How to Take Digital Studio Portraits

Create your own studio quality digital portraits at home with your digital camera quickly and easily. Digital cameras have so many options that almost anyone can be a professional photographer. With a little knowledge and imagination, you will no longer need to pay high priced professionals to take portraits for you, or pick from a selection of poses you are not in love with. Follow these steps and be your own family photographer.

Things You'll Need

• Digital camera
• Drop cloth
• Reflector boards
• Clamp lights

Instructions

1. Set up your studio. Pick a space in your home that has controllable natural light, and plenty of outlets. Hang a length of rope across your studio space, and drape the drop cloth over it. Hang enough drop cloth that it loosely covers the floor. Secure the corners along the rope with clothes pins. Secure the edges on the ground with weights.

2. Use the various surfaces of your room to place your clamp lights on. Natural light is always best, but not always possible. Hanging many clamp lights will allow you to control the intensity of the light.
   Place reflector boards strategically throughout the room. Harsh lighting will cast shadows behind your subject and create an undesirable portrait. Mylar windshield shades for cars make great reflectors, and have more placement options.

3. Gather props. A simple black stool is perfect for a classic seated portrait. Batting used for quilting creates clouds when placed beneath your subject. If you are photographing infants, you will need to purchase foam wedges to keep the baby from falling over. Always have an adult nearby in case baby decides to roll.

4. Set your digital camera on the fastest shutter speed possible. You'll need to take rapid fire shots to get the perfect one. According to photographer Wayne Abrahams, a photographer gets only one perfect shot for every 100 frames.

5. Natural portraits are best. Create a relaxing atmosphere in your studio. For adults, use music of their era, and get them talking about the past. This will cause them to produce a genuine smile, or a melancholy expression. For babies and children, allow them to play with the props to get a natural smile. Encourage the parents to be present, but to not push their children into a contrived posed. Children are naturally photogenic and beautiful.

6. Save your photos to a CD, and have them printed. Unless you have a professional printer that is capable of producing poster sized photos, you will not be satisfied with the self-printed portrait. You can print high quality digital portraits online for reasonable prices.

Tips & Warnings

• Be creative with props. Try letting children play dress up before their shoot. Explore black and white photography. Learn which digital camera settings are appropriate for your studio portrait.

• Shadows and inappropriate reflections will ruin your photograph.

Resources

• How to choose a digital camera
• Digital Photography Techniques
• Photography supplies