Portrait and Self-Portrait tips and ideas

Settings—The Other Subject
The settings in which you make pictures of people are important because they add to the viewer's understanding of your subject. The room in which a person lives or works, their house, the city street they walk, the place in which they seek relaxation—whatever it is, the setting provides information about people and tells us something about their lives. Seek balance between subject and environment. Include enough of the setting to aid your image, but not so much that the subject is lost in it.

Photographing your shadow is another way to do a self-portrait. Shoot early or late, when the sun is low in the sky. A light, stucco wall, a sidewalk, or any other simple background can suffice. Just be sure there aren't a lot of distractions around the surface you choose.

Use your imagination! A self-portrait can reveal a lot about you, by including props and even other people that are meaningful in your life. If you've never attempted to shoot a self-portrait, expand your creative horizons and give it a try.

Environmental Portraits

This is one of my favorite environmental portraits because i like how the background has nothing so the viewer dosent get distracted by anything behind the main subject. I also like the way that man is posing and is not looking directly at the camera.

This is another one of my favorite environmental portraits because i like how it is simple and you can tell a whole story by just looking at this picture. I just love the way it came out and the rules its using.

Self-Portraits

 I really like what they did with this picture because they took a picture of this persons face and put like camaflauge spots on the face so you can bearly see it and i just think thats very creative and unique. It also makes you look at it for a while to figure out what really is going on in the picture.

This is another of my favorite self portraits because they really zoomed in into the girls face. There are no distractions its only her full face.

My plan for my portrait assignment is to shoot my partner and i want to shoot somewhere outside in a bench with a couple of trees around, i want the person in the picture to look somewhere else and not directly to the camera, as if no one where there just her. The picture has to be in good focus. I do not want no other person on the background because the person on the bench is my main subject.