Hey /p/, after years of slowly learning the basics of photography, I think I'm ready to get into the world of portraits. The one small issue is that I don't have any good sources of references other than here for learning the different poses, angles, lighting, and everything else to make decent photos. Don't get me wrong, there are amazing threads that pop up here, but with the gear talk and the shit posts, I really want to branch out and find some from the outside. Instagram is what most people say, but I also want to find stuff that's unconventional or just really creative. So are there any websites, books, or photographers you anons can recommend to check out? Also would love to hear some tips and pointers for a noob like me starting out, especially when it comes to "directing" and posing a model
i like tumblr myself. flickr is fine too. try the website digital photography school for technique references. from tumblr i often get people linking projects which have been published on a web zine or editorial, which is another thing you can explore and follow once you know about it. eg i came across this one last week: https://www.broad.community/
>>4514728Get C-stands with extension arms instead of tripods for your strobes.
>>4514728Go on lomography and search by lens, just pick a focal length you like
>>4514728Watch some bts of working photogs, see how they interact and pose models, see how their images look. Take lots of practice shots with different styles of lighting and see what you like.When I first started, I liked OneLight by Zack Arias to light on a budget. Joey L has lots of great BTS, like this 4pt series:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlPTY_GOqekPhoto challenges like this can be informative:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtTakN-YW3kThis playlist has a bunch of BTS for bikini type shooting:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXDt1pJ6a0Y&list=PL42TyHF8rb4KEByfTgMinL-fKfg1z7vvzPeter Coulson has tons of youtube videos for BTS studio stuff:https://www.youtube.com/@PeterCoulsonPhotographer/videosFor a total goober shooting pretty ladies outside, look to Xing Liu:https://www.youtube.com/@caliallstaringTry to find 1-2 pieces of advice or something you can learn from all the pros. Like from Peter Hurley (headshot master), I learned about the "squinch" and "pointing your forehead towards the camera" as a cue.For more creative uses of lighting, with like projected images, look at Jeremy Cowart. For someone the board was obsessed with for many years, look at Benoit Paille.One small piece of advice from my own shooting, is to prioritize the most important shots for the middle 50% of shooting. The first quarter is just for them to warm up and get used to the camera and you, and by the last quarter energy levels can drop a bit.
>>4514795Adding some more, the GPP annual shootouts were always interesting.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_noqltVoK4Trotti has a good basic posing video for normies:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcgEs2mDIUADefinitely get to a point where you have several base poses in mind, and then you can just start pivoting from there.Mango Street too:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xWxpunlZ2w
>>4514734thanks, I'll check out that school. I haven't heard anyone talk about tumblr in years, but I'll also look into it>>4514735funny thing is that I weirdly have one from a relative, though it's pretty old and will definitely need to be replaced>>4514739I'll also be looking into this>>4514795>>4514796Wow, I appreciate the in depth info. I really enjoy looking at the BTS stuff for photography and find it extremely helpful for understanding the process of getting a good shot. I'm definitely going to be looking over all this, so I'm absolutely grateful for the help
>>4514966The chinese c-stands are really decent quality and less than 200 depending on the size you want. I have neewer ones and they're solid. 3 is a good number to have along with 3 strobes and a couple different colored cards to begin with. You can use the stands to mount cards or even small backdrops if needed. There is a huge amount of different lighting you can do with 3 strobes and you will be set for a very long time. Even one strobe has many possibilities.Avoid gearfagging over expensive strobe modifiers. Cheap shoot through umbrellas, soft boxes, beauty dishes, etc are good enough to begin with and maybe even to end with.
>>4514971how are they for transporting? I'm only asking because I don't have a studio or any empty room to work with, so I'll probably be doing stuff in different locations outdoors
>>4514977They are kind of heavy, but the legs rotate so they can lay flat. You'll also want atleast one sandbag or equivalent 25-ish pound weight for each c-stand that you have.
>>4514728I really want to know how to do poses for self portraits that don't make it seem obvious that I was alone.
>>4514999wouldn't a mirror help with that?
>>4515051Speaking of mirrors, for OP, Corwin Prescott made clever use of mirrors to shoot inside rooms with longer focal lengths
Just a random question, but if you do shoots outdoors and are constantly moving around, do you guys use auto iso or low iso?
