Portrait Photography

an exhibit/tutorial by Philip Greenspun

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A face devoid of love or grace,
A hateful, hard, successful face,
A face with which a stone
Would feel as thoroughly at ease
As were they old acquaintances,-First time together thrown.

-- "A Portrait" by Emily

Dickinson
I share a studio with a worldfamous portrait photographer:
Elsa Dorfman. We have access to
the same location, background,
lights, and equipment. But I'm
not a portrait photographer and
Elsa is. What's the difference?
Elsa cares about people. She is
genuinely curious about people
she has never met and can
connect with them in just a few
minutes. After a one-hour
session, she knows more about
her average subject's life than I
do about my sister's.
Elsa uses a 20x24" Polaroid
camera. Film costs about
$50/exposure, so she limits
herself to two exposures per
subject. Yet her photo of me and
Alex (at right) is one of the only
pictures of myself that I like. I'm
sometimes able to capture the

essence of a friend's expression, but I give myself 36 tries with a 35mm camera or at
least 12 tries with a medium format camera.
Studying Elsa's artistic success has made me believe that the most important thing
about portrait photography is an interest in your subject. If you are so busy working
that you can't care about strangers then don't take their photos! Or at rate, don't expect
those photos to be good. I'm reasonably happy with some of the portraits I took on my
trip to Alaska and back because I had 3.5 months in which to be alone and learn to
appreciate the value of a stranger's company and conversation.

Location
If you don't have or can't create a photo studio then you'll have to concentrate on
environmental portraiture. Show the subject and also his surroundings. These tend to
work best if you can enlarge them to at least 11x14 inches. Otherwise, the subject's face
is simply too small. Taking photos that will enlarge well is a whole art by itself. Your
allies in this endeavor will be slow film, prime (rather than zoom) lenses, a tripod, and a
larger-than-35mm camera format.
There are two elements to a photo studio for portrait photography. One is a controlled
background. You want to focus attention on your subject and avoid distracting elements
in the frame. Probably the best portraits aren't taken against a gray seamless paper roll.
On the other hand, you are unlikely to screw up and leave something distracting in the
frame if you confine yourself to using seamless paper or other monochromatic
backgrounds. You don't have to build a special room to have a controlled background.
There are all kinds of clever portable backdrops and backdrop supports that you can buy
or build (call 1-800-CALUMET and ask for a catalog). If you absolutely cannot control
the background, the standard way to cheat is to use a long fast lens, e.g., 300/2.8. Fast
telephoto lenses have very little depth of field. Your subject's eyes and nose will be sharp.
Everything else that might have been distracting will be blurred into blobs of color.
The second element of a portrait studio is controlled lighting. With lights on stands or
hanging from the ceiling, you get to pick the angle at which light will strike your subject.
With umbrellas and other diffusion equipment, you get to pick the harshness of the
shadows on your subject (see my studio photography article for more detail). There are
some pretty reasonable portable flash kits consisting of a couple of lights, light stands,
and umbrellas. These cost $500-1000 and take 20 minutes or so to set up on location. If
you don't have the money, time, or muscles to bring a light package to a project then the
standard way to cheat is to park your subject next to a large window and put a white
reflecting card on the other side. Make sure that you bring a tripod because you'll
probably be forced to us slow shutter speeds.

Lighting
The most flattering light for most portraits is soft and off-camera. A large north-facing
window works, as does the electronic equivalent, the softbox (light bank). The Elsa

Dorfman photo of me and Alex was taken with two large light banks, one on either side
of the camera. Note that there are essentially no shadows.
If your subject is outdoors, an overcast day is best. If the day is sunny, make sure to use a
reflector or electronic flash to fill in shadows underneath the eyes.
At right: In a New York loft, light coming from a bank of windows at left. Canon 70200/2.8 lens on tripod. Possibly some fill-flash but I don't think so. Fuji ISO 400 color
negative film.
Want more? See my tutorial about photographic lighting.

