Derek Ridgers wrote:
In a couple of threads recently many photographers have expressed real incredulity as why anyone would ever want to shoot portraits up really close to their subject.  Almost everyone is in agreement that nothing shorter than a 85mm lens should be used, with many recommending 135mm, 200mm and even 300mm.

I'd probably agree if one only ever shoots glamour or fashion and you want everything to look pretty.  But what if you shoot documentary or editorial portraiture and you want to get right up in the face of your subject intentionally?   And what if the slight element of caricature, which a shorter lens gives (say a 50mm) is a requirment?

Besides which, I've spent over thirty years shooting documentary portraits in spaces where even a 50mm lens will sometimes be getting a little tight.

I just wanted to put an alternate point of view here.

I've shot face shots at 28mm.

The issue is people not understanding the difference between a portrait and a headshot/beauty shot. A portrait is a photo of the person's interior. A headshot/beauty shot is a photo of a person's exterior - the person physically the person as an object.

Beauty shots aren't intended to be about the personality, they are about the appearance. An actor's head shot is not about their acting skills it's to accurately show what they look like.

The one gray area would be executive portraits. They aren't really about the interior and there's usually a subtext that goes beyond the exterior, so head and shoulders (85mm to show suit top) become more appropriate.

The thing is, when you're shooting a portrait, a photo of someone's interior, their accuracy of their physical appearance is completely irrelevant. Put Robin Williams in a $10,000 custom suit with a clown nose, and that's not at all what he looks like in reality, but that lets you know exactly what he's like as a person. You could shoot that with a long lens, medium head to toe or even with a fisheye and the story is exactly the same. The meaning is the same. The style is different and you may want to choose based on the size and shape that it will be published in, but it's the same photo.

The information you can get about a person from their face only is minimal compared to what you get when you show more. If you show their entire body, you get clothes, body language. If you photograph them where they live you get even more clues - income, their taste, if they care enough to decorate, if their in a transitional time shown through living in a place that's being renovated.

If you look at Annie Leibovitz's early portraits they're very often done at 24mm - this is for individuals. Jim Marshall shot a lot of his concerts at 24mm - this shows context.

Working up close can be very important to the photographer/subject relationship. If you want an intimate relationship, you have to be intimate. Standing across the room yelling directions over the sound of fans at some poor victim squinting in the blinding light of a half dozen strobes is very different than whispering "chin up" from 18 inches away.

It may be counter intuitive, but people are more comfortable being shot from someone close up. Yes there is a bubble of personal space, but they're consenting to letting you in on a personal level when they consent to the photo. The closer you are the more of their senses they can use to asses you and your "intent".

Take a nude shoot with someone who may or may not be a GWC, shooting with a zoom from 12 feet vs a prime from 4 feet. You can't see his face, you can't hear his breathing, you can't smell him and you can't touch him. He can zoom in and take crotch shots and you really can't tell how the shot is being framed. Closer with a prime, it's obvious.

Really close you get farm more detail in the communication. More details in the sound of his voice. You can smell if he's turned on in a creepy way or if he hasn't showered, or if he's got his Axe body spray. If your feet or legs touch, like a model's hanging off of a bed, the model can feel how he reacts, does he linger or flinch or move a way in a normal respectable way? People use all 5 senses to get input from the world and the more they can use, the more accurately they can perceive their environment and whether or not it's safe to let their guard down.

For people with good intentions, it's an advantage to work close, because it makes for a very different relationship with the subject.

Bruce Gilden uses proximity for the opposite, but he's stealing photos. He's most often not shooting consensually. However, there are videos of him shooting consensually and again, he's up close and his subjects are very comfortable.


I get why people want to shoot headshots/beauty shots with long lenses. I can't see any reason why they'd want to shoot portraits with a long lens because it's nearly impossible to show a person's interior that way. And when you do, you're drastically limiting the amount of information you can draw from and present.

It's really the difference between shooting people as people or as objects.

Frugivore wrote:
Yes, the perspective from a lens that's 50mm or less will make chins and noses look a little bigger,

This is 100% incorrect. A lens doesn't have a perspective. A photographer has perspective based on distance. The photographer chooses the distance, not the lens.

