What Is A Portrait?

The concept of a portrait has been around for a very long time. Since the time of ancient Egypt to now. What has really changed is just the way we enjoy and use these forms of art. I have always been fascinated by art and the many forms it takes. Over the last few years I took the pursuit of bringing my business degree, art and computer skills to a new level. I was not the first but the thing about any form of expression is putting your own unique style into the final product. Let’s observe and discuss some my previous works and breaks down what makes a good portrait.

Portrait, Portraits, headshots, fashion, creative photography

So to begin overall with what a portrait is. By definition a portrait is an artistic representation of a person, usually focusing on their face and it’s expression, capturing their likeness, personality, and mood. When working with my clients I first get to know them and pay attention to how they express themselves. This is quite important because forcing someone to pose or position themselves in a way that doesn’t feel natural to them in my opinion makes their photos feel less authentic and in many cases these photos are the first thing that a stranger may see of them and subconsciously will have already formed an opinion of them. In the above examples each client I took the time to get to know them. Many of the clients requested sessions because of special events in their lives or wanted to freshen up their online portfolio.

Traditional Business Portraits

In the tradition sense of a professional business portrait I provided examples 2 and 6. Both of these clients wanted to update their professional media and contacts with something new. Taking a quick look at 2 we can see this person is in the health field and knowing this I wanted to capture a scene that was bright and warm so the viewer feels comfortable with the individual and they can see they are a professional in their field and should be trusted. Having items related to them helps especially if the subject is interacting with them. Taking a look at 6 we can see that this is a professional portrait in terms of the angle and focus on the individual. What separates this from the previous number 2 is that since her arms are folded it gives the sense of business but with the smile it is transformed into a trusted business individual. Taking this outside also gave it a breath of fresh air and realistic finish.

Personal Creative Portraits

Next we should talk about more of the creative personal portraits. These are arguably my favorite style. For this lets talk about 1, 3, and 5. These are all very different and yet similar in many ways. First let’s talk about 1 which is actually one of my first photos I took professionally. Back when I was in the retail business I shot this photo both as a product photo and a creative portrait. The model loved the scarf shawl and with a few minutes of walking around the shoot location this beautiful image was taken. Example 3 was around the same time period but was a shoot with some friends when I was just getting started. I found myself falling in love with the “low-key photography” style. We wanted to capture some dramatic yet personal images. With the background being dark the focus falls on the subject and their unique features. Then there is 5 which was a client who was celebrating their birthday and wanted to take some professional photos. Since they never took professional photos I wanted to capture something that was unique about them they could cherish for years. All of these examples show how being in the moment and knowing more about the client can bring out more of their personality and create something unique.

Fashion Portraits

And last we have our fashion portraits section for examples 4, 7, and 8. Now it was really hard to select only a handful of my photos to talk about especially since most of my work over the years has been fashion related but these 3 are great examples of what folks love about my work. Starting with 4 this was part of a bigger shoot and the client wanted a pink background but the studio didn’t have it so with some quick thinking we transformed the background using lights. This is one of my very early works but I still was able to capture the focus and uniqueness the client wanted. Example 7 is a more recent work and was part of a creative collab. Half of the image feels like a traditional portrait while the other is more of a creative expression. Since she is laying on the ground facing the camera it gives depth while focusing on her expression. And last we have example 8 which is very recent work and shows the client in a creative portrait style. They loved this dress and wanted it to sparkle and the best way was to make them and the dress the focus.

In Conclusion

So the point of this article is to show that a portrait is much more than just positioning and good lighting it’s about working with that person and deciding how to capture that moment of them. It can be full body photos or more traditional headshots format. As long as you capture the subject personality in my opinion it is a portrait. No two photos should be exactly the same but they should all share the base same ingredients. Creativity, professionalism, and a little bit of luck.

If you are looking for a professional photographer I will be more than happy to help you. Currently in the time of writing this article Maylink LLC is available to help anyone in the Greater Atlanta Metropolitan area. Our business is based in Clayton county but we have studio space off of Fulton Industrial on I20 west just pass 285. Feel free to reach us on social media or preferably text and or call at 404-889-2762.