Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I'm in a photography class, and need to do some portraits (fully clothed; Don't worry, I'm not exploiting anyone!).  I'd like to take some pictures of my wife to use for the portrait assignments, and she's agreed to let me.  However, she's very self-conscious of her appearance and I want to take some pictures she'll be happy with.

So, my question: Does anyone know some tips (non-photoshop) on how I should take her picture, or things to avoid?  Obviously without seeing my wife, you'll have to make some guesses as to what might work, and I'll have to evaluate any advice before using it.  But I'm fine with that.  I'm just looking at general, "What would be a nice way of taking someone's picture, if that person has struggled to be accepted in the world as the woman she is?"

Use a mid telephoto lens. Something along the lines of 35mm film camera equiv angle of view that a 100-135mm lens has. It works for full body as well as head shots. Even group shots look better if you can get back far enough. Normal to wide angle lenses make most people look bad. Also slightly high angle helps most people. Soft lighting (like in the shade with proper color balance set) is also flattering for most people.

Quote from: Slanan on January 28, 2012, 10:41:42 PM
"What would be a nice way of taking someone's picture, if that person has struggled to be accepted in the world as the woman she is?"

An old portraitists trick from early Hollywood:

Soft focus lens

I suggest you take a load. With a digital camera, you should be able to manage at least 1000. Keep taking them.

Then, load them into your computer and set the viewer to slide show. Let her look at them, deciding which she hates. That will allow her to remove some of the worst but more importantly, let her see that some are really quite good.

Slowly, she's going to see that some are really very good and slowly, you will both start deciding which are good enough to show.

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

Together we found some we both liked - we tried a bunch of different angles, light positioning, etc.  What worked well for her was black&white with an orange filter, with traditional 45-degree lighting and a short telephoto lens.  Took most of the pictures from a relatively high angle.

Thanks everyone for the help!