Beginner to portraits advice

slfboy

slfboy

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Peter
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I have been doing photography for two years up to now i have done Landscapes & some Street, I would really like to try doing some portrait / people photography i was just looking for some beginner's advice? I really do not know anyone who would be interested in modelling etc i live in Edinburgh so any advice about getting anyone interested in modelling would be much appreciated.
 
Id start with self portraits and a cheap speed light and umbrella, my profile pic was taken with a godox 350 and a shoot through umbrella
 
Hi Peter,
Welcome to TP. :welcome:

Start simply with natural light, then move on to a backdrop, single light and reflector. Whatever you do, don't buy a crap 'modelling kit' from Ebay or Amazon. When you're ready to buy - I'd recommend Godox.

There is lots of advice on YouTube for the beginner, but watch out for the ones that just promote kit.

For models, give these a try: https://purpleport.com/
 
Try looking for a local TFP facebook group in your area (Trade for Prints). Usually you'll find lots of models of all skill levels looking to build a portfolio, they will model for you in exchange for freedom to use your images in their portfolios / instagram etc.

Personally I don't think that models are good subjects for portraits, but shooting with a model is probably the best way to practice your lighting setups and other technical skills. Plus once you have some nice images to show, it makes it a little easier to approach potential subjects and gain their trust.
 
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Agreed with the above poster who suggests natural light to start with. Despite what you may read elsewhere, natural light isn’t a cop out, and to the contrary it is what strobe lighting aspires to. You can spend, as I have, a year working on mastering natural light, discovering its qualities, finding it “in the wild” and seeing how it flatters your subject, how to solve the challenge of poor timing (i.e. high noon). Some of the best photographers work with, and some of the most iconic portraiture is done with natural light. You can in tandem, or after you get your feet firmly planted in natural light, start working with strobe, and there’s no better resource than Strobist 101 for learning the fundamentals. And from there I’d suggest drilling down on specifics in the style you’re after - the more specific you can be in describing your goals, the more fruitful your searches will be. Sean Tucker, Jeff Rojas and Felix Kunze are IMO the best YT resources going - Kunze especially has an Elinchrom “Mastering One Light” video that clocks in at 55 mins and it’s excellent, and the info is equally applicable to any lighting brand.
 
It’s horses for courses and we all ‘learn’ differently.

But for me; working in a controlled environment (where I can control the placement of lights) enabled me to learn what different lighting patterns achieve, which then means that ‘in the wild’ I can quickly find the light source and work it’s relationship to the subject.

In my mind, that’s easier than trying to understand that relationship when the light source is already fixed.

But back to the fundamental in the question; the title says ‘portraits’ but the question is about ‘models’, and the OP hasn’t returned to clarify what kind of ‘people photography’ they’re actually interested in.
 
Hi Peter, welcome to TP. In addition to the questions above it would be good to know if you want to do natural light work (don't have/want lights) or use flash (and what sort of gear you want/already have). What worked for me was to start with natural light and work up to flash when I was more comfortable working with people. But I work better learning things in small chunks rather than trying to do it all at once.
 
There's a lot of emphasis on lighting in this discussion.

Learning lighting and learning portraiture are different skills. Learning to shoot models is different again.

jlafferty said:
Agreed with the above poster who suggests natural light to start with. Despite what you may read elsewhere, natural light isn’t a cop out, and to the contrary it is what strobe lighting aspires to. You can spend, as I have, a year working on mastering natural light, discovering its qualities, finding it “in the wild” and seeing how it flatters your subject, how to solve the challenge of poor timing (i.e. high noon). Some of the best photographers work with, and some of the most iconic portraiture is done with natural light. You can in tandem, or after you get your feet firmly planted in natural light, start working with strobe, and there’s no better resource than Strobist 101 for learning the fundamentals. And from there I’d suggest drilling down on specifics in the style you’re after - the more specific you can be in describing your goals, the more fruitful your searches will be. Sean Tucker, Jeff Rojas and Felix Kunze are IMO the best YT resources going - Kunze especially has an Elinchrom “Mastering One Light” video that clocks in at 55 mins and it’s excellent, and the info is equally applicable to any lighting brand.
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Strobist 101 is a good introduction to working with speedlites & umbrellas.

