Female Portrait Tips

Discuss everything including the optimal equipment, seasons, techniques and tips for capturing excellent photos.

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Matt
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Share your Female Portrait photography tips here.



A few to start:

Make sure the lighting on the face is full and soft. There should be no shadows.

Avoid using wide angle lenses.

Avoid shooting the face from below.
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Matt
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The best lighting for the female face is a soft light, spread out wider than the face; placed a few feet in front of the face just above the head. This is called "beauty lighting" and mimics the lighting of a bathroom/vanity mirror. If the light is good, it should eliminate shadows evenly across the face. If there is a remaining soft shadow under the chin, use a reflector or white poster-board on the floor under the light to fill in that shadow.
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Matt
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You know, I think there may be a number of magazines devoted entirely to this single topic. ;)
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wow. that guy annoys the crap out of me.
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Matt
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Another video where it is 10x longer than it should have been, and it just ruins it.
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Kelly
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Not sure there's a neat place for this, but it's really quite interesting. Take a look at how "beauty" varies across global cultures. It's a cool experiment.

40 photo editors (pro and amateur) in about 25 different countries were each given the same photo and the assignment to "make me beautiful". Interesting results. Doesn't really matter if they are skilled at Photoshop or not even sorta good - that's not the point. The fun is in seeing what 40 different people "think" beautiful is. I love this!

Here are just a couple. Click the link below for all of them.

Image

Image

Image

Before & After - Make Me Beautiful
I am strong, because I've been weak.
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I saw this on GMA this morning. Very interesting.
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