I suspect it would have been better if the camera had been slightly lower and looking upward instead of even with the face.
When evaluating essential but non-central parts of images such as these, the context provided by things like sunglasses, tatoos, hands, ropes, and even just out of focus bright spots in the background all have to be evaluated not as individual objects, but for the effects they have on the primary subject and where they fall in that "hierarchic scale of importance" that Arnheim's "Art and Entropy" describes. The fingers in that picture are all that it requires to provide the right context, and the rest of the hand might make the hand whole, but would be a superfluous distraction that provides no useful information to the viewer. (Think of Picasso... the fingers are just a symbol for the hand, and actually for the rest of the body. By only showing enough to let the mind know what is there, the mind is allowed to fill in the blanks in whatever way the viewer chooses. It's like Picasso putting an eye on a figure's shoulder, which he said was there so that it would be noticed. It got noticed! And so do the fingers, all alone and out of place.)
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street-performer: Very nice and sharp. The ropes (especially the foreground one) and the bright background are a bit distracting, but you obviously have to work with what you have. My eyes keep getting drawn to the bright background parts on the right.
Plot a "Rule of Thirds" or a "Golden Triangle" grid on that image to see what it is that makes the composition effective. The "distraction" of the bright area on the right does draw the eyes... and causes a repeating eye movement across the center of the image along a horizontal line. A fabulous effect!
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antonio: Very nice, my favorite of the bunch -- you can just tell the personality, which is what portraiture is all about. But unfortunately, the focus is off -- seems to be on the hair, and not on the eyes.
It isn't really possible to judge sharpness, or point of focus, looking at a 720x518 thumbnail. The eyes and teeth appear to be more sharply focused than the chain around his neck though...
[big snip for brevity]
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I always learn from better photographs/photographers. For ideas/inspiration, check out sites like Flickr, SmugMug, 500px, etc.
Good concept, but the random selection doesn't equate to "better photographs" in my mind! The way I use that concept is to pick out specific recognized photographers, chosen because their style appeals to me, and then find as many images and articles about them as possible for study material. For example I very much appreciate the work of Alfred Eiesentstadt, Dorothea Lange, and Walker Evens. If they liked an image, even if I don't... I want to study it and understand what they did to get the effect.
Your comment goes against the tide of history. A "Portrait Lens" was typically a bit soft, simply because "sharpness" has never been considered essential to a portrait, and is often considered to be slightly detrimental.
Historically, sure. But we're not talking about history -- an important feature of the best portrait lenses today are their sharpness. Besides, soft and out of focus are different.
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The blur of course is beneficial in this image, and the framing is actually pretty good.
Not sure why blur is beneficial here. There's no sense of action conveyed by the image that would benefit from blurring.
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Cutting off the hand is what makes the image!
Not at all. The subject is clearly trying to convey a message to the viewer with her hand. Cutting it off cuts off what the subject is feeling.
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When evaluating essential but non-central parts of images such as these, the context provided by things like sunglasses, tatoos, hands, ropes, and even just out of focus bright spots in the background all have to be evaluated not as individual objects, but for the effects they have on the primary subject and where they fall in that "hierarchic scale of importance" that Arnheim's "Art and Entropy" describes. The fingers in that picture are all that it requires to provide the right context, and the rest of the hand might make the hand whole, but would be a superfluous distraction that provides no useful information to the viewer. (Think of Picasso... the fingers are just a symbol for the hand, and actually for the rest of the body. By only showing enough to let the mind know what is there, the mind is allowed to fill in the blanks in whatever way the viewer chooses. It's like Picasso putting an eye on a figure's shoulder, which he said was there so that it would be noticed. It got noticed! And so do the fingers, all alone and out of place.)
Quote all the artistic theories you want, but in this picture, the fingers are cut off too abruptly, and cuts off the communication between the subject and the viewer.
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Plot a "Rule of Thirds" or a "Golden Triangle" grid on that image to see what it is that makes the composition effective. The "distraction" of the bright area on the right does draw the eyes... and causes a repeating eye movement across the center of the image along a horizontal line. A fabulous effect!
My comment has nothing to do with the rule of thirds or the golden triangle.
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It isn't really possible to judge sharpness, or point of focus, looking at a 720x518 thumbnail.
Not in all cases, but in this case, definitely. The hair at the top of the head is clearly sharper than the rest.
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Good concept, but the random selection doesn't equate to "better photographs" in my mind! The way I use that concept is to pick out specific recognized photographers, chosen because their style appeals to me, and then find as many images and articles about them as possible for study material. For example I very much appreciate the work of Alfred Eiesentstadt, Dorothea Lange, and Walker Evens. If they liked an image, even if I don't... I want to study it and understand what they did to get the effect.
You obviously have a lot of technical/historical knowledge. But despite all the artistic mumbo-jumbo and name-dropping, a perusal of the images on your website leads me to conclude that you have absolutely no understanding of the artistic concepts in photography, or how to apply them yourself. So excuse me if I do not pay much attention to your "critiques".