Speedlites & umbrellas are a poor introduction to studio lighting.

FWIW I think you can learn about natural light far more rapidly in a controlled environment, i.e. a studio. It depends on how you learn things. If you're analytical like me then you can work out how to reproduce and then use just about every form of natural light you might encounter without having to wait for them to appear.

But as @Phil V said - the OP hasn't been back so we're just chatting amongst ourselves :)
 
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Last seen 15 Feb 2023

Just a word of advice @slfboy if you're still viewing the site occaisionally - it's polite to acknowledge people giving up their time to write advice when you ask for help. It doesn't need to be much, but if you plan to come back at a later date we'll think much better of you.
 
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juggler said:
There's a lot of emphasis on lighting in this discussion.

Learning lighting and learning portraiture are different skills. Learning to shoot models is different again.
Click to expand...

This is a good point. But I guess what I was trying to say with my post is: above all, starting out - keep it simple. Be observant. There’s a lot to learn, and the sooner you get comfortable with the technical stuff, the sooner it falls away and you work on the personal. And of course I’m saying this because that’s how it worked for me. Others have different styles of learning/working, but I’m just giving advice from my personal experience.

juggler said:
Strobist 101 is a good introduction to working with speedlites & umbrellas.

Speedlites & umbrellas are a poor introduction to studio lighting.
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I half agree with this, half disagree. Sure, you can’t pivot directly from working the controls of a speedlight to working a pack & head, but the fundamentals remain the same, and having someone knowledgeable walk you through a monolight/pack & head shouldn’t take more than 30-45 mins. Understanding balancing flash and ambient, understanding distance controlling contrast (and to a degree, softness), understanding which style modifiers and their placement producing which effects, reverse engineering others’ lighting… that’s all on Strobist. I landed my first job, and eventually a foothold in the proper photo industry at a studio, on the things I learned at Strobist.
 
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Do you have a partner or friends/family who will be a subject for you?

Easiest is to start with natural light, either outdoors or indoors through a large window, and then once you are comfortable with that, can add lighting and start to use modifiers to give different effects. Plenty of Youtube courses and books on photographing people.

Sometimes it is worth hiring a model. An experienced model and an inexperienced photographer can work well as the model can take the lead on poses. An experienced photographer and an inexperienced model can work well, but an inexperienced model and an inexperienced model can be frustrating as neither has the confidence or experience to take the lead. Those
models offering services on a TFP basis are probably building their own portfolios.

Sometimes a local camera club or a local studio will hire a couple of models, set the lights and have a group of 4 or 5 photographers take turns - this can spread the cost and you can watch and learn from others at the same time.
 
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jlafferty said:
This is a good point. But I guess what I was trying to say with my post is: above all, starting out - keep it simple. Be observant. There’s a lot to learn, and the sooner you get comfortable with the technical stuff, the sooner it falls away and you work on the personal. And of course I’m saying this because that’s how it worked for me. Others have different styles of learning/working, but I’m just giving advice from my personal experience.


I half agree with this, half disagree. Sure, you can’t pivot directly from working the controls of a speedlight to working a pack & head, but the fundamentals remain the same, and having someone knowledgeable walk you through a monolight/pack & head shouldn’t take more than 30-45 mins. Understanding balancing flash and ambient, understanding distance controlling contrast (and to a degree, softness), understanding which style modifiers and their placement producing which effects, reverse engineering others’ lighting… that’s all on Strobist. I landed my first job, and eventually a foothold in the proper photo industry at a studio, on the things I learned at Strobist.
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I learnt with speedlites - and initially brollies - too.

It would have been much, much easier to learn with a decent head with a reasonable amount of power, one capable of filling a fair sized softbox properly, recycling in a manageable time frame and with enough oomph to overpower typical ambient lighting. Oh, and a modelling light.
 
juggler said:
I learnt with speedlites - and initially brollies - too.

