Reader's Comments - Index of - Free

Portrait Photography
really want. I think technocrats and elitist-types both understand that a community college student with a ?crappy
system? has every potential in the world to create an image that ?beats? that of the pro with the high-end
equipment.
Be comfortable in what you choose- and learn to use the tools you can afford. If you?re fidgeting around with a
system?s features at the moment which is supposed to be immortalized in film- you?ve completely defeated your
own purpose. Don?t let that moment slip away?forever.
Thanks everyone for creating this article, keeping this net going with such great opinion and experience! -Shawn
ps- Sorry about the question marks. I have no idea why they appear, but can't change them, either.
-- Shawn Sauerwine, October 18, 2004
When I finally took the plunge and went digital the salesman who sold the camera to me summed it up best. He
said people come in the store and ask "Does this camera take good pictures?" He wants to tell them "That
depends on who is standing behind it." I don't know a lot about the technical parts of photography, being self
taught there is a lot of it that I just don't get. I find for portraits a long lens gets the best results. It is intimidating
to the subject to be right in their face.
-- DEBBIE MORTON, November 13, 2004
It is nice to come back after a couple of years and see people still excited about this article.
Juan Carlos www.juancarlosphoto.com
-- JuanCarlos Torres, December 4, 2004
I love Debbie Morton's comment about good pictures. It's not the camera that makes a good picture, but the
photographer. And, as Philip commented in the article, the photographers who most consistently make good
portraits are people who are genuinely interested in their subjects.
Whatever equipment you have, learn how to use it. Learn it so well that you don't have to think about it. Every
camera and lens has its strengths and limitations. Utilize the strengths of your equipment.
My father was a very challenging photographic subject. He put on his "camera face" whenever a camera was
aimed at him. I finally made a good portrait of him with a $2.50 plastic camera, because he didn't take it
seriously.
I am sympathetic to Rich Jacobs' plight. (The first comment in this thread.) Indeed, there are many fine twin-lens
reflex cameras in the used market. I began photographing with a 1940s-vintage Kodak Twin Lens Reflex that had
been my mother's. It was a fine camera, albeit with its unique set of limitations.
One challenge I've had making portraits with a twin-lens reflex has to do with the fact that you look down onto a
ground-glass viewer rather than through an eye-level viewfinder. I've found that often my subject is looking at
http://www.photo.net/portraits/intro (30 of 37)7/3/2005 2:16:41 AM