>>4515204Use whichever gets you the results that you want in the workflow you want.auto>quicker and more convenient>better for jpg>one less thing to worry about, focus more on the picture>possibly better for learning typical exposure settings for a given environment, but also could be worse for learning>better for a wide variety of independent imagesstatic lower iso>minmax for IQ, but may require processing>never need to ae-lock>lower likelihood of highlight clipping>lower likelihood of "incorrect" exposure (assuming also in M)>better for a cohesive set of imagesI would always prioritize aperture/ss as the means to control exposure before ISO, but assuming those are fixed, not much else you can do (besides changing the lighting). I stick to 2-4 discrete ISO settings on a per camera basis, and only ever use those, and only as a last priority. If I have to use ISO as a means to control for minor exposure changes, I'd rather do that in post.I did a shoot outdoors in Sunday, I just metered once for the sunlight areas and metered once for the shade and only went back and forth between those EVs, simple. Had I been in auto ISO, I would've been left with many images having subtle variances in exposure, without very careful (and sometimes impractical) use of aelock.Don't overthink it, at the of the day it's just you picking a number directly (and maybe getting it wrong) or letting a computer pick the number for you (and usually getting it right, but sometimes not). Most of the time, it would probably be the same anyways. Aside from benefit of consistent exposure (irrelevant if using A,S,P), the practical difference in terms of like IQ is usually pretty marginal. Just use auto until you get to a point where you care enough about minmaxing for those marginal gains.If you're talking about like the "extended" low ISO's, never use those.
>>4515212Thanks for the input, I usually do shutter and aperature first before ISO as well, but I've always heard mixed things on ISO both online and in person. For normal lighting with still subjects, I use 1/125s - 1/250s shutter and and f/2.8-5.6 aperature, so it's really the ISO that I was having a hard time deciding
How's capture one for editing portaits compared to light room? The only thing I know is that people say capture one has better color grading compared to light room
>>4515639LR is better for object removal / generative fill, and probably has the edge in masking if those are things you need to do often. C1 had awful NR options for many years, but that has improved very recently.C1 does have better color tools, but the gap used to be much wider. Prior to 2020, LR really only had like Curves, HSL, Split Toning and Camera Calibration for color. They have since added Color Grading (C1's Color Balance) and Point Color (C1's Advanced Color Editor) to help.C1 now gets you the Match Look tool, which is incredible for easy grading. You also get the Skin Tone tool, Retouch Faces tool, better culling, better tethering, and layers.Much prefer the C1 workflow too.
>>4515669C1 has given me better colors for all my digital garbage, and better control when editing all my film garbage. I stopped using LR after a while, and love C1 for the most part. It has a couple incredibly annoying bugs that are very specific to my workflow, but it wouldn't effect most people using the program.
What's the best way to deal with shooting in harsh light? I often find myself at midday in an open area (usually with bright white stone or pavement reflecting off a lot of light) and no shade nearby, making it hard to get anything good.
>>4516521Look for "open shade"https://mastinlabs.com/blogs/photoism/how-to-shoot-in-open-shadehttps://hunterandsarah.com/shoot-in-harsh-light/Great examples in these. Basically look for any bit of shade, and position your subject near the shade / sun border.If not possible, use a reflector, diffuse the sun, or shoot against the sun. Avoid any kind of dappled light, unless it can be used as a compositional element.
>>4516521Fill flash, even on camera works well. You can also use a softbox to block out the sun, blending the flash power with the background. >>4516625>>How do I take photos with no shade at all? >Get in the shadeWtf
>>4516694>What's the best way to deal with shooting in harsh light, I often find myself at midday in an open area>Find shade or if not possible try xyzPretty easy to understand if you aren't retardedUnless OP is only ever shooting in the middle of a field, shade is always never far away on a sunny day
>>4516625>>4516703I ask because there's a nice open park I like going to, but there's no shade close or tall enough to actually use when it's the middle of the day>>4516694I do have a speedlight for on camera flash, so I'll probably use that. I did some further research and saw that people also reccomended getting an nd filter for wide aperatures/bokeh? If so, I might also look into getting that
>>4516709Shooting in completely lit areas, with no depth in foreground or background, and bokeh blasting is a recipe for the flat "green screen" look.This guy does tons of just natural light photos on sunny days, but you can see he almost always is leveraging the shadows when possible, or just shooting towards the sun.youtube.com/@caliallstaring/videos
>>4516709You don't need more advice - you need hands-on experience. Put a speedlite without modifiers on your camera, learn to use the zoom, and go shoot. Before messing around with NDs, change aperture to achieve native sync speed.
