Portrait - scale and setting

The first exercise is to take portraits so as to appreciate the composition and weight of attention on the face of the subject.

I selected the carer for my 85 year old mother as a subject. She lives in my mother's flat providing 24/7 care. I thought a working location would work for these images.

The natural light in the flat was insufficient for some of these images - I had flash and additional lighting and required for the last two images; I did use a tripod. I boosted ISO to 800 as experience suggests immaterial noise is added at this level, and it helped to increase shutter speed a couple of stops.

Although I have started looking at others' work I cannot say there was anything in particular that promoted the subject choice or the particular shots. I considered I knew the subject for this, and the individual shots suggested themselves. Knowing my mother, I wanted to get not only some different compositions but also some different emotions reflected in her expressions.

I took heed of the warning in the notes that a wide angle lens can exaggerate perspective, and tried to avoid this. Maintained constant aperture at 5.6, designed to make most of the subject in focus.

Canon EOS 450D with EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM. f5.6; 1/90; ISO 800 focal length 105mm

This first image, face cropped in close, is probably the most successful, the exposure working reasonably well and her eyes standing out. I think the viewer will be taken with the neutral expression.

Canon EOS 450D with EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM. f5.6; 1/45; ISO 800 focal length 58mm

Again the face is the dominant feature of the image. There is the background slightly out of focus but the viewer's attention is drawn to the face.

Canon EOS 450D with EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM. f5.6; 1/60; ISO 800 focal length 32mm

 This image does not work well technically. Used a flash positioned at around knee level looking upwards with consequent shadow.

Passing on the technical failings, we can see here on the torso shot that the viewer's eye moves around - the face will still receive viewer's attention but the context comes to the fore here with her wet hands near the washing up bowl.

Canon EOS 450D with EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM. f5.6; 1/45; ISO 800 focal length 24mm

 Slight technical issues with shadow caused by the flash behind the subject's legs.

In this full figure image the viewer is fully aware of the context of the subject and gets a sound feel of the context, even to the extent of having movement blur on the right hand caused by the cleaning of the saucepan.

A satisfying exercise that has helped me to understand how different elements in the shot of the subject can be engaged and interact with one another as the shot becomes wider - the face shots say much about expression, about feeling, the wider shots add some context, some wider conditions. On a slightly negative point, it also brought home the need to be more careful with lighting.