What Makes a Good Portrait?

I stumbled across this video online a week ago and thought it more than worthy of a share. The video highlights what we get lost in as photographers and what is really important in making a great portrait.

Portrait photography is perhaps one of the most popular genres in our art form, from weddings to headshots and family portraits through to commercial ad campaigns. However, there seem to be trends that a lot of us find ourselves falling into as portrait photographers. If you look through the images in the galleries here, you will find a great deal of them being portraits. You will also be able to group them into a few genres that are trendy right now as well as those that have more of a classical approach to portraiture. 

In this video, Richard Bradbury really digs down into what makes a great portrait and what you need to both creatively and technically understand in order to produce an image of merit. He also goes on to look at the fads and short-lived trends that a lot of us end up falling into. I also think that this video's topic can be used for pretty much any genre of photography. As a food photographer, it is certainly something that I can relate to. 

What do you feel are the most important aspects required for a great portrait?

Scott Choucino's picture

Food Photographer from the UK. Not at all tech savvy and knows very little about gear news and rumours.

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