Photo Guide
Selecting Portrait quality photographs
Taking the photographs
The portrait guide is created to make it easy for you to get the necessary information about how to commission portraits created by me. If you follow the guide carefully and read the information provided you will find that it’s very simple.
As I’m specializing on high detailed portraits, its very important to send me high quality photographs to work from. Remember I have only your photo and you to guide me through the painting and drawing process, therefore I will require good enough photographs from you. I need details to be able to reflect the unique personality and likeness of the subject I will be creating artwork.
The photo must be in focus with good lightening, right colouring and big enough. Select your high quality photos or take new ones and send them to me along with the enquiry form you will come to through this portrait guide. Remember that the photographs need to be sent to me in original size if they are digital or if you have only regular paper photographs you need to send them to my address provided to you by email.
Below you can see a selection of examples with what I need in a good photograph so I can use it to paint your portrait. There are also examples of what kinds of photos aren’t suitable.
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Focus
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Angles
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Levels
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| Make sure the face is in focus. |
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| The best portraits are created from photos when the subject is looking slightly to the left or right because it doesn’t look flat. |
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| The photo must be taken from the subjects level. Don’t look down on what you are photographing. This photo shows a perfect level. |
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This photo is not in focus and could not be used to create a portrait.
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This photo was taken from the front and could look a bit flat as a portrait.
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This photo was taken from the wrong level because the photographer is looking down on the subject.
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Photograph outside
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Eyes
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Distance
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Photographing outside creates great light and colors and can be perfect for artwork.
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Think about the eyes as they are images of the soul. They have to be open and alert. Don't worry about red eyes or reflections, sometimes this cannot be helped. Animal eyes are highly reflective, but I can remove this easily.
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Think about from what distance your are photographing your subject. See how nicely this dog fits within most of the picture.
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Beware of bright light sources (windows) that can cast overly contrasting and harsh light/shadows. Too much light or odd shadings can destroy the colors.
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Just like humans, sometimes animals blink when their pictures are taken!
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Photo taken from too far away for me to see any detals for a portrait. On the other end of this spectrum, some photos are taken too close up and parts of the face and ears cannot be seen because they are outside of the picture.
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