Jeff Smith's Guide to Head and Shoulders Portrait Photography

This is achieved by turning the face toward the main light while the eyes come
back to the camera. This works well for all shapes of eyes, except for people
with bulging eyes. When this is done on bulging eyes, too much of the white
will show and draw attention to the problem.
The point at which you ask the subject to focus their gaze in respect to the
position of the camera’s lens also, in essence, poses the eye. As I’ve already men-
tioned, the subject should always be looking at someone, not something. To do
this, I put my face where I want their eyes to be. There is a certain spark that
the eyes have when they look into someone else’s eyes that they don’t have
when they are looking at a spot on the wall or a camera lens.
Usually, I position my face directly over the camera. This puts the eyes in a
slightly upward position, increasing the appearance of the catchlights. If the
camera position is too high to make this possible, I position my face on the
main-light side of the camera, never beneath it and never to the shadow side of
it. Both would decrease the catchlights.
With my face directly to the side of the camera, the eyes appear to be look-
ing directly into the lens, even though the subject is actually looking at me.
When looking from the side of the camera, a common mistake that my new
photographers make is getting their face too far from the camera. This makes
the eyes of the subject appear to be looking off-camera—which is fine if that is
the intention and not a mistake.
When the eyes of the subject look into the lens (or very close to it), the por-
trait seems to make eye contact with the viewer. This type of portrait typically
sells better than portraits that have the subject looking off-camera in a more
reflective pose. Reflective posing does, however, work in a storytelling por-
trait—a bride glancing out a window as if waiting for her groom, a senior glanc-
ing over the top of a book and thinking of the future, new parents looking
down at their baby and thinking of how many diapers they are going to have
to change before that kid is potty trained. Well, maybe not that last one—but
you get the picture.
If the eyesareto look away from the camera, there a few rules that need to
be followed. They are really simple rules, but ones that I see broken often. First,
the eyes should follow the same line as that of the nose. It looks ridiculous to
have the eyes looking in a different direction than the nose is pointing. This
goes for poses with the subject looking just off-camera, as well as for complete
profiles. Second, as you turn the face away from the camera, there comes a point
where the bridge of the nose starts to obscure the eye farthest from the cam-
era. At this point, you have gone too far. Either you go into a complete profile,
showing only one eye, or you bring the face back to provide a clear view of
both eyes.
The Tilt of the Head.How I wish that every college teaching photography
would just avoid this one subject. I have never seen one aspect of photography

60 JEFF SMITH’S GUIDE TO HEAD AND SHOULDERS PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY

FACING PAGE—When the subject is looking

at a person, rather than the lens or a spot

on the wall, their expression will appear to

be more engaged.

This type of portrait

typically sells better

than portraits that

have the subject

looking off-camera.