How to use structure and aesthetic feeling skillfully to shoot beautiful portraits

Lead: In the exterior composition of portrait photography, a common technique now is to shoot an image with great visual impact through exaggeration and deformation. Let's take a look!

First, choose the right equipment.

First of all, we should prepare a fisheye, ultra-wide-angle, wide-angle lens to understand the imaging and deformation effects of different focal lengths. The fisheye lens is a short-focus ultra-wide-angle photographic lens with a focal length of about 6- 16 mm and a viewing angle close to or exceeding 180 degrees. Therefore, the barrel bending distortion is great, and the straight line around the picture will bend, and only the straight line in the center of the lens can remain the same.

The fisheye lens can create a strong perspective effect when shooting near the subject, emphasizing the distance and small contrast, so that the shot picture has a shocking appeal.

Ultra-wide angle refers to a short-focus wide-angle lens with a focal length range of 1624mm, which has a wide field of vision and is not as distorted as a fisheye lens. A wide-angle lens is a lens with a focal length of 2435mm, which has a wider field of view than a standard lens and less distortion than a super wide-angle lens. It is a short focal length lens widely used in portrait photography.

In portrait photography, a person's body occupies a certain proportion. Among these three kinds of lenses, the exaggerated deformation of fisheye lens is too strong, which makes the image of the subject too different from itself and is rarely used. The other two kinds are often used, but when using them, we should pay attention to arranging the main body in the center of the picture to avoid the deformation of the edge part to make people lose the three-dimensional sense or distort the shape.

Exaggeration and deformation are extreme methods, which can better represent the characters, gain a novel perspective on the screen and get a new interpretation of the characters; If used improperly, it will make the subject more ugly and unacceptable. Next, I will explain the specific application of exaggerated deformation composition techniques in combination with the specific character state and beautiful posture.

Second, high-altitude shooting forms a comic style.

Aerial photography forms a comic style.

Under the influence of the non-mainstream style of high-altitude headshots, high-altitude overhead photography in the studio has been applied more and more. In traditional shooting, we only slightly improve the position on the basis of the plane position to make the subject's face look smaller, but the picture is still normal perspective. In exaggerated and distorted composition, if we want to pursue a more special picture, we need to exaggerate the subject with super wide-angle or wide-angle end.

In the picture 1, I used a focal length of 25mm, and I shot it from top to bottom. Because of the imaging characteristics of the lens, the proportion of the head approaching the lens first will be slightly larger, and the proportion of the body and limbs will be smaller. When taking photos of this style, we should pay attention to the gradual relationship between the near and the far and the small deformation, and the beauty is best not to be too dull. If the distance between each part of the limb and the lens is relatively equal, it will not show obvious perspective deformation.

Hands and feet are the obvious parts of deformation. You need to decide whether to keep them according to the shooting style. If you want to have an obvious perspective effect and don't want the picture to be too cartoon, you can choose to adjust the beauty of the model when shooting and let your hands and feet handle it outside the picture.

Third, the low-altitude backhand forms a sense of height.

Low-altitude picture is a common technique in photo studios at present, and it is also a perspective that ordinary people don't often use. If wide-angle changes are added to the low-altitude composition, the perspective of the picture will be further enhanced.

Figure 2

In Figure 2, I lay on the ground with a focal length of 17mm and photographed the model leaning towards my graceful posture. When the model leans down, we should pay attention to the perspective relationship of all parts of the body in the picture, and it is best to observe and adjust it through the viewing frame. Because I use a symmetrical posture, I should also pay attention to whether the deformation of the posture is symmetrical when shooting. When shooting upside down, the subject's face is easily deformed too much, so try not to raise the subject's head to avoid the chin becoming too wide, and may arrange the face in the center of the picture, because the edge of the picture will make the face deformed too flat and distorted, lacking three-dimensional sense.

Figure 3

In Figure 3, I let the model stand on a tall stone under the ginkgo tree, so that the height of the model's head can be connected with the branches. However, when shooting, the picture still appears too elevation angle and deformation is too great. Therefore, when I shoot backward with a focal length of 2 1 mm, I will ask the model's upper body to tilt towards the lens, which can slightly reduce the deformation ratio of the body and head and control the deformation to an acceptable level.

From the example just now, we know that it is very important to control the proportion of body and face in backhand, so many times, the subject's face needs to be closer to the camera.

Fourth, form a contrast by deforming a part.

Sometimes, we need to exaggerate local beauty to get more eye-catching photos; Or make the body language of the picture more tense and the emotional state of the characters more full.

Figure 4

In Figure 4, the heart-shaped gesture of the model stretching forward is a common beauty gesture in shooting. In order to highlight the shape of the gesture and the lively mood of the subject, I exaggerated my hand with a focal length of 20 mm. In this kind of shooting, we should pay attention to the shape and position of the model's arm and try to shoot the extended part of the arm. Avoid making the deformation of the hand too abrupt.

Figure 5

In the shooting of Figure 5, I used a focal length of 22mm, which brought a sense of space and perspective to the relatively flat picture through the beautiful posture of the model, especially the deformation difference of the hands on both sides.

Of course, when shooting, you can also choose a darker background, and the lens will naturally form a dark corner at the edge of the picture, making the image deeper. The change of beauty will form different styles, either lively, quiet or romantic, so it is necessary to arrange the change of beauty according to the style of the scene when shooting.

This is different from the conventional shooting method and can make your photos more attractive.

Fifth, we should pay attention to the smooth and reasonable change of deformation.

When we need to deform a part to make it contrast with other parts, we should pay attention to make the deformation change moderate and reasonable, so that such photos will be easily accepted. Of course, deformation has both enlargement and contraction, and we can also hide some parts of the body through deformation.

Figure 6

In Figure 6, I used a focal length of 37 mm to take a close-up of the model. In close-range shooting, we usually use telephoto to reduce deformation, but if we want to make the close-range not boring, we can also use short focus to shoot. When shooting, if the model's face is facing the camera, the nose will appear larger and generally disliked. So I chose the outline of the model's face, exaggerated the beautiful cheek curve of the model with deformation, and made the model's facial features and emotions more nervous.

Figure 7

In Figure 7, I used a focal length of 24mm to make the subject's upper body lean forward, so that the waist of the model will be narrowed due to deformation. This is also one of the methods we use to shoot fatter customers.

To sum up, I introduced some commonly used exaggeration and deformation methods to you. In business, exaggeration and distortion need to be measured, not the more exaggerated the better. For buildings or horizontal lines, we can take more exaggerated and distorted pictures with fisheye lenses. If it is for the sake of beauty, we should make corresponding arrangements according to the beauty of the subject and the requirements of the picture, so that the picture is distorted and exaggerated, reasonable and attractive.