For this exercise I was asked to set up a portrait session in which the face is prominent and direct my subject to sometimes look towards me and sometimes away. The suggestion was to use a tripod and a remote shutter release to enable you to keep good eye contact with the subject but I chose to shoot my subject in front of a window in a café and so whilst I did use a tripod, it was balanced awkwardly on a table. I do not have a shutter release cable so I used the button on the camera, thankfully, due to the tripod set up, I was able to use this without keep looking through the viewfinder and was able to keep good eye contact with my subject.
As my model felt a little awkward in front of the camera I suggested she use a cup of tea to ‘hide behind’ to begin with whilst she looked at me, out of the window and at a friend stood to the side of me. I think the first shot worked well with the teacup and she has a natural look on her face and a smile in her eyes. In the second, where she is looking out of the window, I feel that too much of her hair obscures her face and I would have done better to either ask her to turn her head less or to have moved around myself. The shot of her looking upwards I don’t feel has worked as well as she looks a little surprised.
Once we had gotten the first couple of photographs out of the way and she was a little more relaxed we tried some shots without the teacup. In the first shot she is giving a full and natural smile at the camera but she still seems a little self-conscious, her shoulders are a little high and her smile does not quite reach her eyes fully. I then tried again the gazing out of the window pose, I suggested she put her hand under her chin and this has worked better than the teacup one as we can see more of her face. I then asked her to turn but keep the hand in place under her chin and this time the smile covers her face much more fully and is a very pretty portrait of her.
The expression of the subject is very important when taking portraits whether you want to portray a certain idea in a photograph or if you are trying to capture the sitter’s personality. In these photographs I feel I have managed to capture not only a nice smiley photograph of my friend but also some of her shyness and also her sense of fun.
Keeping as much eye contact with the subject as possible whilst I was shooting made her feel more relaxed and whilst she didn’t forget the camera was there, it certainly made her focus on it less which in turn led to more relaxed and natural photographs.
Rebecca's OCA Learning Log 