Shooting portraits

The word picture in the visual arts, including photography, refers to the image, which is dominated by the human face (or two or three people - a group portrait). The first pictures of amateur photographer, is almost always a portrait shoot. Meanwhile, in terms of art photography portrait photography - one of the most difficult, requiring the photographer, not only from personal ownership of equipment, but also great artistic taste. One of the main requirements for the portrait - the maximum similarity to the kind. It would seem that this condition provides the mechanical camera lens, it is just showing nature in all its parts and details. Meanwhile, it is not. You can take a picture of a man so that he did not like himself or similarity is quite remote. The reason for these phenomena is that the person's face is almost never still. Some of its parts - mouth, eyes, eyebrows - always flexible. The appearance of a person is determined not only by its shape and volume, and inner experiences of man and the peculiarities of his character. The slightest change in mood are reflected immediately on his face, and traits of character lay on the face of a general, permanent, inherent only to the person, ie, purely individual, imprint. The ability to detect these individual human characteristics and give them a picture of an important and difficult task of portrait photography. Important is the issue of transfer of the picture of purely physical features of the face (wrinkles, freckles, etc.). Complete removal of these features in the image (which is possible with retouching) would, of course, wrong. Removing such as wrinkles, you can for as many "rejuvenate" the man that he will cease to be like himself, at the same deliberate emphasis on the various defects in the face is a mistake of an opposite character. One of the most important in portrait photography is the question of lighting. Here are the basic rules applicable coverage, as outlined above. Technically, the least favorable in one-sided portrait photography sharply directional lighting. When the back light turns dark face, with a slight study of details, the front lighting makes the face flat and robs him of volume. The upper and lower coverage distorts the face, resulting in a strong and deep shadows. When illuminated from above deep shadows are in their sockets, a nose, lower lip and chin. When illuminated from below, such as deep shadows are formed on the nose. Lighting from the side leads to a high contrast, sharing half his face too bright and too dark side.