Mark Epstein Photography: Portraits: Composition

Portrait, landscape or square? Headshots? Head and shoulders or half body shots? In trying to think about a possible finished product for my 1 - 100 project (or 0 - 100 which I'm leaning more towards) I could see myself producing at the very least, a photobook. I'm then struck by the question of cohesion versus dissonance. How similar do I want the images to be in order to create a cohesive whole but equally, I want to avoid a monotonous sameness within my planned large group of images. In other words, how much dissonance can the project take while still standing as a cohesive whole? This question applies as much to the style of the photographs as it does to the composition. I think at this stage, I won't know how the photographs work together until I start taking and placing them side by side. For that reason, I think I'll hedge my bets and plan to take shots that work in portrait, landscape and square formats. Perhaps there's no point in me exploring the 'qualities' of each of these formats. Rather, I should just wait and see.

Crop above the elbows or knees.
Don't crop below the elbows or knees or ankles.
Don't shoot up the subject's nose.
Don't let the back arm disappear.
Tilt camera for more dynamic effect.

Acceptable places to crop when shooting portraits. Cropping at green lines should be fine, while cropping at red lines might create awkward looking photographs.

Camera Angle
Full length portrait - place the camera at waist height (the centre of the frame that you see in the viewfinder). Head shots - place camera around the eye level of your subject.

If you want to deemphasize something in your frame, then raise the camera above that height and everything underneath the centre of the frame will look smaller. Lower the camera, and everything above the centre of your frame will be over-emphasized and appear bigger. Shooting from slightly above is another option.

Portrait