Last week I noticed a photo from the #NoDAPL solidarity action in Philadelphia. President Obama was coming into Philly to speak for Hilary Clinton's campaign while she took some time off to recover from pneumonia. Here's the shot:
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| Camera set to Aperture Priority, 55mm f/4.0. 1/640 sec. ISO 100. |
It stood out to me among the rest of my images and thought to myself, "wow! that looks like a stock photo!" Kind of a strange thing to say to myself, you might think. Why did I do so?
The big reason this image jumped out at me is how strong this young woman looks, with little to no distraction - except for the white sign in the bottom left corner. The shallow depth of field helps to isolate her from the busy background of trees, branches and light sky. More than all these things, I remembered that I had crouched down low, on one knee perhaps, to take this shot. You can see more of her chin and cheek bones than if I was standing at my full height, or even at her eye level.
Here's a another shot I took. Similarly using a long zoom with shallow depth of field. But it just doesn't carry the same kind of strength to it:
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| 178mm, f/5.7, 1/1000 sec. |
I'm standing at my full height, also on a slight rise compared to the woman. Consequently, the lens is looking down at her.
So, I began repeating the shot: zoom in tight, use shallow depth of field (as small an aperture as possible ~ f/5.6) and crouch down low so that I'm looking slightly up at the person. Here are a few more images that this technique produced:
So remember, for powerful action portaits, use a long lens (I used a 55-250mm kit lens), smallest aperture for shallow depth of field (f/4.0 in my case) and crouch down low so your lens is tilted up towards your subject.
Finally, looking at the range of images above, the ones that really work most effectively have a distinct, but soft, shadow under the subject's chin. The two young men who are noticeably side-lit aren't as striking to me.
Give this technique a try and send me your photos so I can show case them on this blog, or share them with me on Facebook or Instagram!
