Composition Tips for Portrait Photography you Need to

Hey everyone. Today we're doing a video about composition. So today I'm going to be giving you guys some tips on composing your photos. So this will involve both how to compose with a subject and also what to look out for in the background to help elevate your photos and make your subject stand out. So I'm not reading from some kind of rule book and these are definitely not rules that you absolutely have to follow. These are all things that I personally love to do with my photography. And I just want to walk you guys through my thought process when it comes to composing my portraits. So today I'm going to be using the Sony a7 III and I have the ZEISS 35mm 1.4, which is a little bit of an unconventional portrait lens. But if you guys have been on my channel before, you guys would know that I love shooting portraits on the 35. So my first composition tip is a little bit basic, but it's a must. I feel like everyone needs to do this. When you're getting a full body shot, it's definitely important not to crop out the feet. So I'm going to take a full body shot right here and just crop it off at the ankles. And then I'm going to take a full body shot, including the feet as well. And I feel like when you've got a full body shot that's a tighter crop, it does look kind of e-commerce. So I also like to include the feet and then also have a little bit of negative space at the top of my frame. And I feel like it just gives it a really nice kind of magical, dreamy feel to have this kind of composition. And then let's go to that little ramp area. For this one, I thought if you could stand just here with like your elbow leaning on the... For a mid-length shot, again, it's the same thing with the full body shots. It's quite unflattering to crop people at their joints. If I take a photo just right with the knees in the shot, and then I'll take a photo where I normally like to crop, which is right above the knees. I'll put them side by side for you guys to see. I feel like cropping just above the knees is super flattering for a mid-length portrait. And unlike the full body shots, I do like to keep my framing in a little bit tighter with the mid-lengths and not leave so much negative space at the top of the frame. Oh, that's cool. I like that. Oh, I like that hanging off there. Maybe you could sit just up here. Oh, no, there's a giant spider web. Maybe here. Oh, this looks so cool. So when it comes to taking sitting down photos, I usually like to shoot them in portrait just because I feel like it adds... The subject is like the main focus of attention in the photo as they fill up the majority of the frame. Again, specifically when shooting portraits on a 35mm, I like to get my subject's face to be almost in the centre of the frame to try and avoid as much distortion as possible since 35mm focal length is a little bit unconventional to shoot portraits with. So I usually like to leave quite a lot of negative space at the top of the frame. Another thing that I usually like to do with sitting down photos, which kind of goes against the first rule that I said, is I like to crop out the feet sometimes. And I definitely do this very intentionally in my sitting down photos. I find that if I include the entire foot in a photo, it can look pretty good. But I also feel like my subject starts getting a little bit lost in the frame. So just cropping it out both adds a little bit of tension to the photo and also makes the subject stand out because you're just that little bit closer to them when you're taking a photo. So, yeah, I crop her feet on purpose. I'm getting a close up portrait here. And as you guys can see right now through my camera, is that I'm trying to keep the dark garage door just behind Sarah's face. So she pops in the shot with the dark background. And then I'm trying to avoid having any lines going straight through her face, which don't look too bad. But I do feel like the garage door framing her up just frames her up a lot better in the photo. Oh, I like that little smiling shot. One of the other things that I look out for when I'm selecting a portrait location are leading lines, which I have talked about in my how to find photo shoot locations video. But basically, as you can see here, I've got Sarah kind of to the side of the frame and just to the left, I've got the leading line following through in the photo. So sometimes I like to kind of include them in my shot. And sometimes I just twist around a little bit just so it's not too distracting in my frame. So in this case, I kind of like it with those lines propped out just slightly to the left hand side. I feel like when I'm getting in closer for a close up portrait, it looks a bit better when you can see it in the frame. And then can I get one more if you just stand in the middle? Oh, that looks cool. All right, perfect. Done. Thank you. So that is all I have for today's video about composition. I really hope you guys found that helpful, maybe found something that you're going to use at your next photo shoot. I would love to know which one was your favorite tip down in the comments below. And also, if you'd like to see another video about composition, maybe we can use a different lens or find a different kind of location. I would love to hear all your suggestions down below. But as always, thank you guys so much for watching. I make new videos every single week, so I'll see you all next time. Bye.