Exercise 1.02 – Thinking about location

The range and application of backgrounds for portraits is phenomenal. It would be best to determine the type of portrait and the feelings that are to be displayed before considering the background. However, that’s not the remit here, so for this exercise I decided to give myself some contingency options, in case the weather worked against me. I took three images at home (one indoors) and three away from home.

Looking again at Michael Freeman’s ‘Photographing people’ and particularly the sections on ‘Setting the scene’, ‘The contextual portrait’ and ‘Familiar surroundings’ I’ve realised that some of the locations need further work, which I’ll document and amend when I take the final images.

Points to consider in choosing / preparing a location / background include:

· Does it need tidying?

· Do surfaces need to be cleaned (look for films of dust)

· Are there distracting objects (posters, paintings etc) or words (posters, book covers, signs) – Do you want to keep them?

· Are there any reflective surfaces which could reflect you or your equipment, lights etc.?

· Does it need any additional props or dressing?

· Does it need additional lighting and will that need power points? Is there enough space for them?

· Do the surroundings complement the sitter?

· Keep the sitter away from walls – unwanted shadows can be caused.

The first location I’ve chosen is my wife’s chair where she sews or knits in the evenings. I’ll use this for a contextual portrait of her.

I think this will work best using natural light from the window. The best day to take this would be on an overcast day, or early morning before the sun comes round to the window. This will reduce glare from the white surfaces and give a softer light.

There will be a risk of reflections on the windows if I use artificial lighting. Obviously there’s a possibility of closing the curtains and using artificial lighting – I’ll keep that as an option.

I’ll take the image from the far side of the room, using a longer lens setting to prevent distortion (there’s obviously some here when looking at the vertical lines of the window) and to give a more flattering portrait. A lower shooting angle will also help.

I’ll move the ornaments from the flower table for the shoot and maybe the neck cushion. The items on her side table, the equipment stand and daylight lamp are relevant to the contextual portrait and they’re not taking up too much of the scene, so they can stay. The flowers are so much a part of her life that they must stay too.

The second image is again taken at home, but this time outside. Again, this could be used for a contextual portrait of my wife, or a general location for any portrait, using one of the chairs in a shadier part of the garden as an aid for the sitter:

This seat faces south, so the best time for using it for a portrait would be early morning or late evening when the sun is lower and shining from the right or left of the picture.

There’s some tidying up to do, removing weeds from under the chair and by the tree trunk, and relocating the clematis creeper on the right lawn. It would also be prudent to clean the chair to remove the bird droppings from the chair arms.

I’ll have to be careful with the potential reflection from the struts on the chair back and curved front. I’ll use bracketed shooting mode to overcome this, choosing the best exposure to reduce glare and adjusting the portrait subject exposure to suit, using an adjustment brush in Lightroom or Adobe Raw.

Still in our garden, I’ve chosen a selection of shrubs as a background for similar contextual or general portraits:

The different shades of green could work well together as a background. There is some texture here, but this could be muted by using a wide aperture to lessen the depth of field. The background could then be a suggestion of texture with a pleasing range of hues.

This group has a South Eastern aspect, so it would work best with an afternoon sun. I would again use bracketed shooting mode, tobe able to minimize any glare from the shiny leaf surfaces.

Moving away from the house we go to the coast.

The shore can provide such a range of moods, depending on the weather conditions. A clear sky with smooth sea can suggest a calm peaceful location, but this can change to a stormy, grey windswept vista with a completely different aspect – the sea can be whipped up and the skies leaden to impart a threatening, wild scene. The state of the tide can change things again, from a vast area of golden sand or rocky outcrops. There is so much scope for a range of portraits. This one has an overall blue hue, with detail which could again be muted with a wide aperture, so may be good for portraits of hikers or dog walkers.

Still at the coast, I turned my attention to the sky:

The sky can look so big at the coast, with little to break the sky line. Obviously this vista with a range of blues could be used for a range of portraits. Using the cliffs to position the sitter would make it easy to have the sky as the only background, without angling the camera upwards.

Just as the sea and beach can change, so can the sky. This overall blue can change depending on the weather conditions and the time of year / time of day, to give a huge range of feelings to a portrait – from warm calm sunsets to wild, stormy, black clouds and all points between. It’s all down to the image that is to be portrayed.

Moving back inland, we move to the forest:

With this background there is so much that could be portrayed – from a peaceful ‘mother-nature’ portrait to a secret, babes in the woods look. The overall feeling of seclusion and freshness could provide a very sensuous portrait.

This image was taken mid-afternoon. In early morning, the sun rises from the end of the path, sometimes with a light mist, which gives the location a completely different, magical look.

At the time of day portrayed here, the sitter could be positioned in a light area, so that he / she influenced the metering, to throw the background into dark, which would again change the import of the portrait. Side light from the right could give a pleasing portrait – some cloud cover could give a softer image.

With the weather dictating that outdoor images would be unwise – and forecast to continue unsettled for the immediate future – my best friend agreed to have her portrait taken. Using her favourite chair (I know it’s not the norm, as people tend to slouch in their favourite furniture, but I felt it was right for this image) with the amendments recorded on the preview image, I took this image:

ISO 200, f/7.1, 1/125 sec with aperture priority, centre weighted average metering (underexposed by 1 stop to reduce highlight clipping).

I used the brush tool in Lightroom 4 to lighten her face by increasing the exposure 0.9 stops. It’s a portrait that we’re both happy with, and that’s the bottom line!

It was a very worthwhile exercise looking for the locations / backgrounds which highlighted the need to look closely for any potential distractions, to good end!