Great Portraits  
 
Many great photographs are made outdoors, especially on an overcast day or with backlight.  A nice portfolio would have close-ups as well as full length images that show personality.  Studio portraits, using a simple background and professional lighting equipment, focus the attention entirely on the people in the portrait.  Outdoor locations are also part of a good portrait package, and even outdoors proper supplementary lighting can be required to fill in shadows and eliminate color casts. 

Creative poses and techniques go hand-in-hand with traditional formal poses    

Family Portraits with Pets

            Some of the nicest images are family portraits with your pets, especially at your home or in a beautiful location outdoors.  I was especially lucky this day to have a lovely fog shrouding the vivid autumn landscape, a perfect backdrop for this family with the three golden retrievers.  The final outdoor portrait enlarged to 20x30 inches on canvas makes a gorgeous work of art.  Likewise the close-up of the girl and her horse made a beautiful and artistic wall portrait.

Black-and-white brother/sisters portrait

Interactive outdoor portraits

Portraits in the home

   
Boudoir Portraits

Children's Portraiture

Good portraits don't always need to show big smiles.  As a matter of fact, some of the best portraits show contemplative or candid expressions.

Finishing the Portraits

            A good professional will include retouching with each portrait.  This takes care of stray hairs, wrinkles, blemishes and vignetting of the edges.  This usually involves darkening the edges of the image so that the subject is more the center of attention.  Sometimes with a high-key image on a white background, vignetting means fading out the edges to give a dreamy quality.

          Of course, Photoshop lets us swap heads or move people around in case someone blinked or needs to be added to (or subtracted from) the family picture. 

         
            Portrait photographs can be printed in traditional sizes, but gallery-wrapped canvas is becoming very popular.  Gallery-wrapping means the photograph wraps around stretcher bars, creating a frameless work that can hang as is.  Other advantages are that the image is not diminished by glass reflections, since the canvas has a protective spray and needs no glass.  And large canvas prints - 20x30 inches and larger - weigh very little, making it easy to hang them. 

            Other presentations include Triptychs and WordArt.  Plus you can have the photographs printed on mugs, mousepads, dry erase boards, magnets, and many other products. 

Who Owns the Copyright?

            One thing that people should understand is that when you hire a professional to make a portrait, or when you buy a print or work of art, you only own the prints, not the rights to reproduce them.  The photographer always owns the copyright.  So unless he or she grants permission to the customer to have the pictures reproduced in any way, they should be ordered through the photographer.  After all, it is his or her talent that enabled you to enjoy a portrait of your treasured family members, and that talent, like any skill, is worth paying for!

See PaintOnPhotos for other ways of making portraits unique!

To restore old photographs, see FixOldPix

MainePetPhotography

High School seniors

Maine-Wedding-Photographer

Do It Yourself Snapshots - NOT!-  Of course, nearly everyone can take a good picture or two, but more often they are poor quality images.  Some of the problems most snapshots have:           

            *Out of focus, or unsharp images
            *Low resolution - many people don't understand that they need to set their digital cameras to the highest resolution quality.  That allows for larger and better quality prints.  Low-res images tend to pixelate (break up into pixel squares).  Not pretty.
            *Demon Eyes - using your camera's flash indoors makes the back of the eyes glow (red-eye) giving a demonic look.  The eyes mirror the soul, and you've lost an important part of your loved one's personality due to poor lighting techniques.
            * Looking down at your young child instead of getting at eye level
            * Being too close with a wide-angle lens (your widest zoom).  This distorts facial features, making the nose out of proportion to the rest of the body.
            *Harsh lighting - photographs in direct sun often have harsh shadows and washed-out highlights.  Light is very important in creating a good photograph, and while it can be tricky, backlight (with the sun behind the subject) can be very pleasing if done right. 
            *Poor composition
            *Poor pose
      
As with anything, if you don't have the skills, hire a professional!   

To book a Portrait Session with Cindy McIntyre, Maine Portrait Photographer :  

Cindy McIntyre Images
PO Box 646
308 Washington Road
Waldoboro ME 04572
207-832-7490
cindy@cindymcintyre.com
www.CindyMcIntyre.com

Portrait Pricelist