P&P-Part 1; Exercise 1; Portrait - scale and setting

Exercise; Portrait – Scale and setting

The objective for this exercise is to help me consider both composition and the weight of attention to place on the face of my subject.

I have to do four different framings of the following;-

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

I chose to do this sequence by a river with locks and London behind, I think it played a part in my composition when doing the wider shots and it fitted quite well, it was a lovely setting and I’m glad that I used it in this particular exercise.
 
1^st image – Face cropped in close



1/125 seconds at f/5.6

 
I like how this image is composed, I could have gone in tighter, however, I like the green background and the depth of field used, the focus on the eyes and face are pin sharp which draws the viewer in, so I chose to keep it as it was.

2^nd image – Head and shoulders

1/125 seconds at f/5.0

I had a few choices for this image, there were images where she wasn’t smiling but overall I much preferred this one, the amount of spacing behind, focus and depth of field were factored in to the choice, I also like images of people when they are smiling, as I think it can make you feel happy when you see someone smiling, especially when they have a lovely smile.

 

3^rd image – Torso, taking in to account arms and hands



1/200 seconds at f/4.0

I decided to include more of the background on this image, but with the focus still on the person and keep the shallow depth of field so that she is the main point of the image, but the nice background is visible enough to be included in the photograph.

 

 

4^th image – Full figure

1/200 seconds at f/4.0

I had two copies for this image, one was to be fully closed in with a close crop and the other was to include some of the background. I chose the latter, as this is a nice image and quite relaxed, I felt the area behind was peaceful, hence the reason I included it.