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One thing that you constantly hear about photography is how expensive it is. Once you have your basic camera body and lens, there is a never-ending quest for more and more gear that a lot of photographers go on and, to be totally honest, you can get carried away… massively!
Now don't get me wrong, I love gear as much as the next photographer. I am totally guilty of spending way too much on a bunch of gadgets that I will probably use once and forget about (lightning trigger, anyone?).
But it wasn't always like that. I was very happy with my first DSLR and the kit lens it came with (The mighty Nikon D70 with an 18-70mm 3.5-5.6 lens). It was a solid camera, but not what you would call extravagant.
Kent's book got me to thinking about shooting portraits with it. And here's the kicker.
In the beginning, I didn't spend an extra dime and I got very reasonable portraits.
Better Portraits Without Going Broke on Gear?
How?
Basically, natural light and a reflector (Kent also goes over this tactic in his book with an example on page 38).
I extended out that 18-70mm lens to its full 70mm focal length. I got as close as I could to that subject while keeping the background a long way away. I used a piece of white styrofoam to reflect light onto them (though, if you want to be less ghetto, you can get a proper reflector off eBay for about $10).
And then I took the shot!
Look, my shots were not award-winners, but they were about 50x better than the ones I had been taking before I knew those basics.
Now that little tactic will get you portraits that are better than what 90% of your friends will get. But it's really only the beginning. The “baseline” for a solid photographer.
If you want to take things beyond this, then it's well worth taking a look at Kent's Book on portrait photography. There are a ton of gems like this one.
Rob is the founder of Light Stalking. His love for photography started as a child with a Kodak Instamatic and pushed him into building this fantastic place all these years later, and you can get to know him better here. Rob's Gear Camera: Nikon D810 Lenses: Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8
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