Chris clearly knows a character when he sees one and his tailor makes for an incredible subject. Posing his model next to his shop window has created some interesting side light and has highlighted all of the wonderful details in the tailors face and hair, to the pin stripes on his suit. Underexposing the image and darkening the background in software has also been a clever decision that ramps up the contrast and focuses the viewer's eye.
The saying goes "no guts, no glory" and Aarish has certainly shows some guts by venturing into a lake to take this captivating shot, all while trying to keep his camera dry and above the water! His wide angle 35mm does a brilliant job of adding in background elements to add context, while an aperture of f/1.8 has blurred them enough to ensure our eyes are drawn to the girl in the middle of the frame. His processing has also given it a great filmic quality. Top job!
2,001 Images entered
Gordie's caught a lovely portrait of his model Kudo here with a pensive off-camera stare that makes him look deep in thought. Shooting with a 70-200mm lens has given Gordie a tight head and shoulders composition and his lighting coming from the top left of the frame works nicely, casting deep shadows and plenty of contrast, all without burning out the skin tones. Great job!
Simon has captured a fantastic vintage inspired portrait of a fighter pilot reenacted at RAW Cosford. Shooting with a standard focal length of 50mm and moving slightly back from his model has allowed him to shoot with minimal distortion and also include plenty of the impressive aircraft behind him which adds some wonderful context. Great job!
Elena’s mesmerising self-portrait must have been difficult to achieve with so many different elements to get right, including posing, composition, focus and position of the water drops. She tells us, “This is a story of my life behind the window. The tears are my lessons of life, the heart is my love, the lips are my kiss for him, and my eyes are lost”.
Julie's had the brilliant idea to shoot under the dappled light of the trees which has cast some really interesting and eye-catching shadows onto the two step sisters. However, where the light is falling, it's left the bottom half of the image looking quite dark. The shadows cast on the girl's face on the right are also a bit distracting, so while I love the idea I think a little more reposing her models and experimenting with where the light and shadows were falling could have resulted in an even stronger family portrait.
Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best and Abed has made a thought-provoking image simply by adding a sheet of muslin cloth over the mouth of his subject, creating all sorts of questions in the viewer's mind about oppression. His powerful message is supported by strong lighting technique that has created top catchlights in the eyes which get the viewer's undivided attention.
Daniel has caught a wonderful portrait of his model Nessy here. It's well exposed and the low angle works well. We have a small compositional gripe with the model's foot being cropped off which looks a little awkward, so recomposing a little more to the right would have allowed him to fit the full length of the model into frame and also reduce some of the dead space on the left. Aside from this minor issue it's a brilliant portrait.
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1,003 Photographers
Brief
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This month we want to see your best black and white portraits taken with Canon cameras. Removing color is a great way to focus on the shape, form, depth, contrast and emotion of your people pictures. Playing with a simple one light setup, or using diffused window light works well. If you're unsure where to focus it's best to lock onto the model's eye which is closest to the camera to make it the focal point. A shallow depth of field with a wide aperture value such as f/1.8 often works well for portraits and be sure to experiment with your Canon camera's Monochrome picture style so you can see your scene in black and white when composing in live view. Our favourite black and white portraits will appear in PhotoPlus magazine, so if you have an image that is perfect for our brief, submit it for a chance to be featured in the magazine and the winner will take home a Lowepro Trekker Lite BP 250AW (Black) worth £165.95! We look forward to seeing your best shots!
