Exercise: Portrait - scale and setting

Outline: Find a suitably interesting and attractive setting for a portrait and then vary the distance or focal length and take a number of images. These should be: 

• Face, cropped in close
• Head and shoulders
• Torso, taking into account arms and hands
• Full figure

I will be using my nearest and dearest for the portrait section of this course. This is purely because they are accessible and because I will be more comfortable shooting them. My other half will be the main subject and I am using him for this first exercise as well as a very photogenic five year old.

This is not a particularly interesting setting but my subject is comfortable, watching TV and therefore I can dance around him with the camera with ease.

Close up face

This was my favourite of the face shots. The top of the head is cropped out of frame and the main focus of the image is definitely the facial features. The eyes, ears and nose really dominate this image.

Head and shoulders

This is the better image of the head and shoulder ones. Again, the face is the main focus here, with very little distraction from the inclusion of the shoulders.

Torso (including arms and hands)

Here I have incorporated the arms and hands, very natural, but we can see here the perspective change as I move away from my subject. I would say that the hand are the main focus in this image.

Full Body

Again, this image is very natural and again the perspective has changed. The face seems very small in this image and my main focus as a viewer goes straight to the legs.

I used an 18 - 55 mm lens for the above shots and decided to try another lens to see if the results changed at all.

These were taken with a 28-90mm lens, where I stayed still and just changed the lens focal length.

Face close up

I am not as fond of this shot as the one above, purely for the framing I think. As above, the features are definitely the main focus of this image and the eyes are very prominent in the image.


Head and shoulders

Even though this includes one arm and hand, the face is really prominent in this image. As above, the inclusion of the shoulders and even the hand, doesn't take away focus from the face.

Torso (including arms and hands)

I really like this image. The hands look relaxed but this is where the difference to the above image shows through. There is no alteration to the perspective in this image and therefore, the focus is still on the face. The viewer can be distracted by the hands but I still think the face draws the viewers attention.

Full Body

And finally the full body image is dramatically different to the above set as well. The face doesn't look and difference in size and therefore can still draw the attention of the viewer. Also, as the head is still in proportion to the rest of the body, we still get the detail clearly visible instead of getting lost in the rest of the image.

Conclusion:

This exercise has shown how important scale is to the final image. It had emphasized how the focal length and even perspective can alter the main focus of the image, which is obviously an important factor in portrait photography.