It was surprisingly busy week for me as three of my regular clients came to me asking for portrait photo sessions. All were going to out on location and all of them had their on difficulites to overcome.
The first of my photoshoots was with SMACS Performing Arts Group taking photos of her fairy tale costumes. These portrait photos are full-body focused, with the purpose to show off the outfit and communicate a deeper story. I used a 135mm F1.8 lens to achieve a slightly blurry background to draw the focus on the girl. It was vital that we not blow out the background so that you couldn’t make anything out, as we needed the setting to still make sense for the character.
For this headshot of the staff working at Robe in Chancery Lane, we needed both a blurry and non-blurry background. The wide-angle shot says it all at first look, that this is a staff member working in her place of business. The second more narrow shot focuses on her, but still shows just enough background that you understand just by looking at it that it is a retail environment.
This portrait photo intentionally has a full blurry background because the background is not important for communicating this shot, its more about the fairy tale outfit, so to draw more attention to it, it will take up more space of the photo and be in focus while everything else is blown out.
When it comes to taking tourism photos I don’t just get photos of the places people go, I also capture some headshots of the people who organise things like this member of the Bendigo Tourism Board. Her headshot portrait on the left is fully blurry but is taken within the same setting as her wide-angle shot. The complementary photos build on each other and despite one being void of a background story when you see both together in an article, it’s easy to infer the importance of her role and where she works.
Sometimes the candid shots stand out too!
One of my last clients for the week was for Yarrington construction taking some team photos of the crew at one of the sites they built a shade cover at a community park. When you look through their website you will see a series of photos of what they have built, team photos them together and solo portraits. Rather than taking the photos in some obscure place, by taking the photos at the park its helps build a complete photo story of a who they are, and what work they have done before without even needing to write about it.
All of this who, what, when, where information is communicated through photos faster than in writing, and the hope is that will catch the audience attention and draw them in for more.