Beautiful portraits of people. Unusual portraits
Most portraits are basically photographed at the subject's eye level. This approach to shooting, although correct, is quite formulaic and boring. Try changing your shooting angle, it can help you take really beautiful, unusual photos.
Try to stand taller, try to get as much above your subject's head as possible, and shoot your subject from a height. In any case, you will get a new shooting angle, which means that as a result your photos will be, at least, unusual.
2. Looking to the side
It's amazing how much the subject's gaze can affect the mood of the frame and the overall image. In most photographs we are used to looking into the frame, but looking away to the side can make the photo look different.
A. Off-camera look. Let's say your model sees something invisible, but very interesting, and looks at it curiously, distracted from shooting. Such photographs look very sincere, they seem to radiate new emotions. To make such a portrait more truthful, find something interesting somewhere behind the camera and ask the person to look at this object. This will make it easier for him to act surprised, delighted, or interested in something.
Photo by monicutza80
B. View with camera. These are photographs in which both the model and the camera are looking at something in common. For example, a child plays with a ball and looks at it while you take a photo of him with the same ball, or a parent is captivated by his own child, and the camera, at the same time, “looks” at the child. Come up with some interesting thing that is in the camera's field of view and interest the model in it. Such photographs are very meaningful, they tell a certain story, they have a plot.
Photo by paulbence
3. Break the rules of composition
There are many “rules” and recommendations on how to “better” photograph a particular object in a certain case. And of course, everyone needs to know these rules. And to know only in order to learn how to beautifully violate them. A beautiful violation of the rules will lead to a beautiful result. 
Rule three is one of the rules that you can break. By creating “dead areas” (those in which there is emptiness, there are no logical objects), you give more power to the image of the person in the photograph. Creatively placing an object right on the edge of a photo can create an interesting, unusual image.
Other rules. Breaking other rules that are commonly followed in portrait photography can also work well to create an unusual, unconventional image.
4. Experiment with lighting
Another element of chance that can be used in photography is light. When it comes to using and playing with light in photography, the options are almost endless. Using lighting from the side can create the impression of backlighting; side lighting, with absolute darkness on the other side of the face, will add mystery, mystery and mysticism to the photograph.
Photo by Bukutgirl
Using slow flash sync can create a completely unusual image and interesting lighting effect, try it.
Photo by diskomethod
5. Get out of your comfort zone
Very often, when photographing in our own comfort zone and in the model’s comfort zone, we end up with too boring, monotonous and uninteresting pictures. These are not the photographs that will cause delight and joy many years later, these are the photographs that you can forget about in a week. To prevent this from happening, try to come up with and do something extraordinary, something that may seem stupid, absurd and funny. For example, ask your model to jump, just jump up, making funny poses and grimaces with her body and face. You can ask the model to pretend that she is jumping on you, imagine that after a while, looking at this photo, it will seem that the person in the photo is jumping right at the viewer. It's fun, it's funny, and most importantly, it's not boring at all. You and your model enjoy the shooting process itself, and this is the key to success.
Photo by TeeRish
6. Capture genuine feelings
Staged shots almost always look theatrical and unnatural. And there are people who simply cannot express themselves in staged shots, they simply cannot force themselves to squeeze out at least something. You don't always have to cast talented actors, do you?
In this case, it would be much more appropriate to photograph the person in a work environment, or with his family. This will allow him to relax, behave at ease and be as sincere as possible. You can even take a zoom lens and stage the shooting in such a way that you are a paparazzi watching his “victim”
It is especially important to practice this playful form of photography when photographing children. Ask your child to show you his favorite toys, take pictures of him when he plays, reads, studies, when he is truly, sincerely passionate about what he does.
Photo by phitar
7. Point of interest
Adding some extra interesting element to your photo will create an additional point of interest in your frame. Yes, in this case, you risk diverting attention from the main subject, but if you do it carefully, you will undoubtedly be pleased with the results. Let's say you are trying to give your photos a storyline or play up an image, but you are unlikely to succeed unless you add an additional object of interest to your photo.
Photo by Mrs. Maze
8. Focus on one part of the body
You can shoot an object by photographing at a long focal length, or you can concentrate on the most important thing. Don’t photograph the whole person, but include hands, lips, eyes; each such photograph will carry a special mood, a special message to the viewer. You can generally photograph a person from the waist up, leaving the viewer the opportunity to think out and imagine the entire image. Very often, what is not included in the frame speaks volumes about more than what is in it.
Photo by Bukutgirl
Of course, before writing the article, I looked up what unusual portraits there are. In fact, it is clear that there are different ones, lately people have been painting with whatever and whatever they can - coffee, tea, blood, ashes, and what parts of the body they use for painting, starting with the nose and tongue and ending with all the most intimate organs. This is probably useful for PR, and maybe it also helps with sales - there will always be those who, with the help of such pictures, again hope to impress someone.
God be with them. Of course, as always, I was more attracted to modern painting, an unusual vision and style, a little abstract and surreal. Still, for me there is no doubt that everyone sees the world completely differently, just remember Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali, which is why such unusual portraits and paintings in general are born. I will show you some of my favorite works by contemporary artists.
By the way, they reminded me of another picture that I published in the article - yes, I still like all that. But I can’t do that, and in general, to be honest, I never liked drawing or photographing people - it’s not my thing, it doesn’t appeal to me. And yet I also had the opportunity to paint portraits, strangely enough. Although my portraits can also perhaps be called unusual, because you won’t see faces in them.
I have esoteric friends who see in my drawings more than just beautiful patterns. They feel their energy and use it for themselves - for, for. And while drawing on such a request, I one day realized that I could draw not just something, but for someone. First I drew it for Irina Zaitseva - already.
Then for your loved one. Here is this drawing.
Well, after that, a request just came from my esotericist friends to draw not for them, but for themselves. That is, to depict them through my graphic patterns.
It was a very interesting experience for me, because while drawing different people, I experienced completely different sensations. Firstly, I needed to tune in to each person, feel them. You can say, look at him, study, but not just his appearance, but feel what he is like. What he lives by, what he breathes, what he likes, what he strives for, how he manifests himself in the world in terms of beliefs and actions. When you think about a person this way, images begin to appear in your imagination, the necessary colors and basic elements of patterns appear. After that you start drawing.
Everyone is drawn differently - you tune in to someone, and then everything goes easily, as if by itself.
Others are more difficult, you have to think for a long time about each element, figure it out, turn it this way and that... Of course, it’s all due to the fact that someone turns out to be closer to you, someone is not, someone is open, and someone resists , and for many other reasons.
And when the patterns are already laid out on paper, associations with them begin to arise, and here, too, everything happens so differently, interestingly and unexpectedly. It’s as if a new layer opens up before you, and through what you have created for a person, you begin to see and feel him more deeply.
Sometimes these are associations with space, with something geometrically structured.
And sometimes, on the contrary, you are overcome by a feeling of freshness, purity, wisdom, as if you are standing among the trees, by a stream, the foliage is rustling above your head, and your chest aches from the beauty, strength and wisdom of nature, seemingly so simple, but capable of giving so much...
My esoteric friends say that my drawings contribute to the revelation of human potential, its harmonization and self-improvement. I will not confirm or dispute this, I just understand now that, like many other things in life, this is not just the case. All the sensations that I experience while drawing tell me that this is simply my way of feeling and seeing people. Only I strive to see and depict them not through appearance, but through abstract patterns that express their energy and spiritual essence.