It would have been much, much easier to learn with a decent head with a reasonable amount of power, one capable of filling a fair sized softbox properly, recycling in a manageable time frame and with enough oomph to overpower typical ambient lighting. Oh, and a modelling light.
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No doubt I prefer a monolight to a speedlight for all the reasons you list, and more… I just find the initial price to be a bit of a leap, especially for someone just starting out.
 
jlafferty said:
This is a good point. But I guess what I was trying to say with my post is: above all, starting out - keep it simple. Be observant. There’s a lot to learn, and the sooner you get comfortable with the technical stuff, the sooner it falls away and you work on the personal. And of course I’m saying this because that’s how it worked for me. Others have different styles of learning/working, but I’m just giving advice from my personal experience.


I half agree with this, half disagree. Sure, you can’t pivot directly from working the controls of a speedlight to working a pack & head, but the fundamentals remain the same, and having someone knowledgeable walk you through a monolight/pack & head shouldn’t take more than 30-45 mins. Understanding balancing flash and ambient, understanding distance controlling contrast (and to a degree, softness), understanding which style modifiers and their placement producing which effects, reverse engineering others’ lighting… that’s all on Strobist. I landed my first job, and eventually a foothold in the proper photo industry at a studio, on the things I learned at Strobist.
Click to expand...
I think the point re Strobist is that it’s actually much easier to learn w proper studio lights w modelling lights. Once you’re experienced then using speedlights is a piece of cake.
 
jlafferty said:
No doubt I prefer a monolight to a speedlight for all the reasons you list, and more… I just find the initial price to be a bit of a leap, especially for someone just starting out.
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A ‘decent’ mains powered studio light is cheaper than a Canon or Nikon speedlight.
 
jlafferty said:
No doubt I prefer a monolight to a speedlight for all the reasons you list, and more… I just find the initial price to be a bit of a leap, especially for someone just starting out.
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You can pick up an entry level studio light (Godox MS300) for about £100, which is not a great deal more than a basic flash, but gives much better fill of a softbox, and includes a modeling light.
 
Phil V said:
A ‘decent’ mains powered studio light is cheaper than a Canon or Nikon speedlight.
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That is true, and wasn't at all the case when Strobist launched, or when I was learning :) I'm always comparing Godox to Godox these days, and forget to consider their corded strobes. Thanks for the reminder.
 
jlafferty said:
That is true, and wasn't at all the case when Strobist launched, or when I was learning :) I'm always comparing Godox to Godox these days, and forget to consider their corded strobes. Thanks for the reminder.
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Even pre Godox dominance, the Strobist 'cheap' argument only worked if you were comparing traditional european studio heads with Yongnuo speedlights. Even 10 years ago you could buy a half decent Chinese studio head for less than a Canon or Nikon speedlight. The whole Strobist thing worked because fully manual speedlights are cheap and people believe that mains powered flash is complicated.

Back then a Canon 580 was under £300 ( a clone was £100 and so was a mains powered flash), the top of the range Canon EL-1 is now £1300!! For that money you can buy an awful lot of lighting gear.
 
Phil V said:
It’s horses for courses and we all ‘learn’ differently.

But for me; working in a controlled environment (where I can control the placement of lights) enabled me to learn what different lighting patterns achieve, which then means that ‘in the wild’ I can quickly find the light source and work it’s relationship to the subject.

In my mind, that’s easier than trying to understand that relationship when the light source is already fixed.

But back to the fundamental in the question; the title says ‘portraits’ but the question is about ‘models’, and the OP hasn’t returned to clarify what kind of ‘people photography’ they’re actually interested in.
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Agreed and I joined TP last year phils advice got me down the right line.

Single flash, with godox softbox.

Try all combos and you learn.
 
Phil V said:
Even pre Godox dominance, the Strobist 'cheap' argument only worked if you were comparing traditional european studio heads with Yongnuo speedlights. Even 10 years ago you could buy a half decent Chinese studio head for less than a Canon or Nikon speedlight. The whole Strobist thing worked because fully manual speedlights are cheap and people believe that mains powered flash is complicated.

Back then a Canon 580 was under £300 ( a clone was £100 and so was a mains powered flash), the top of the range Canon EL-1 is now £1300!! For that money you can buy an awful lot of lighting gear.
Click to expand...

Phil, we seem to be straying from the topic a bit, but I'm confused by your statements re: Strobist. It launched in 2006 and AFAIK Yongnuo didn't launch version 1 of their 560 speedlight for 4-5 years after that. Strobist suggested a few lights in the sub $100 price range, and even made mention of getting used SB-24's for $35. There was nothing to compare a $35 speedlight to at the time, in any form factor. The SB-800 and Canon equivalent were, and remained, very expensive, and arguably overpriced.

