Portrait Photography | People and Places

© 2010 Wazari Wazir | Portraiture | Botanical Garden | Putrajaya

Portrait photography is not all about great Bokeh, it is not all about fancy camera equipment, super fast portrait lens like 50mm f1.2 or 85mm f2 lens. Portrait photography is all about capturing the character of the people being photograph the most. For me, there are two kind of a portrait shot, the one where you just concentrate on the person itself, close up shot, maybe head and shoulder shot where, the background is not important, I mean doesn’t need to be in focus because the centre of attraction is the person only, if that is the case super fast portrait lens will do the job by throwing out the background out of focus completely if you choose to shoot at its widest aperture setting.

Another type of portrait photography is “Environmental Portrait”, where you photograph your subject and it’s surroundings, to tell a story or to complement your photograph, where it’s been taken, why it’s been taken or maybe to tell a story about the career of your subject, for an example a picture of a fisherman  with his ship or a picture of an executive against a rack of books behind him. In this case the background that you choose will make or break your photograph, so you need to choose it and compose it carefully so it will not become too dominant in the picture or becoming a distraction instead of complement.

This picture above, a photograph of my wife with my son was taken at Moroccan Pavilion in Putrajaya inside Botanical Garden area, this place was quite busy with visitors, it’s very hard to get a clean background, there will always unwanted people that will enter the frame, I say “unwanted” because I don’t want them to be in the frame, they are welcoming here, since this is public area and tourist attraction. I’ve to wait and act fast in order for me to get a clean shot of my wife and son.

I choose to position them carefully between those two pillars and to have a nice perspective or leading line there. The clothes that my wife and son wears also being chosen before we head over to this place, I know in advance what this place look like, what’s their dominant colors because I’ve been here before and I know what colors that will make my subject standout from the surrounding. In term of the colors of the clothing, I think it work but if you really want to make it looking great, choosing a traditional Malay costume or Arabic costume will really make it even better. It will look like that you have taken a photograph at Marrakesh in Morocco.

I did not use 50mm lens here, instead I use (UWA) Ultra Wide Angle Lens 10-20mm for this shot in order for me to capture the surrounding area, to capture the beautiful Moroccan architecture and about the editing, I did add a little bit of soft texture there to make it look quite classic but that “crocs” shoes that my son is wearing spoil the shot but thinking back it is a great story to tell, between modern “crocs” design against old or classic looking architecture.

We are in the month of Ramadan now, and to all my friends who have been looking for a great Ramadan or Eid ul-Fitr theme pictures, I think this is one of many great place to make a Ramadan portrait or Eid ul-Fitr family portraits, just come here with “Hari Raya” costume and you will have a happy family picture to hang in your wall.

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