Lens
If you want to flatter your subject, you'll
probably want to deemphasize his nose.
That means you want to stand at 10 or 15
feet away from him so that his nose isn't
significantly closer to you than the rest of
his face. However, at such a large
distance from the camera, if you want to
fill the frame with just your subject's face,
then you need a high magnification (i.e.,
telephoto) lens. Typical "portrait" lenses
are therefore between 90 and 135
millimeters long (for 35mm cameras).
Many professional fashion photographers
use 300mm or 600mm lenses, resorting to
using a walkie-talkie or bullhorn to
communicate with the model!
At right: South Beach. Miami. Fashion photography capital of the world. Here a yuppie
photographer (note Reef Runners) sneers from the back of his 600/4. He's unhappy with
me for walking by with my Rollei 6008 and 50mm lens. The model is way down the
beachfront and he's using a radio to communicate with an assistant holding a reflector
by the model (in yellow).
With a Canon or Nikon, most professionals end up using their 70-200/2.8 or 80-200/2.8
zooms as portrait lenses. These 3 lb. monsters aren't very pleasant to handhold, though,
and if you know that you're only going to do portraits, you're better off with a prime lens.
Prime lenses are lighter and give better image quality. Unfortunately, the prime lens in
this range that a serious photographer is most likely to own is the 100 or 105 macro.
These are very high quality optically but difficult to focus precisely since most of the
focusing helical precision is reserved for the macro range. Here are some great portrait
lenses: Nikon 105/1.8 (MF only), Canon 100/2 USM, Canon 135/2 USM.

There are folks who argue that a portrait should not be clinically sharp. I'm not one of
them. If I could conveniently use a 4x5 view camera and the latest high-contrast
Schneider lens for every picture, I would. Then I could get wall-size enlargements with
good detail. Conventional wisdom, though, holds that even a standard Nikon 105
macro lens is "too sharp" and that you should fuzz up the picture at exposure time with
either a lower tech lens, a filter (e.g., Zeiss Softar or Tiffen SoftFX), or a stocking
stretched over the lens. My attitude towards this has always been that if I wanted to fuzz
up the photo, I could do it post-exposure under the enlarger or in PhotoShop. In any case,
true connoisseurs of soft focus insist that you must have a lens with uncorrected spherical
aberration. You can get spherical aberration either by using a very old camera/lens or by
buying a purpose-built modern soft focus lens. I own a Canon 135/2.8 SF lens (example
at right). With the twist of the ring, you can vary the softness from none (normal highgrade telephoto lens) to rather soft. I don't use this lens too much but the photo at right is
luminous in a way that is tough to explain and would be difficult to reproduce in
PhotoShop. It saddens me that Canon has not updated this lens with an ultrasonic motor,
which would allow simultaneous manual and auto focus. That's why I have to
recommend the 100/2 USM or 135/2L USM instead.
As far as doing soft focus in other formats, Rodenstock makes an Imagon lens for 4x5
view cameras. It has perforated disks that you shove into the middle of the lens.
Unfortunately, different softness and aperture settings affect the focus so you have to
focus with the lens stopped down. In medium format, people like the old Zeiss 150 lens
for Hasselblad because it simply isn't all that sharp.

Film
Most people probably look better in black and white. If you want the sharpest results,
you'll get them with Agfapan 25, Kodak TMAX-100, and Kodak TMAX 400 CN.
Kodak's ancient Tri-X emulsion has enough grain that it may flatter certain subjects. I
don't really like Tri-X in the 35mm format; the grain is simply too obtrusive. Tri-X works
for me in 120 or 4x5 size, though.
If you're doing color, you'll want subtle tones, low color saturation, and low-ish contrast.
My favorite films are Fuji Astia, Kodak 100SW (ISO 100 slide) and Fuji NPS (ISO 160
color negative).
See my film article for more on this subject.
At right: my grandmother Shirley on Tri-X.

