My Portrait Photography tips #1 | The eyes open the doorway…

…to the soul.

I’ve often been told that there is a certain strength that comes through in my portraiture. I personally put this down to the strength of the character that I am photographing. It is not every person that can deliver this sort of strength. I am simply saying that I carefully chose the subjects that I photograph. You would be making a mistake to think that you can apply the same techniques to every sitter and obtain the same result. In my “Faces” portfolio for instance each individual has been carefully studied before the shutter was set off.

The point of these tutorials is to explicate on the main elements that I look for when taking or making a portrait of an individual. Such include, the eyes, lighting, composition and positioning, scene or setting and finally personality. In this post I will quickly go over the first item in this list being that of the Eye.

I believe that the eyes are the doorway to the soul of an individual, if you can capture them and keep them opened in your portrait you have solved half the problem. It’s amazing how many portraits lack this fundamental principle. Ask yourself this, when you steer at someone without speaking to them and them saying anything to you, what do you look at? The eyes of course. The eyes are like polarising magnets with opposite poles that attract. They somehow draw you into the other persons personality or character or in fact inner soul.

During a portrait session I make sure that my sitter is focusing at the centre of the lens (feeling comfortable about it too) before I click. Now I also make sure that my main source of light is focussed on their eyes too. I learnt that your own eyes are attracted to the lightest part of an image or scene, if you can make that the eyes of your subject, all of a sudden you will bring some life to it.

That’s it, try it, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Peter, A portrait

The portrait above was taken using a reflector panel camera left and main light source is the sun on camera right.  An EOS Canon 1D Mk III and a  Canon EF  100mm f/2.8 Macro Lens was used.

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Tseshe and Ade | Working in tight spaces

In Nigeria one of the many challenges that a photographer will face while covering a wedding is working in extremely tight spaces. This is not just a problem caused by the low capacity venues subjected to high strain from uninvited guests at the wedding but also service workers too. There are far too many servants and servers (deliberately defined this as they offer a different service from waiters) around. Not to mention the many Paparazzi who do literally fight each other to get the next photo for their masters society publication. Needless to say these events are still quite glamorous considering the amount of effort put into the decor and type of cuisine served to the guest, literally every guest if fed. Read the rest of this entry »

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Bola Soyode Education Foundation Fundraiser Concert

Apart from doing wedding photography I have been asked to cover concerts, notably the d’Banj in London Concert at the Indigo O2 Arena last year. I’ll do a blog post on that concert later. More recently I covered a concert for a good friend of mine who runs an educational charity in remembrance of her father.

The images in this post are a few I’ve selected from there event. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ochuwa and Doye | Telling wedding stories in Nigeria Part #2

Here are some images from the part of the white wedding church ceremony of Ochuwa and Doye.

I believe that in order to tell a good story about an event, it’s important that one understands the essentials behind them. I haven’t thought through every single point but as I post these events I will drop a few lines on what I think would make an event interesting. Too many times I work with many photographers and photojournalists at events that do the same thing and fall into the same trap. So many times I’m asked either of two things, “What are you doing photographing the crack in the wall? You’re missing them cut the cake!” or “Why are you using a 50mm lens? Don’t you think you can do better with a Zoom lens?” Read the rest of this entry »

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Ochuwa and Doye | Telling wedding stories in Nigeria Part #1

I’ve been away from this blog for too long now. When I started this project my intention was to post something at least once every week. So far I have fallen short of it by quite a number of weeks. This is partly to do with the fact that I was abroad for the most of 4 weeks (I only just returned a week today) and also because I haven’t had as much material to share.

I normally take the Christmas period off work to spend time with my family in Nigeria, something I have always done since my school days. This year I decided to try my hands at documenting weddings during this season (as there are many wedding happening around this time). I took on about 5 different events in total hoping to lend from the experience I had already built up over the year. Much to my surprise these events are not the same as the ones I covered during the less festive seasons of the year. They seemed to have everything, both good and bad. Read the rest of this entry »

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Your Camera Doesn’t Matter

I am often asked what camera is the best camera. Which is the best to buy that will give you that great picture. There is an irony to this question because you’d think that if there was such a thing as a camera that would give you ultimately the most amazing picture every photographer would have it. That is the point, there isn’t such a thing.

I came across this web page that IMHO gives the best answer to this question.

Jide Alakija © 2009

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How I started | Face to Face…

This write up is largely inspired by a post I saw on Onada’s blog. I keep getting asked the question how I ended up being a photographer. Usually this is posed while I am working, typically in an event where the questionnaires curiosity in the trade is peaked by my actions behind the camera. “Did you study Photography at school?”, “Where did you learn how to take photos the way you do?“, these are just a few examples of the sort of questions I get asked from time to time. I am so used to it now that I have a model answer for everytime I get asked these questions. What I tend to find interesting is that the person asking the question is probably more interested in my journey in becoming a photographer than how I really learnt how to take photos. They are more interested in the point in which the “Damascus moment“ occurred. I have a feeling this might be something that most people are curious about and as a result I am writing now. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ada and Ify | Canon 24mm f/1.4L II

Definitely up there as one of the best weddings I’ve covered. The story was quite straight forward to tell as the moments were pretty much defined by dramatic lighting. The EF Canon 24mm f/1.4 L II had great deal to do with this. I had been using this lens a lot up till this point and quite enjoyed it’s use on my EOS Canon 1D MkIII. The combination of the 1.3 Crop factor on the camera and the super wide angle provides one with a lot of depth in putting together very dynamic compositions, coupled with the fact that the aperture can be opened beyond f/2.8, ideal for capturing fast movement indoors. I couldn’t go wrong with this one. Read the rest of this entry »

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Toyin and Laolu | Sigma 50mm f/1.4

A few months back Sigma released a rival to Canon’s EF 50mm f/1.4 lens. Abi purchased one shortly after it’s release and I had the opportunity of borrowing it with his EOS Canon 5D MkII (some of you may have noticed that in my previous posts I have been shooting with a 5D MkII along side a 5D). This was the wedding I first I saw it in action. Read the rest of this entry »

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What Every Aspiring Photographer Should Know

This was something sent to me by a fellow photographer and I found it so interesting and thought provoking. I really think WE all can learn from this

What Every Aspiring Photographer Should Know

These are my thoughts, nothing more and nothing less.

I get asked all the time, during workshops, in e-mails, in private messages, what words of wisdom I would give to a new and aspiring photographer. Here’s my answer.

- Style is a voice, not a prop or an action. If you can buy it, borrow it, download it, or steal it, it is not a style. Don’t look outward for your style; look inward. Read the rest of this entry »

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