Look at Stephen Eastwoods long lens tutorial and read what it really says. It doesn't say that long lenses give better perspective. What it really shows is that perspective becomes an issue when you're closer than 2 feet or so.

In this example  - http://stepheneastwood.com/tutorials/le … ippage.htm

The 50mm lens is shot from about 1 foot away.

The crops are not identical between all of the lenses, so it's misleading when you see a shot with a smaller head that looks like it's showing distortion. There's really none at 70mm. So if that 50mm is at 1 foot, where was the 70mm shot from, 1.5 maybe?

Do you see any on the 100mm macro? That's probably at 2 feet.

You can get way closer than most people do and not have any issues with perspective. People see his tutorial and don't read it. They see 16mm and 300mm and conclude longer is better and that's the point where the thinking stops. There's such a bias here towards long lenses for everything and it's really not based in fact, especially comments like a 50mm lens will cause distortion. Unless you can only shoot a 50mm lens from less than two feet away, that's simply not true.

Here's a series of celebrity portraits. http://antoninkratochvil.com/#/Stories%202/Incognito/1

I don't think you'll find any problems due to perspective and as far as I know, every shot was with a 28mm lens FF.

Creative Concept Studio wrote:


Huh? No close-up leaves the personality behind..

What does that photo tell us about her personality? Is she generally happy or more melancholy? Is fat with a pretty face? Was she crippled in a car accident an an early age? Is she a narcissist obsessed with having a perfect body and we can see that she spends 8 hours a day at the gym? Is she a stunt woman with scars all over her body? Is she a rich chick wearing a gingham sweater set in the two-story library of her family's old money mansion? Is she a hot chick living in a trailer park? Did she loose a leg in a shark attack while in a surfing competition? Does she laugh easily? Is she even likable?

What can we tell about her other from this other than that she has nice eyes?

I'm sure you can tell us about her personality because you met her, but you can't get it from the photo.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing the photo. I love the way it looks. I'm criticizing the accuracy of the statement in your post. Unless what you meant was "No, close-up leaves the personality behind."

Good Egg Productions wrote:
Why don't you just do it the way you do it and not put energy into how everyone else does it?

Because this is a forum and some people may find it to be an interesting topic.

MC Grain wrote:
It may be counter intuitive, but people are more comfortable being shot from someone close up. Yes there is a bubble of personal space, but they're consenting to letting you in on a personal level when they consent to the photo. The closer you are the more of their senses they can use to asses you and your "intent".

I've never found this to be the case myself.  Over the years I've often photographed aggressive young men who spend most of their lives hanging about the streets in gangs.  The kind of people whose gaze you might ordinarily prefer not to meet.  Or you might cross the road to avoid.  If you separate them slightly from their friends and then silently get right up in their face, you'll often see another side to them.  Uneasiness, nervousness, vulnerability.

Derek Ridgers wrote:

I've never found this to be the case myself.  Over the years I've often photographed aggressive young men who spend most of their lives hanging about the streets in gangs.  The kind of people whose gaze you might ordinarily prefer not to meet.  Or you might cross the road to avoid.  If you separate them slightly from their friends and then silently get right up in their face, you'll often see another side to them.  Uneasiness, nervousness, vulnerability.

Wouldn't the expectation be that they'd beat you senseless?

They're consenting to letting their guard down and when you're that close what you're seeing is them, not something that you're causing from being that close.

I shoot a ton of test photos out the windows of cabs or on the street - mostly testing some exposure related idea I have. I look at them and delete them, the context doesn't matter. I ended up shooting my corner drug dealer from across the street and boy did that make him paranoid. He was really pissed.

MC Grain wrote:
What it really shows is that perspective becomes an issue when you're closer than 2 feet or so.

Anything under about 6 feet introduces a bit of perspective distortion but until you get below 4 feet it's probably only noticeable if you're aware of it as a potential problem and thus looking for it.

I personally like to shoot headshots and beauty from about 8-10 feet away, but for more casual, editorial, or portrait style work I will sometimes get as close as 4 feet when it feels right.




Just my $0.02

Ciao
Stefano

www.stefanobrunesci.com

SPierce Photography wrote:
Nearly all the headshots (or most of them) in my portfolio were taken with a 50mm macro lens. I suppose people can pass judgment on that or not.

Yes, but you're on a cropped sensor camera, so it's the same farming that we're discussing. You're at the equivalent of 75mm.

