One portrait session, many photos.

I took some photos yesterday in my studio. When I say studio I mean dining room. I do have a black sheet that I can hang up and you may have seen it recently on this blog when I took portraits of Andy Bell. This is a more typical portrait. I like to put people in a situation that they are used to. A very common type of portrait is the subject sat at a desk holding a pen over a piece of paper. I suspect that a portrait with a computer will be replacing the pen and here is an example.

My black sheet isn't this big so I added more background. You may think that it looks a little unbalanced but I think it looks good and I did use the space for adding personal details which could be used as a business card. A dark background, dark clothing and a generally dark image with little contrast is called low key. I will tell you about high key photography in a couple of days.

The whole portrait session lasted no more than fifteen minutes but there were dozens of great photos when I finished. Not only do I change photos to monochrome and sepia as with these photos but I will show you more techniques over the next few days.

Happy snapping