Friday, September 30, 2011

Fearless Photographer: Portraits

From time to time a book comes out that challenges you to think differently about your portrait photography. To not just think outside the box (which is so cliche), but to really engage your subjects, and to get them to open up, be more of themselves that you're used to seeing (or they're used to showing), and really create some amazing portraiture. Fearless Photographer: Portraits - by Charlotte Richardson* is just such a book. I've added it to my recommended reading list, and encourage you to buy it and check it out.

Charlotte rarely uses Photoshop to composite/fabricate images (and discloses completely whatever may have been done in Photoshop) throughout the book. So, for example, when she places her subjects in a heart-shaped ring of fire - they really are surrounded by fire, not dropped in in post-production. As a photographer for over 20 years, she first trained to "get it right on film", so concepts like "we'll fix it in post-production" are approaches she abhors. Wherever possible, she strives to realize a vision in-camera, not as pieces composed after the fact. The book is a fun and easy read, with practical advice and Charlotte is never afraid to tell you her mistakes as well.

The book, in the end, isn't just a how-to, but also gives you inspiration and encouragement to really engage your subjects, and, yes, be fearless.

Here's an overview of the book and one of the behind-the-scenes videos (below), and after the jump are seven more videos showing behind-the-scenes looks at several chapters of the book.

Fearless Photographer Portaits - Behind the Scenes - Hearts on Fire: Ray and Angel





Fearless Photographer Portraits - Overview




(Continued after the Jump)



Fearless Photographer Portraits: Behind the Scenes - Chloe Alyce and Lucky



Fearless Photographer Portraits: Behind the Scenes - Preteens: Olivia and the Beach



Fearless Photographer Portraits: Behind the Scenes - Soccer Stars



Fearless Photographer Portraits: Behind the Scenes - Hunter: Rock Star (and cover subject)



Fearless Photographer Portraits: Behind the Scenes - Blaine: A Man with a Message



Fearless Photographer Portraits: Behind the Scenes - Lyndi and Clyde: Beauty Tames a Ton (Literally)



Fearless Photographer Portraits: Behind the Scenes - Agent C's Hot Wheels




-----------
* Charlotte is my better half, and I served as a humble assistant to bring her visions (and those of her subjects) to reality. She also cornered me into appearing a few times in the book.


Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.
at

1 comment:

  1. Chris NemesOctober 26, 2011 at 10:26 PM

    Thank you very much for this recommendation. I have read your book, Best Business Practices for Photographers.

    I consider myself technically able to take decent portraits, but I have always had an issue in engaging my subjects to a deeper level. The problem is that the more aware I am of this while shooting, the worse it gets.

    Hopefully, this book will lend a hand to the introverts such as myself. :)

    ReplyDelete

COMMENT GUIDELINES

Every month, tens of thousands of visitors come to Photo Business News, and approximately 2,000 readers get PBN via RSS feeds. As we approach three years of blogging (in one form or another) PBN has matured, and has, as one might expect, attracted some less-than-mature readers, which, in turn, turns to commenters with their own agendas.

Following are our Terms of Service (TOS) for commenting on the blog posts:
-------------------
1. Comment Spam - we have had a ton of spam from countries like Russia, Japan, China, and so on. It interferes with the discourse, and is one of the prime reasons we are moving to moderation. All one need to is look back a few months to see the blog posts I haven't had time to clean up from this type of spam to see that moderation is needed for this reason alone. In addition, if your comment is not germane to the point being discussed, it too becomes spam. It will be deleted.

2. Over time, some pretty irrational challenges and attacks have been levied against me, and that's ok if you disagree with me, just don't make it personal on me, or anyone else. Doing so means your comment won't make it out of moderation, so don't waste your time. In addition, it would be a shame for you to make a really great point that everyone would benefit from reading, and include personal attacks on me, or other commenters, because we don't edit comments, they're either in, or they're out.

3. Over at the Photo Business News Flickr forum, (here) there are almost 2,000 members and a good opportunity to get your questions answered there. If you have a suggestion for a blog topic, there's a link to make that suggestion on every page of the blog.

4. It is the policy of Photo Business News that if there is a YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, Hulu or any other video service online, we can post it here using the embedding players for those services (which often insert ads into the playback). We can't know if what might normally be considered a copyrighted work that you would think might not be allowed on, say, YouTube, in fact has been agreed to between the copyright holder and YouTube. So, if you have a question or concern, visit those sites, and flag the content you believe is problematic. In addition, we adhere to standards for quoting and citing other content, with attribution and where possible, a link to that content.

5. ANONYMOUS COMMENTS - For several years now, we've given free reign to anonymous commenters, and a small fraction of those were beneficial to the readership. It is our opinion that anonymous commenters would best be from someone who, for example, should their identity be revealed, could pose job security or economic problems for them. So to that end, unless your comment is significantly beneficial, anonymous comments won't get moderated in. If you wish to make an anonymous comment and you want to send me an e-mail identifying yourself (which I will not reveal), that would be helpful, and will increase your chances of getting your comments posted. Oh, and don't go creating a fake Blogger ID just to get in - blank Blogger ID's are just one step removed from plain anonymous postings. The more discourse where people know who each other are, the better. David Hobby, of Strobist fame summed it up best in his TOS: "Nothing looks more weenie and pathetic than sniping, critical, anonymous comments."