Advise needed about street portrait photography.

[shaylou]

I am learning/studying shooting people outside in different settings. I like the industrial settings but am very open to all kinds of setting out doors. I'm looking for any and all advice that you may offer me. I do have a question about shooting more then one person in a shot. My friend wants me to shoot her and her young daughter (5) but I don't have a clue as to what to expect. I have very little experience at shooting one person let alone two. Any advice on this would be great. Thank you for your help.

 

[shaylou]

No advice is good too....

 

[Last_Straw]

Depends what you want to achieve. I think it is good to have the people interact with one another: then they are at a similar focus if you want to use narrow depth of field to make them stand out from the background, also you can get more natural animated expressions as they aren't thinking so much of the photograph being taken, especially the 5 year old.
Or is the background equally important to your shoot, so you want to contrast the domesticity of a mother and daughter against the cold mechanical landscape? So you'd want to your subjects to fill a much smaller part of the frame and be shooting at distance, maybe they could dress in a contrast colour to that found in the industrial landscape to make them stand out.
Or both or neither?

 

[Phil V]

No advice is good too....

I think your title didn't help - street photography and portrait photography are 2 different genres, street photographers wouldn't really be interested in your question and portrait photographers wouldn't click the link.

Back to the question.

What do you want to achieve? what does the customer expect to get? An hours planning thinking those points through will pay dividends. Think about location and time of day for what kind of light to expect.

I generally go for a mix of 'setting up a scenario and then shooting the natural interaction' and some more posed 'fun' stuff.

 

[shaylou]

I think your title didn't help - street photography and portrait photography are 2 different genres, street photographers wouldn't really be interested in your question and portrait photographers wouldn't click the link.

Well Phil I think a little out of the box. I wanted to combine the two genres to what I like, what I could eventually make money at and most importantly, what would set me apart from a big majority of others shooting portraits out side. Sense I have no experience in portrait shooting I didn't really know what questions to ask. I just knew I needed some direction and still do.

Here is my first attempt. feel free to critique as this will help me become better.



Untitled by shayne_photos, on Flickr



Untitled by shayne_photos, on Flickr

 

[fracster]

I think if you market yourself properly, you could do well with similar portrait type shots.

Personally, I don`t like studio photo portraits,I prefer them in natural enviroments.

However, I think it is a fine line between portrait shots for customers and photos that look like pro models.

 

[FruitFlakes]

Have a look at William Klein's fashion work, a lot of it was shot on streets. The Sartorialist blog is also a good source of inspiration too.

 

[shaylou]

I think if you market yourself properly, you could do well with similar portrait type shots.

Personally, I don`t like studio photo portraits,I prefer them in natural enviroments.

However, I think it is a fine line between portrait shots for customers and photos that look like pro models.

Thanks. I couldn't even think of shooting portraits in a studio so I turned to this. I really got lucky with this girl because she had no modeling experience but was so good we didn't have to instruct her at all, she is a natural.

I totally agree about the fine line. I figured I would perfect my style with hired people that just want free pictures and a little fun and define the line between putting an ordinary person in a similar setting and shooting a model shoot.