What you’ll learn:

• How to judge a good por­trait
• Tech­ni­cal aspects: how expo­sure and meter­ing, aper­ture, shut­ter speed, focal length, depth of field, and white bal­ance affect your pic­ture.
• Aes­thet­ic aspects: how the qual­i­ty of the light, colour, and com­po­si­tion affect your pic­ture.
• Emo­tion­al aspects: how your subject’s mood, expe­ri­ence, and rela­tion to you affect the pic­ture.

In-depth

Good por­traits are fas­ci­nat­ing; they can tell sto­ries, evoke feel­ings, and trig­ger mem­o­ries. How­ev­er, tak­ing a suc­cess­ful pic­ture is not always intu­itive for many novice pho­tog­ra­phers. Accel­er­ate your progress by learn­ing from our expe­ri­ence. 

This course dis­cuss­es the pil­lars of com­pelling por­trait pho­tog­ra­phy, name­ly the tech­ni­cal, aes­thet­ic, and emo­tive qual­i­ties. The tech­ni­cal por­tion out­lines how the basic prin­ci­ples of pho­tog­ra­phy (expo­sure, focal length, depth of field, and colour) apply to cre­ate intense por­traits. These prin­ci­ples also influ­ence the aes­thet­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics of por­traits: expo­sure inter­twines with the qual­i­ty, inten­si­ty, and direc­tion of light; focal length affects your com­po­si­tion and fram­ing; depth of field influ­ences your choice of back­ground, and so on. Sol­id tech­nique and aes­thet­ics will only take you so far in iso­la­tion. The cru­cial fea­ture of expres­sive por­traits is emo­tive. We’ll share sev­er­al meth­ods for build­ing rap­port and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with your subject(s) to pro­duce pic­tures that cap­ture authen­tic moments.

Dur­ing the prac­ti­cal por­tion of the work­shop, we’ll explore how you can apply the con­cepts learned in the pre­ced­ing half of the les­son to real-world por­trait pho­tog­ra­phy. 

Important Details

This inter­me­di­ate-lev­el pho­tog­ra­phy work­shop assumes you have a firm under­stand­ing of basic pho­tog­ra­phy. The fol­low­ing pre­req­ui­sites are rec­om­mend­ed:

101–104: Begin­ner’s Bun­dle
201: Com­po­si­tion in Pho­tog­ra­phy

Meeting Locations:

One of two loca­tions depend­ing on the time of year and weath­er.

April – Novem­ber: In front of The Roy­al Con­ser­va­to­ry of Music:

Decem­ber – March: The Allen Lam­bert Gal­le­ria inside Brook­field Place, just by the RBC Domin­ion Secu­ri­ties facade:

Accepted cameras:

• We accept all cam­eras capa­ble of man­u­al mode.
• We accept all brands of dig­i­tal cam­eras.
• Con­tact us if you’re unsure about your camera’s suit­abil­i­ty for this course.

What to bring:

• Cam­era and lens
• Bat­tery (ful­ly charged)¹If you’re par­tic­i­pat­ing in more than one work­shop, please bring either your bat­tery charg­er or a sec­ond bat­tery to ensure you can oper­ate your cam­era through­out the day.
• Mem­o­ry card (emp­tied)
• Cam­era man­u­al
• Note­book and pen
• Ques­tions and thirst for knowl­edge!