From the course: The Practicing Photographer

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Should you talk to your model or not?

Should you talk to your model or not?

From the course: The Practicing Photographer

Should you talk to your model or not?

(camera beeps) - Turn your head a little bit to the left. Wait, my left. Somebody's left. (laughing) North, turn it to the north. (laughing) This is one of the trickiest things about shooting portraits, particularly if you're just starting out, and that is, how much do you communicate with your subject? Now I think most people have the idea that, "Oh, when you're shooting a portrait, "you've got to have disco playing on a boom box, "and you're yelling, 'Work it, baby,'" and that kind of thing. Maybe that works for you. This is the problem with portrait shooting. You can't really know what works for you in terms of getting the look that you want out of somebody until you've got some experience portrait shooting. So you just need to try lots of things. What I would like to encourage you to try is everything. There are no rules. Maybe you do grab the boom box full of disco. Maybe you don't. When you survey the landscape of the great portrait photographers in the world, you find a wide…

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