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.