Weekly Assignment: Capture an Authentic Expression

[PWS-Staff]

Find a person you consider interesting and capture a series of portraits of this person, concentrating on capturing an authentic expression. Use your newfound techniques and intuition regarding directing your subject in front of the camera. Use some of my suggestions and then get creative. Your innate people skills are already there inside of you, you just need to build your confidence in bringing them out.

To complete this assignment, I photographed Ciaran, a delightful six-month-old boy who is constantly expressing himself. The challenge is to capture his expressions on-camera. In this instance, it helped having another child off-camera making faces and noises to attract Ciaran’s attention. It’s not always necessary to be the only director on a photo shoot; sometimes you can employ others to assist you. To avoid confusing your subject, be sure to only have one person directing him or her at a time. The photo was captured at ISO 400, f/4.0, 1/60 sec. with a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS lens.

From "Portrait and Candid Photography, 2nd Ed.," by Erin Manning

[StearnsJD]

These three beautiful young ladies belong to three of my neighbors.  They play together all the time. Anytime they see me with a camera they always ask if I’m going to take pics of them…!  They do a lot of sidewalk art with calk also.

[goldcoastgolfer]

I was at my mother's 60th/brother's 30th last night having fun taking a few shots.... 597 in all.  There's a few there that I think represent a candid, authentic expression.  I'm just in the process of sorting through them at the moment but this one of my youngest brother's girlfriend caught my eye.  The subsequent shot of my youngest brother in a thoughtful mood grabbed as well.