Camera
Any 35mm single-lens-reflex will work fine. The snob 35mm
rangefinders are probably great, e.g., the Contax G2 or Leica M6
with a 90mm lens. The standard medium format approach would be

a Hasselblad and a 150mm lens. If you have a flotilla of assistants like Annie Liebowitz,
you could use the camera she uses: Mamiya RZ67. If you have a lot of patience, a 4x5
view camera with 270mm lens isn't a bad option.
The worst possible camera is a zoom point and shoot. Their lenses are far too slow at the
telephoto end. So you get f/10 instead of f/2.8 and your background is sharp instead of
blurry. Or you have to use the on-camera flash instead of natural light. It really is a waste
of film. See my point and shoot article for more on these otherwise remarkable cameras.
Among the digital cameras, it is tough to do good work unless you have a true singlelens-reflex. The photo at right was taken with a Nikon D1. As of April 2001, an excellent
digital choice for portraiture is Olympus E-10.
[If you're in the market for a new camera, check the photo.net recommended retailers.]

Environmental Portrait
Here's a photo I took in Costa Rica. That's Diane Ewing,
consummate horsewoman and proprietress of Hacienda
Bar&uacute. Her face would be completely black if I hadn't
used the built-in flash of my Canon EOS-5 body to fill in the
shadow under her hat. I hope you'll excuse any technical errors
in the photo. I was sitting on a horse myself. Canon 20-35/2.8L
zoom lens. Fuji Sensia film.
Note that with environmental portaits, you don't necessarily use
a "portrait-length" lens. In fact, usually a wide angle lens of
some kind is used, though probably closer to 35mm than
20mm.
Here are some more examples of photos that might reasonably be called environmental
portraits:

Note: these are from my New York pages and Travels with Samantha.

Do you really need the wide aperture?

Well, you can tell me. The photo at left (Dieter) was taken with a Canon
35-350L zoom lens. I was traveling light in Costa Rica and didn't have
room for a supertelephoto. The 35-350L slows down to around f/5.6 at
longer focal lengths. The photo at right (Emma) was taken in Alaska's
Katmai National Park. I was there to take photos of bears so I had my
300/2.8 with me. For my taste, the portrait of Emma is vastly better due
to the shallower depth of field and consequently less distracting
background. Too bad I was using Fuji Velvia film, which is not the best
for skin tone.

Is the 80-200/2.8 zoom useful?

Though the big professional zooms are heavy and not as sharp as primes, I find that they
encourage me to experiment. At right is a standard portrait that I took for my New York
section. If I'd had a fixed 180 I probably wouldn't have been able to back up far enough to
get in this much of Tal's body. On the other hand, if I hadn't been able to rack my Canon
70-200/2.8L lens out to 200, I might not have gotten the photo below (sadly the negative
was damaged by the Duggal lab in New York).

6x6: Give your subjects some room

The rectangular format of most cameras encourages photographers to crop rather tightly
around a subject's face or torso. The 6x6 cm square format encourages you to give
subjects a little bit of space.
George, my old companion. This was
hand-held with some Tri-X on the
carpeted floor of an office building. I
was using Adobe PhotoShop to crop
this image for the Web when an art
director from Hearst walked by. He
grabbed me by the shoulders and
shook me until I realized that it was
the space in front of the dog that
made the photo work.

Roommates. The MIT nerd

perfectionist in me can't avoid seeing
the horrible technical flaw in this
photo: the reflector edge in the lower
left corner of the frame.

Reading. From my Cape Cod series.

This was taken with the 80mm lens,
a normal focal length for 6x6. If
you're not trying to fill the frame
with the subject's face, you don't
actually need a telephoto lens to
avoid an unflattering perspective. In
medium format, this can have
economic implications. A telephoto
lens for a 'Blad or Rollei 6008 is
about $2000!

Generation Gap.

More pictures of my family

My grandfather Nick Gittes

Cousin Douglas and wife Leslie at Harry and Katerina's wedding.

Fuji NPH low-contrast wedding film, Canon EOS-3, 28-70/2.8L lens

Pictures that I'm too lazy to write about

(but that might give you a good idea)