The Female Photography Guide aims to give you some useful tips and advice on how to get the best amateur photographs that look professional without hiring a professional photographer and all the expense involved.
The Female Photography Guide covers many photography topics including lighting, make up, hair and location. We have tried to provide information that is easy to understand, without making it lengthy and boring. We’ll add further information and illustrations soon to give you a better understanding of the processes described.
So have fun taking some wonderful photos
Clothes
Choose nice, comfortable, clean and colourful clothes.
Something that makes you feel good, open your blouse a little or wear a low cut top if it gives that all sexy look, if that’s what you are looking for? If you want good leg shots use shoes with heels as they give the legs a better shape.
If you want full length, standing shots lean against something. Try to pose like a model but remain comfortable and relaxed. If you don’t feel relaxed, and comfortable with your pose, then don’t do it.
You can use hats and other accessories if you want to, but think about it before you. Look at magazines to see how models pose, the accessories they use, and current trends. You might feel silly trying it yourself at first but I’m sure once you’re posing you’ll become more comfortable and most importantly, enjoy it.
Locations
Selecting a location for your female photography can make for an interesting challenge and you need to think carefully about this, making such decisions as whether you want pictures taken indoors or outdoors.
An Indoor Location
To get the best professional looking photographs you’ll need a plain background with good ambient lighting, that’s natural light from windows, etc if you haven’t got studio lighting.
If you want shots from the waist up, sit on a stool that way you get better posture and don’t sit facing straight into the camera, put one shoulder towards the camera and turn your head slightly to look at the camera lens. Lift your head up to lift your chin, so that you don’t get the double chin look, try to stay relaxed otherwise you look frightened or even miserable and make sure you are comfortable.
If you can only use a sofa lie across it, take pictures from different angles, and don’t be frightened to experiment. Importantly, use flash with the camera.
An Outdoor Location
Find a location that has a good backdrop, for example ruins, pretty flower beds, old buildings, rocks at the edge of a stream or river, any where interesting.
Use the sunlight to your advantage but do not point the lens directly into it, or let it shine shine directly into your eyes as you then get squinty eyes looking at the sun.
You can use park benches to sit on - lean over the back with your arms resting on the bench, or sit on the edge, but remember don’t sit straight on to the camera. Always make sure you are relaxed and comfortable.
Make Up
If you are interested in having photographs taken for yourself the information you are about to read will hopefully help to make it an experience worth doing so that you can in the future look back at the photographs and say look how good I look and it was worth taking the time and trouble to do it.
Firstly you need clean skin so if you need to cleanse do it a few hours before applying foundation, so that the pores and skin can settle down. The foundation should be as close to your skin tone as possible so that there are no lines or difference in color when blending into your neck, I personally used a sponge to apply the foundation so that you get a nice even layer to work with, make sure you go up to your hairline if you have blemishes or spots etc use a concealer to cover it (apply it before the foundation) also apply a soft dusting of powder again I used cotton wool to do that, pat it on to the skin and try not to rub it in, you can dust it off with a good size brush.
Eye shadow is personal to yourself especially colour but on this occasion try to use a colour to match the clothes you are wearing, try using two or three different eye shadow colours slightly darker on the outside of the eye slightly lighter centre and maybe a different one in the corner, use eye liner across the bottom lid apply it by pulling the bottom lid down so that you don’t catch the eyeball, also don’t forget to do the eyelashes either yourself with mascara, or you can now have extensions or false lashes or have them tinted professionally .You can pencil or use a small brush with eye shadow to colour the eyebrows.
Blusher apply a little across the cheekbone, if you are not sure where to put it, here’s a little tip, put the handle of the brush from the top of your earlobe to the corner of your mouth follow that line and it should be following the cheekbone.
Don’t forget lipstick (very important) it depends a lot on your hair colour cloths etc, dark red looks great with dark hair and skin but most of the time I would go for light colours again it depends on eye shadow and cloths something you need to experiment with.
You can with practice outline the lips first using a small brush it can be a slightly different colour or the same colour as the lipstick doing that just gives an outline which makes it easier to fill in and stops bleeding or the colour spreading from the lips, it keeps a clean line, don’t forget to get the colour right into the corners of the mouth so that a good smile doesn’t have lipstick missing.
Also for a good natural softer look use a good lip gloss Remember the makeup should only be light (not heavy like actors on the stage) camera lenses will pick up any blemishes or heavy make up so try to keep to soft lighting of which you can also read about on this site.
I hope you have a lot of fun and get some good photographs.