More About Making Images of People

More About Making Images of People

by William Lulow

I thought I would add some more information about making pictures of people, because not every good image of a person or persons needs to be made in a studio setting. Nor is it necessary to have your subjects be looking directly at the camera. Here is one of my very early attempts at making a good image of people:

It was actually made with my old Ricohflex 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 camera on a street in New York City around 1955. I was eleven years old, but somehow had an eye for interesting composition. This was a “capture” shot. I didn’t direct the subjects at all. I had no idea what that even meant, at the time. But the juxtaposition of the girl and the boy seemed interesting to me. And, of course it was a Black&White image. Much later, when I had studied the FSA photographers who President Roosevelt had sent to document the midwest during the Great Depression like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, I came to the realization that I had unconsciously duplicated their styles.

Here is another early portrait of a fellow student at the University of Wisconsin made back in 1967.  You can tell that I had an eye for certain portrait elements even back then when I wasn’t even thinking about doing photography professionally. Images like this actually got me interested in doing more photography because I suddenly had a number of my fellow students who wanted me to make pictures of them.

Fast forward to this month (January, 2024) after studying about portrait lighting and practicing the art for over forty years, I was walking on the beach with my brother who was visiting us in Florida and his ex-wife who was also vacationing here, when I just turned around and said that I’d like to do a picture of the two of them who have remained friends although not married any longer. I knew that if I just took a picture of them with my iPhone, it wouldn’t have quite the same quality as one with my regular, digital camera, which I happened to have with me. I also knew that given the lighting situation on the beach, I would have to fill in some shadows caused by the sun. So I popped up the little built-in flash on the camera and made this portrait:

I also wanted to give the image a bit of subtlety by making it in original Black + White. It might not have worked as well in color, but the notion of adding some light to the image was one that I teach often. The sun adds highlights to everything we see outdoors and also creates shadows. Those always need to be lightened a bit so we can see details. The art of photographing people wherever they happen to be is enhanced by the knowledge of how to combine all the photographic elements to produce a good image.

Here is yet another way, a member of the waitstaff snapped this image of me and one of my former art directors at a restaurant in downtown Sarasota. Technically it is not my photo, but it was done with my iPhone (Waiters and waitresses are often charged with making these iPhone pictures of people celebrating whatever occasion):

These are more just “people” pictures rather than real, studio-type portraits. There are lots of ways of making effective people pictures. These are just a few of them.