[7-14] Talking to clients

On small images:

“Images today are small. You don’t have much space. You get 300 pixels for a profile picture – so I recommend clothes with very few texture, basically one dark or light color. This helps the viewer see the eyes and expression, which is pretty much the thing that matters most for these images.”

“Pictures have gotten so small these days that there is no fear about loss of sharpness. Small apertures are not useful. In fact, as images get smaller, the perceptual sharpness increases. The maximum aperture, which for years has been viewed as the softest setting, can be useful today. Chromatic aberration matters less, as images are smaller (you can’t see the fringes).

Furthermore, anything f/2 or smaller creates the appearance of full depth-of-field (for a headshot), meaning there is no aesthetic reason to alter the aperture between f/2 to f/16. All these apertures do basically the same thing with small images.”

On lights and lighting:

“The size of the light is really all that matters. This determines the softness of the light.”

“The placement of the light Also matters. This determines the angles of the shadow, as well as placement of the skin highlights.”

“The distance of the light matters. This determines fall-off.”

“The sun is very far away, so there is no fall off, even if one object is 50 feet closer to the sun. Both objects receive the same intensity of light. This is not the same if one object is 10 feet, and another 20 feet away from a light source. Can you intuitively image the fall off is much stronger in the second example?”

On being asked how I acquired the equipment: “The equipment I use now is simple. You can buy it yourself. But what is really expensive is buying all the stuff over the years and learning what to keep and what not to keep. I purchased (and got rid of) many things to get here.”

“I use two lights, one for the person and one for the background. The shutter speed does not matter here, but aperture and ISO do.”

“I also use sun light from the windows, which all good photographers know can be adjusted with shutter speed.”