I've never been a big fan of head shots, but I see a lot of them on this site, so I would appreciate it if someone could provide some general guidelines for what makes a good one.
You got some of the ingredients there. It is important to have the bird looking in your direction. Could be straight at you to just sideways (with the little head turn) In this case you have it the bird looking away.
The bg is important and you don't want clutter. Need to line up for a clean bg and do pick what you want. You will be surprised how much the bg can vary with a slight shift up/down or left/right.
You wan the image to be sharp and well exposed. Focusing on the eye is a must. If you are going for as much dof as possible then you wan to take advantage of the hyper-focal distance. Figure how much is the dof and focus half way down that line. Will extend the range.
The image also needs to be well exposed with a good light angle. Normally you want the sun at your back but in portraits you could do a lot with different light angles.
In your example the light is from the hard left. Bird looking away and lots of clutter in the bg. btw that bg would be great if you could figure a way to move an have all blue back there !!! Will post a head portrait when I get home.
Hi Michael,
Nice details and colors on your bird. Al covered all of the nits. My biggest problem is the busy background; branches and twigs intersecting the bird from all angles...:cool:
Black-Crowned Night-Heron Head Shot
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