OK I’m excited! In this post, I want to share what I consider to be the most important aspect (!) about portrait photography for me. Here’s a statement that describes it in a nutshell: I think many portrait photographers would benefit from thinking a bit less about the technical side of photography and focus more on how to make their approach more humanistic and empathetic.
I realized that a portrait could have the most beautiful lighting, be taken with the highest performing camera and lens, but if the subject looks awkward or uncomfortable, it’s a failed portrait. (I’ll add the caveat that here, I’m only narrowly talking about most commercial portrait photography—there are other kinds portraits where you may indeed want to elicit uncomfortable portraits. For most headshots, however, I think what I’m saying here applies.)
Most subjects come to the photoshoot with insecurities, many are being photographed formally for the first time, and almost all of them have had uncomfortable or awkward experiences when being photographed in the past. Some people absolutely dread the idea of being photographed. What can we do to change this? I don’t have specific answers, but I can share the questions that I constantly think about:
How can I create the right conditions and environment during a shoot to make subjects more comfortable?
What makes people start feeling awkward in front of the camera? What can we do to prevent that?
How can I better guide them so that they’re not left hanging with wondering what to do in front of the lens?
How can I re-assure subjects who don’t think that they’re photogenic? How can I show them that they don’t need to be photogenic?
What can I do before the shoot in our communications to minimize the dread they might feel the morning of the portrait session?
Those are the questions that I always think about and prioritize when trying to think of ways to improve the portraits that I create for my clients and subjects. I don’t think many photographers think consciously about these things. I think many people assume that all subjects have varying degrees of comfort and that it’s just part of the luck of the draw and whether subjects and photographers happen to be a good fit or not.
I used to be interested in the technical side of cameras, lenses, flashes, etc., but I realized very quickly that my portrait photography would improve much more if I stopped focusing on the technical side and started focusing almost entirely on the experience of the subject, ie how to be a more empathetic photographer.
I recently gave a talk at the co-working space Pop-Up Lab on this very topic and I presented two scenarios. Let’s say that we take photos in a portrait session, then we go look at them together on the screen, going through each portrait one by one, and as we go through them we suddenly have an objectively bad portrait pop up on the screen, a photo in which the subject just looks plain awkward or uncomfortable. Consider two scenarios.
Scenario A: the subject sees that bad portrait, they cringe, they think “ugh I’m so not photogenic”, they get embarassed that I see that portrait, etc. Basically negative emotions all around.
Scenario B: the subject sees that bad portrait and bursts out laughing, and we move on to the next photo.
Two extreme reactions to seeing a bad portrait of yourself. This can vary between subjects of course, but I think that as a photographer, you can set up the right environment and conditions to favour Scenario B.
So with all of this, what can we explicitly do as photographers? After several years of trying to figure this out, here are a few things that I’ve decided to focus on:
I try to reduce uncertainty around the photoshoot for my subjects. I want them to know exactly what will happen when they show up to the studio and what it will be like to be photographed once the photoshoot begins.
I try take an iterative approach to taking portraits. We take photos, we look at them, we analyze what works and what doesn’t work, and we go back to taking more photos and repeat until we’re happy. With this process, it becomes so much easier to see a bad photo of oneself in a judgement-free and objective way. We’re just focused on what to improve in the next iteration.
I try to think about the little things that will help the experience of everyone involved. Let’s say that I’m in contact with a representative of a company and am about to take headshots for 20 employees. I know that how that representative shares the information about the headshot sessions to those 20 employees will have a huge impact on how the photoshoot might go. I make sure to help them communicate the information well so that even when I have a degree of separation between myself and the subjects, I can still manage to reduce uncertainty around a photo session. I don’t want nervous employees waiting around for this anonymous photographer to show up. Imagine receiving an email from HR saying:
“Hey! We hired a photographer for headshots next week. Please don’t be late, don’t forget to look your best!”
vs.
“Hey! For our upcoming headshots, we’ve hired Alex Tran. He’s a Montreal-based portrait photographer (who kind of specializes in photographing people who aren’t used to being photographed). He’ll be able to guide everyone 100% of the way in terms of posing and expressions, you’ll be able to look at the photos with him and pick your favourite during your session.”
I think as photographers, we should be deliberate with every interactions with our subjects. From the initial information displayed on our website, to our communications via email, to how we interact with them during sessions, there’s so much we can do to improve the experience of our subjects. I still tweak things here and there and adapt my approach as I learn, but I saw a huge difference in my career when I decided to focus on the human side more.
Thanks for reading!
