People: Portraits

To get some understanding on portrait photography, go to photo.net portrait section


Roy W. Rosenkranz
He likes farming, to be precise gardening. He is 78 years old and still takes long walks and believes in hard physical work and healthy natural food. I was walking to my home when I happend to see him. He looked like a perfect candidate for a portrait and after I asked him, he consented without any problems. Aperture priority mode on a Nikon coolpix 4500 digital camera.




Unknown Person
Unknown person at Starbucks, 14th Street, Atlanta, GA. I was waiting for someone down there and this person was just too absorbed in his work. It was his intense concentration that captured my attention. I did not wish to disturb him and hence I took the picture from where I was sitting, without getting up to get a better view. That is why you see the stray table top and side of a chair. Manual mode on a Nikon coolpix 4500 digital camera.



Shubhankar Ray
A batchmate from my bachelors'. He came down to visit us and fell asleep while watching television. I was about to go out to my office when I happened to look at him. I stopped my bike, went into my room, brought the whole gear outside and started setting it up right in front of him, at about 1.5ft from him. I thought that all the ruckus would wake him up but apparently he is a heavy sleeper. I did not wish to use flash because that would probably wake him up. The room was not very well lit and hence the yellowish tinge in the picture. Nikkor 105mm/2.8D on a tripod with f/2.8 and probably a 1/4th second exposure.



Richard Liston
On a camping/hiking trip to Cloudland Canyon state park. It was the second time I had been on a camping trip. I came to learn a lot about camping, as on the previous trip with equally unexperienced people, we had bread and peanut butter for dinner and breakfast. Richard however, is apparently a well experienced camper. He came equipped with tortillas and refried beans and was the first to have his food ready.

Here we can see him preparing his bean burrito with much concentration. Nikkor 50/1.8 and ISO 400print film in an N65 , most probably in the automatic mode.



Minaxi Gupta: Take-I



Minaxi Gupta: Take-II

Minaxi Gupta, she is a fellow student, It was a dark overcast day (perfect for taking pictures) and it was also a friday. I was not up to doing anything and was lurking in the shadows with my camera at the ready for taking pictures. Minaxi was also not feeling like working so we went outside our office to take some pictures. She has this misconception that she looks horrible in pictures and I wanted to convince her that "there are no bad subjects, only bad photographers". I took quite a few number of pictures (~15) and I thought that most of them turned out pretty well. She however thinks that they look just ok. Well, since then I have come to realize that what looks good and what does not is extremely subjective.

Shots all taken with a Nikkor 105mm/2.8D Micro. f-stops ranging from 2.8 to 4, Aperture Priority mode on a N65.



Minaxi Gupta: Take-III



Minaxi Gupta: Take-IV




Shailaja Kaveti
She is a friend of Ankur. Ankur and I went on a drive from NJ to Philadelphia. I was there to see Ananth and he was there to meet her. I have by now come to firmly believe that best portraits are candid portraits. When people don't know that they are being photographed, they are natural and show their real character. More often than not, this is a beautiful, kind character. Your face speaks it all. Picture taken with 18-70mm DX AFS digital lens (27-105mm 35mm equivalent), with the zoom at the 70mm. Aperture Priority mode on a Nikon D70.




Ankur Mani
Ankur Mani, a fellow intern in NJ. We visited the Island Beach state park that day. Ankur was collecting some clam shells. Picture taken with 18-70mm DX AFS digital lens (27-105mm 35mm equivalent), with the zoom at the 70mm. Aperture Priority mode on a Nikon D70.


Onyi Irrechukwu: Take I
Onyi Irrechukwu (Other pictures here.) If you have read the comic book "X-Men", you can probably relate her to Storm, the weather goddess. Well, she is no weather goddess, (in fact a mere mortal); however, when it comes to dancing, I guess you could bow down your head and call her a goddess. If there is music playing around, it is impossible for her to keep her body still. We started Taekwondo together almost a year and half back. Since then life has gotten busy a bit and sometime Taekwondo is not feasible, but being in school, we run into each other every now and then. These pictures all taken on an overcast day using nikon D70 (digital SLR) + Nikkor 80-200mm ED f/2.8D. Aperture priority mode throughout, handheld.

Onyi Irrechukwu: Take II