Shooting portraits that reflect personality

Yoon, can you talk a little about depth of field? In the Mark Delaney picture, were you thinking about combining a very shallow depth of field with the dim light? Do you think about light + DOF for other shots? It seems to give you a lot of framing options. Which lenses to you prefer? Do filters do much for you?

Thanks! Jack

Thanks for the question Jack!

Yes, depth of field is a tool I'll often use to get rid of "clutter" in the background. Shallow depth of field is useful to me when I'm in an area where there might be too many distracting elements in the picture. I also like to use it in photographs with very simple backgrounds, particularly outside, to give the photograph a more static or dreamy look. Unless you're looking at an object up close with your own eyes it's rare to see the world focused selectively. And yes, you're right, shallow DOF gives me more framing options.

My bag consists of a 24 1.4, a 35 1.4, and I'm looking forward to getting a 50 1.2 and an 85 1.2. I love my 35 1.4. I use it for 95% of my work. It's great because it's not too wide and not too narrow and I basically use my feet as my zoom lens.

I don't do much with filters unless the situation calls for it, but all my lenses have UV protective filters on them because I typically get rid of my lens caps just for easy/quick access to my equipment.

Hope that answers your questions!

Hello Yoon. Can you comment on what situations would call for you to use a filter? And what filters you do like to use and why? You mention that you only use them if called for, but do not go into it any further and I'm just curious. Thanks. ~Karen

Hi Karen,

Thanks for the question.

Yes, as I'd mentioned, I don't do much with filters in my work. In the days of film I'd used color correcting filters, magenta being one (correcting fluorescent temperature lighting), along with different colored gels for my strobe. The main purpose for using a filter for me was to correct color, which with slide film was imperative because of the medium's lack of latitude.

I also on occasion used neutral density and polarizing filters. The former was helpful if I wanted to shoot at a wider aperture (the filter stops down the amount of light that reaches your film plane), and I used the polarizing filter to get a little more saturation in my colors, especially skies.

Also, in the days of b&w film, I used red, orange, & yellow filters. The colors in the scene of the filter generally would be lighter, while a lot of their converse colors would be darker. A similar effect is achieved when using the Channel Mixer in Photoshop.

There are a lot more specialty filters out there, like diffusion filters (often used by photo studios to soften details) or cross screen filters (creates star-shapes of objects emanating light), but I never really had a use for them.

Hope that helps!

I shoot a ton of street portraiture
http://socialdocumentary.net/exhibit/Craig_Biertempfel/400
and have found that with my Canon 5D I tend to use the 85/1.2, the 50/1.2 most often, fast primes always seem to be the right choice no matter the light and setting...I have made a move to keeping the 24-70/2.8 on the 5D mkII now and using a wide prime on the 5D just in case a more environmental portrait is best suited for the moment rather than a tightly framed intimate portrait w/ a prime. That EF 85/1.2 is the sharpest portraiture lens I have used though.

Have you shot much with a medium format/120 film camera much for portraits?

Thank you for addressing the DOF question. I was never sure when to use that tool but as soon as you said "get rid of clutter" so many of my photos that I am disatisfied with come to mind. They have too much clutter!!

Nice site.

Nice site.