Don’t Focus on the Subject

Brotherhood & Music, originally uploaded by kamikaze productions.

There are tons of reasons to take portraits of people. Money and for fun rank among the highest if I had to venture a guess. This blog entry actually applies to all reasons though. I have titled it “Don’t Focus on the Subject” as an approach to becoming more artistic and creative during your portrait sessions. No matter what, you will always have a “subject” or else you won’t have an area of focus. But who is to say you can snap a couple extra photos during a job to grab some artistic photos for the portfolio.

Recently, I did a individual/group portrait session for a group of friends trying to break into the music industry. The photo above is an image of my Fraternity brother – Qui-Juan Jones. During the shoot, I was of course trying to capture all of my subjects in ways that would show who they are as musicians and people. Often times, when we have a specific intention in mind, our brains get bogged down trying to hammer out pictures within only one realm of creativity. That may have sounded confusing so I will simplify. We have a job – portraits. So we concentrate only on the face, because, well heck, the face is an important part of the portrait don’t you think? Well here is my call to shoot some extra shots and avoid the face as your subject.

Qui-Juan, as you can see, has a tattoo. I decided why not get creative with that as well. There are tons of things that one could emphasize, and you could probably snap the photo while your subject thinks you are still focused on their face. Don’t let your creativity be silenced by what you think you are limited by based on the purpose of the shoot!

Think about shots you’ve seen on sites like Flickr. Many wedding photographers take pictures of the hands (focus the big diamond ring of course!). Photographers focus on the stomach for pregnancy photos…the limbs for mom/dad and newborn…and those are just the themes that I’ve seen. All of our minds work differently, so find other things to focus on based on your subject’s individuality and unique physical characteristics. Keep the creativity in your flow, even though sometimes things seem a bit mundane.

Here are some great examples of portraiture without a clear shot of the face involved! Now get out there and try!

Explore the photostreams of these photographers by clicking the pictures.