Taking portraits is like having a conversation with your camera

Randy Lipman

Randy Lipman (left) of Mystic Kettle selling kettle korn on Wayne State University Campus.
(Photos by Angelique Harrison/ WSUPJ)

          Portrait photography for me is one of the best types of photography. It allows me to really interact with my subject and not have to be in the background just documenting the event.

          I think the hardest part about taking portraits is finding someone interesting to photograph and then making that photography look interesting and incising.

          When I look for people to photography I think I try to find someone who has a unique personality that will show in a picture or they are doing something interesting.

          For this assignment I was able to get a little bit of both. I did more formal photos of a photography teacher who, at the time, was wearing eyeball rings in her hair.

          For those photos I tried to make sure that I got a lot of different angles because I think it is important to take shots so that they best describe the person you are photographing. In my opinion taking photos from angles other that straight forward are my favorite.

          Photos that are partially elevated or that are taken from below tell a different story about the person, it adds an element to the composition. I think that when taking photos or people you really have to think of the composition and the story that it will tell.

          For the more environmental photos I really tried to tell a story about the main person in the photograph while also bringing in a little of the environment around. The photos that I took of Ben are the best example of this and also some of the ones that I had the most fun with.

          These were a little more difficult for me. I think that trying to make someone the focus while also having a background is difficult because having a background that is too busy distracts from the main focus.

          For me making sure that everything was lined up was key and taking different environmental photos of people helped. I think that the practice in taking more than just one person’s photo helped me to fixed my mistakes from one person to the next so that I would have a better collection of final photos.
         For more photos from this assignment check out my gallery.

Ben Paczkowski (left) and the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors society Seniors after getting pied in the face. The Tau Beta Pi(e)-a-Senior Day was an auction to pie the graduating seniors of the society at the engineering college.

Lights, camera, action...wait I missed it. Can we try that again?

Clarkston junior varsity Wolves coaches Sarah Wasilk, left, and 
Kendall Rock celebrate their teams first goal against Birmingham
Groves on March 26. (Photos by Angelique Harrison/ WSUPJ)

          When I think sports photography, I think of these great photos of the soccer starts in the air mid-kick, or the baseball players mid-swing with the ball suspended in the air.

          I thought that this assignment was going to be the easiest because I have captured some of my family member’s games. I thought that this was just going to be a point and shoot assignment and I would have no issues at all. That was not true.

          The first issue I encountered was finding a game because one season was ending and the season for spring sports was just starting. I was struggling so hard to find something, but then a classmate suggested shooting gymnastics.

          That was the most difficult sport I could have chosen to take pictures of. There were so many different areas of the event going on that it was hard to keep track of all of the kids who were doing the different events.

Artemis Thomopoulos, of Birmingham Groves, 5 , fends off several Wolves 
players. 

          After looking at the photos I was not satisfied. A lot of the photos were blurry, and there was no way for me to tell which kid was in what picture doing that event.

          I was able to find a soccer game at my old high school, which was a lot easier to capture photos during the game.

          When looking at those photos, a lot of the pictures were still blurry, but I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that I have an older camera that can’t go above 1600 ISO, and can’t capture a lot of photos on continuous mode.

          All in all, I think this was a great way for me to learn a different aspect of covering sports as far as photos.

         For more photos from my sports photography assignment, check out my gallery. 

Several fans celebrate the first goal of the Birmingham Groves soccer team. This was the first goal of the game until Clarkston scored in the second half to tie the game.