Stefano Brunesci wrote:

Anything under about 6 feet introduces a bit of perspective distortion but until you get below 4 feet it's probably only noticeable if you're aware of it as a potential problem and thus looking for it.

I personally like to shoot headshots and beauty from about 8-10 feet away, but for more casual, editorial, or portrait style work I will sometimes get as close as 4 feet when it feels right.




Just my $0.02

Ciao
Stefano

www.stefanobrunesci.com

Do you see it in Eastwood's tutorial at that distance?

Connor Photography wrote:
I love shooting with my 50 mm f1.4.  It stays on my camera more than any other lenses.  May be I have a DX body, who knows.

I think the 50mm on DX provides the same desirability as the 85mm does on the FX bodies.

MC Grain wrote:
Wouldn't the expectation be that they'd beat you senseless?

It hasn't happened so far but that may be because I'm always very polite and I don't patronise people.

MC Grain wrote:
They're consenting to letting their guard down and when you're that close what you're seeing is them, not something that you're causing from being that close.

I don't think they intend to let their guard down and my presence is definitely part of the equation.  I'm mostly photographing their reaction to me.

MC Grain wrote:
I shoot a ton of test photos out the windows of cabs or on the street...

Well that working method was what made Gary Winogrand famous.  I'd keep them if I were you.

Derek Ridgers wrote:

MC Grain wrote:
Wouldn't the expectation be that they'd beat you senseless?

It hasn't happened so far but that may be because I'm always very polite and I don't patronise people.

MC Grain wrote:
They're consenting to letting their guard down and when you're that close what you're seeing is them, not something that you're causing from being that close.

I don't think they intend to let their guard down and my presence is definitely part of the equation.  I'm mostly photographing their reaction to me.


Well that working method was what made Gary Winogrand famous.  I'd keep them if I were you.

How do you know what your photographing? It could be their reaction to you. It could be a ton of other things.

My test photos are no Winogrands. I do keep things that are interesting, but most of them are not. I've got lots of street photos, but that's a whole different story.

Aaron Lewis Photography wrote:

I think the 50mm on DX provides the same desirability as the 85mm does on the FX bodies.

+1 I like the 50mm f/1.4 on a crop for close beauty, but I like primes

MC Grain wrote:
How do you know what your photographing? It could be their reaction to you. It could be a ton of other things.

I've been doing what I do for long enough and in the same way to be able to make the judgement that my subjects are reacting in some significant sense to the way I operate.  Of course, I may be wrong sometimes.  They may look nervous and uncomfortable because they're high or their pet dog just died.

But I see the same look time and again.  And I've leap to the conclusion that I am the common denominator.

Just as if you and I were to photograph the same model in the same room with the same light and with the same camera - the photos would still be very different.

Decapixel wrote:
Hmmm, it's interesting to still see the shorter / longer lens distortion argument. I though that we were past that kind of problems with software like Lightroom or DXO that correct distortion. Am I missing something?

Yea, I know... you don't need to know anything, just fix it in photoshop.

Vector One Photography wrote:

Yea, I know... you don't need to know anything, just fix it in photoshop.

It's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that I wouldn't rule out doing a portrait with a 28mm or a 35mm as I can correct the lens deformation in post (sometime you just don't have the space).

Creative Concept Studio wrote:


Huh? No close-up leaves the personality behind..

ByteStudio wrote:
Depends on the goal of the shot - 85mm Micro/Macro from about 1 foot... probably blurs the line on "portrait" - but... Close works.

Nice work guys

Derek Ridgers wrote:
In a couple of threads recently many photographers have expressed real incredulity as why anyone would ever want to shoot portraits up really close to their subject.  Almost everyone is in agreement that nothing shorter than a 85mm lens should be used, with many recommending 135mm, 200mm and even 300mm.

I am not. As many other people who came into photography after attending art school - i do not like to use lenses narrower than 150mm (on large format) or 50mm on 135 format. Perspective flattens too much for my taste. 85mm on 135 is about as far i a gone in last years, with exception for sports/events, when i might break out long telephoto.

Plus with "shorter" lens, you dont have to scream things out as much. Only time when you need to choose long lens, imho, is when you need to play with objects relationships , narrowing natural perspective lines.