I'm hoping folk won't insult each other in this thread. Insult the shots!
Any how, I have two lenses. I'm definitely game for renting a better lens at some point. I have a thread that addresses this, so that information is available to me. With my f/1.8 I want to figure out how to get a sharp pic, or at least to control where sharpness occurs when taking the photos. I'm a little lost as how to do that with the candid photos. I do take a few shots of a general area before I start my intended photos to make sure the light is ok and what not. Aside from the statue/puppet performer all these photos were taken with me in action. So often I'm the one moving around and that's a hindrance. I'm also using auto focus. Should I try manual focus?
I picked up this lens based on the advice of this guy. I'm not sure which vid notes my lens, but I'm pretty sure he recommended it as one of his favorites. Also, the price couldn't be beat at $100.
I guess it will just take practice to keep all the recommendations in this thread in mind. It's over whelming right now.
Historically, sure. But we're not talking about history -- an important feature of the best portrait lenses today are their sharpness. Besides, soft and out of focus are different.
Spend a bit of time learning about photography before you pontificate.
Any how, I have two lenses. I'm definitely game for renting a better lens at some point. I have a thread that addresses this, so that information is available to me.
That's a good way to experiment, which is what it takes to get the practice and experience needed to make good choices for what you actually purchase.
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With my f/1.8 I want to figure out how to get a sharp pic, or at least to control where sharpness occurs when taking the photos. I'm a little lost as how to do that with the candid photos. I do take a few shots of a general area before I start my intended photos to make sure the light is ok and what not. Aside from the statue/puppet performer all these photos were taken with me in action. So often I'm the one moving around and that's a hindrance. I'm also using auto focus. Should I try manual focus?
Manual focus would almost certainly cause more problems than it would solve.
The trouble is that you have to balance several variables all at once, and all while you are "in action" and concentrating on how to frame and compose a subject at exactly the right moment. The aperture controls the depth of field, but shutter speed can be important to freeze motion, so there is interaction between them for any given exposure.
Typically photographers choose either to set the aperture and let the camera set the shutter speed (Aperture Priority Mode), or the other way around and set shutter speed while the camera adjusts aperture (Shutter Priority Mode), depending on which they feel is most important at the time. With modern cameras that can use very high ISO and still get good pictures a different method has become useful too, called Auto ISO. The photographer sets both aperture and shutter speed, and the camera adjusts ISO. I doubt that works very well with your camera, but you might try it.
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I picked up this lens based on the advice of this guy. I'm not sure which vid notes my lens, but I'm pretty sure he recommended it as one of his favorites. Also, the price couldn't be beat at $100.
That guy is hilarious! He got it right, but he sure has a hard time expressing what he wants to say.
The "Nifty Fifty" is what your lens is called. It, and the 50mm f/1.8 lenses by Nikon and other manufacturers are all about the same, is absolutely one of the best buys to be found. It is sharp. But all lenses have character... and all of the inexpensive 50mm f/1.8 lenses have "harsh" bokeh. Instead of a nice smooth creamy out of focus look, it's the opposite. Because of your subject matter (BW shots of men without a smooth spot on them) the harsh bokeh can be a good match. What it doesn't work for is color shots of a baby on the grass in the backyard with trees in the background! The grass and the tree leaves will look horrible.
I shoot Nikon equipment and don't know that much about Canon lenses, but certainly their 85mm f/1.4 is a good one. You might want, as I mentioned earlier, something like a 35mm f/1.4 too. And while a really good zoom lens is expensive, I'm sure that Canon will have a zoom that covers the range you need. The problem is that consumer lenses tend not to have the wide apertures that you need. Given the way you work it sounds as if a large lens would also be a problem for you? If so, you might be best to just stick with fixed focal length lenses.
Just keep in mind that there is no such thing as the perfect lens. They all have different qualities and characteristics, and matching the lens to the desired effect is just as important as selecting the right shutter speed or aperture.
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I guess it will just take practice to keep all the recommendations in this thread in mind. It's over whelming right now.
Practice and experiment! "Film" is cheap too, so take lots of pictures.
I'm hoping folk won't insult each other in this thread. Insult the shots!
To some posters insulting each other in the forums is like second nature to some unfortunately it is the nature of the beast, so it seems.
Insult the shots!..??? There is absolutely nothing to insult about your shots. All that matters is that you like them ...Sure others can offer tips and advice on how to improve them...But that is all, otherwise all that they are doing is placing their ideals of what makes a shot good as far as they are concerned. And it may or may not be advantageous to your artistic values. But again I stand by original statement... I like them! FWIW ... I do like Floyd_Davidsons assesment as he seems honest and sincere in his tips and advice. And not just into dissing your work like some others on here are prone to, on its inability to reach some lofty goal that only they themselves can attain, in their opinion. NNM
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