I thought "the whole point" of the Strobist ethos was slinging a single, compact bag over your shoulder and bringing light anywhere. It wasn't that monolights were complicated, it's that at the time they were - save some in-house generic brands and Alien Bees - very expensive and cumbersome (requiring location power). And especially expensive when compared to a sub-$50 speedlight.

Now, I absolutely agree with you (& @juggler) that a monolight is "the right way" to start lighting, but it seems a pretty recent development to get a decent monolight for the same cost as a cheap speedlight. My apologies for having my head still in a space where I thought speedlights were cheaper than monolights, it was an oversight, and frankly I have a tendency to go to Godox's more expensive Pro, battery driven line when I think of these things. I completely forgot about their recent, very affordable plug in lights.
 
jlafferty said:
Phil, we seem to be straying from the topic a bit, but I'm confused by your statements re: Strobist. It launched in 2006 and AFAIK Yongnuo didn't launch version 1 of their 560 speedlight for 4-5 years after that. Strobist suggested a few lights in the sub $100 price range, and even made mention of getting used SB-24's for $35. There was nothing to compare a $35 speedlight to at the time, in any form factor. The SB-800 and Canon equivalent were, and remained, very expensive, and arguably overpriced.

I thought "the whole point" of the Strobist ethos was slinging a single, compact bag over your shoulder and bringing light anywhere. It wasn't that monolights were complicated, it's that at the time they were - save some in-house generic brands and Alien Bees - very expensive and cumbersome (requiring location power). And especially expensive when compared to a sub-$50 speedlight.

Now, I absolutely agree with you (& @juggler) that a monolight is "the right way" to start lighting, but it seems a pretty recent development to get a decent monolight for the same cost as a cheap speedlight. My apologies for having my head still in a space where I thought speedlights were cheaper than monolights, it was an oversight, and frankly I have a tendency to go to Godox's more expensive Pro, battery driven line when I think of these things. I completely forgot about their recent, very affordable plug in lights.
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aha!! Enlightment strikes!! This is mainly a UK based forum; the market has been somewhat different here than the US for a little while now. In part thanks to the likes of manufacturers like Bowens and then Lencarta.
 
You could do a lost worse than looking at Garry Edwards tutorials on here ( TP) and getting his book "Lighting Magic"
 
Phil V said:
The OP hasn’t been back to acknowledge any of the advice given. It seems we all wasted our time.
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He didn't acknowledge your reply to his first ever post on TP either.
He's only made 2 posts in 2 years so harldy prolific :ROFLMAO:
 
Phil V said:
The OP hasn’t been back to acknowledge any of the advice given. It seems we all wasted our time.
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Whilst I agree that with any advice seeking thread it should be courteous of the OP to thank for the advice posted, I wouldn't call contributions a waste of time. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all different views, advice and material referenced. So from me, thank you for all of the above.
 
dans_shutter said:
Whilst I agree that with any advice seeking thread it should be courteous of the OP to thank for the advice posted, I wouldn't call contributions a waste of time. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all different views, advice and material referenced. So from me, thank you for all of the above.
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You are echoing my thoughts on this thread. It remains a useful source of advice foe others who may come searching.

In this case the title is quite descriptive but in many cases the transient newcomer uses just “Help” or something equally vague as a heading. It could be worthwhile, since the thread remains forever, for the Mods to change the title to something more relevant — assuming that’s possible.
 
I think I took photos of ALL of my friends when I first started...til they were sick of it. I would approach people in the acting industry too. They are often happy to sit for portraits. BW
 
Learn how to interact with the people you're going to shoot. Developing rapport and understanding what a) you want from the shoot, and b) what they want will help loads.

Also know your camera inside out and don't bother chimping (looking at the screen after every shot) because they need to be your primary point of focus.

I wrote this and then realised that the OP has been abducted by aliens...
 
Do you all use Purpleport for models? What are the rates generally, and whats the opinion of asking for volunteers in the forum? I don't need a model in traditional good looking sense, more someone who is happy to have their portrait taken, thanks!
 
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