Otherworldly Beauty
The Magic of Portraits
I cannot deny it, I love taking portraits. Close up or cropping in as much as I can later, when editing, I adore the strength and tenderness that is visible, the beauty of each face. Every person in front of the camera brings their own magic to this process. Some shy, looking away, some bold with that stare of defiance. Catching that special moment, when it is all there in your frame, is the most exciting part of being a photographer. Classical, well lit portraits are a good place to start, but every so often you might want that special extra, that different atmosphere, an otherworldly feeling.
Intentional Camera Movement
Intentional camera movement, or ICM for short, is as simple in its approach, as the results are complex. The basic technique is explained quickly. Set your camera to a low exposure time and move your camera up and down, left or right. Depending on the range and speed of the movement and the exposure time, you chose, the resulting pictures can range from the abstract, almost graphic to the slightly eerie with a painterly touch. Set in nature, ICM can add a wonderful experimental nuance to some otherwise fairly standard pictures.
Every camera that allows you to manually choose your exposure time and aperture is good to use for ICM. I personally, like to go for a time of 1/8s to 1/4s. Depending on the light source I use, strobes or constant light, I adjust the aperture accordingly to make up for the resulting overexposure. Since I like to mix up ICM and „normal“ shooting mode, during a shoot, I rarely adjust the strobe if I work with one.
To exaggerate the effect, I frequently ask the model to move as well: shake the head, dance, twirl, and turn. This is probably, strictly speaking, not ICM, but the results can be staggering. Adding fabrics as a prop to use for the model is another way to accentuate the fluidity of the motion. These can be flowy pieces of silk, skirts, or long coats. Not a fan of nudity for nudity’s sake, I love how this can offer subtle glimpses of the body without revealing too much.
Selecting the Mood
ICM photos are often a big hit-and-miss. Practice helps in getting the results, you might be looking for, but the process always contains an element of surprise. Going through Raw files later to select the finals and make my editing choices, I am stunned again and again, how they turned out. Some verge on the grotesque, with mouths wide open or eyes doubled. And I do hesitate to send these out to the models, since these kinds of portraits are not usually considered beautiful. On the other hand, this is the magic of ICM portraits: to bring out what lies beneath the surface, surpassing general definitions of what is “pretty”.
More portrait work can be found here.