5 Photography Tips That Will Make Your Next Portrait Shoot Work

In this video, portrait photographer Miguel Quiles from New Jersey shares 5 useful tips/tricks that can help you nail your next portrait shoot.

Quiles has a number of useful tips/tricks for shooting portraits in this video. We have listed them in order:

  1. Shoot in continuous mode – this is fairly self-explanatory but a lot of photographers still prefer to shoot portraits one image at a time. It might be more satisfying this way or maybe they are used to the way some analog cameras worked but honestly with a lot of professional modern cameras there is no reason not to shoot a quick burst – this way you have a much better chance of capturing a microexpression or avoid blinking and just have more options at the end of the shoot (not to mention cases where you just need to catch the right moment).
  2. Develop a poker face – when shooting a model he/she are trusting your professionalism. If you look at the image you just took and make a strange face they might interpret it as if something is wrong with them and portrait shooting is all about trust so don’t let your feelings show when you are working and always try and be positive (and look the part).
  3. Eye chart” technique – this idea is meant to fix a problem that happens with a lot of models who tend to open their eyes to little or too much. The solution? let them imagine that they are doing an eye test and looking at an eye chart – if they are opening their eyes too much ask that they will go down the chart a bit if they close their eyes too much ask that they will go up a bit.
  4. Work tethered – tethered shooting is something that we covered here many times in the past. This is a fantastic way to shoot in a studio (and in some cases even on location). You have your laptop or large TV (typically connected to a computer) physically connected to your camera (with a wire or today you might even do this wirelessly although this doesn’t always work as reliably). This way you always see what you shoot but your model can also see the result and can help you improve the next shot/pose.
  5. Role Play – most subjects will not know how to produce the best expression – it is the work of the portrait photographer to get that out of them. One cool way is to have them play some sort of a character – a superhero, a detective that is sure he is going to catch the criminal and so on.

You can check out many more helpful photography tips on our Photography tips section here on LensVid. If you want to check out more videos from Quiles posted on LensVid in the past – check out this link.

Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.

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