 Annie Liebervitz is one of the most famous portrait photographers in the world. Can you imagine the wealth of knowledge and experience and tips about portrait photography that she has to offer? And today I'd like to share with you those tips and tricks. How's it? Welcome back to the photographic eye where my passion is to help you develop your love for photography. The first thing that always springs to mind when I think about Annie Liebervitz is her talking about love, how you need to fall in love with the subject, the person whom you're photographing. I think this is such an important aspect. There's so many people overlook and that is if you don't love what you're photographing then your images are going to suffer. It's your job as a photographer to create a feeling of intimacy especially when you are photographing people. And there's no better example of this than the images of John Lennon and Yoko Ono that Annie Liebervitz photographed almost in fact the day that he was assassinated. When you look at these photographs you can see at play how comfortable John and Yoko feel. Now granted John had met Annie Liebervitz a number of times before but you as a portrait photographer need to create this feeling of intimacy and you can do this by talking to people, by really listening to them, being interested in them. Don't just be the type of photographer who turns up and just kind of shoots without talking at all. We've all seen them or it's an uncomfortable process and you don't want the people who you're photographing to be uncomfortable. If you are not good at small talk asking about the weather, asking about the trip on the way over, you know did you have a good write or how was it? Did you find the place okay? That sort of thing create a connection with the people. Bridge the gap between photographer and subject. For a long time I used to give new portrait photographers a tip that was I don't photograph people who you know and I felt that that was good because you know you would take the pressure off having to deal with somebody who you are you know connected with but Annie said the opposite you know she said you want to photograph the people who you know that's a good place to start because you've already gotten over that hurdle of having to create intimacy because you are already intimate with that person you're already close to them your mom your dad your sister your boyfriend your girlfriend you know one of your dearest friends take the plunge and photograph them you know see what happens because you already you've gotten over a lot of that kind of initial hesitancy that you might have with with somebody who you don't know and it allows you also time to explore and and take a breather sometimes you need to stop during a session you need to go um hang on something's not quite working and with a paying client or a model or something this can be uncomfortable but with somebody who you are friend with your brother or your sister or your mom or your dad they will it will give you the patience or they have the patience to allow you to get things right so if you're looking for subject to photograph don't go looking too far because i'm pretty sure you can find somewhere within your intimate network of people whom you can photograph so when talking about pressure there is a tendency to put pressure on ourselves by having so much gear so you're you know walking around this giant bag of kits and all millions of lenses and the problem is that you are overwhelmed with choice taking it back to the bare minimum just exactly what you need no more no less and then you find that when you're working within those constraints that you are forced to come up with creative ideas to overcome any sort of hurdles or problems that crop up and you will then find your photographs become a lot stronger you become better at you know and actually concentrating on taking the picture rather than thinking about what's in your bag that would maybe make this better so the next time you go photographing on on a portrait session decide what it is you're going to do and you know take a 50mm or take an 85mm but don't take your entire camera bag concentrate on doing the best you can with the limited gear that you have. Talking about ideas or preconceived ideas I was quite surprised to hear Annie Liebervitz talk about the idea that the portrait itself should be driven by the subject and not the concept because obviously these days you know Annie is she's well known for having these some would say quite overblown larger than life conceptual sessions but when you think about it it makes sense let the portrait be driven by the subject rather than the concept and that means that if you go into a photo session you know with a pre-arranged idea that this is what I'm going to do and then and that's the end of it if you run into a problem where the subject is not quite gelling with what it is that you have in your mind or you're regurgitating an old concept to put it on to to this new person then you're kind of putting the you know the cart before the horse to rather have a broad outline for a session in terms of maybe the lighting or the environment or something like that and see the directions that the subject guides you in what signals do you get from them and they could be extremely subtle that you kind of pick up and go oh this might be something very very interesting there is a photographer who does this called Andy Gotts whom I will link to at the end of the video who has a very different approach to Andy Lieberwitz but he lets the subject guide the session and if you're interested then yeah go check it out at the end of the video. Andy Lieberwitz was a photojournalist before she was a portrait photographer and one of the tips that she gives a portrait photography is looking at the the images that you see day to day you know all those kind of the more photojournalistic type of photographs and think about them think about why was this aperture used why you know what was the particular viewpoint what was the photographer trying to say why did they craft the image in this way and not another way and the more that you do this the more that you start opening up your thought processes to a way of interpreting something in a unique fashion this is I think a hallmark of any great photographer is the ability to photograph something that everybody you know has access to but in a unique way so when you are looking at images think about the process ask yourself why why why why why those approaches were chosen by that photographer. In addition to being a photojournalist Andy's first love actually was to be an art teacher I believe or at least she studied art and was very into painters and all that sort of stuff and this comes through in the way that you see her light the way that the light in her photographs feels and certainly laterally the compositions of her photographs you know these portraits that look like paintings and a lot of that comes down to the fact that even though they are lit with strobes and you know and all sorts of other lighting gear they look natural they have a quality to them in terms of the lighting that feels like it's supposed to be there like there's such a such a wonderful thing but it needs sometimes a very gentle hand if you are going to create these photographs that have this kind of feel to them there's this liquid light where it's just kind of it's just sculpting and shaping in the right way. Now obviously you don't have access or maybe you do who knows to all the kind of gear that that Annie has in regards to the lighting which obviously goes to odds with what you're saying earlier about you know having a minimalist set of you know kit which is photography is full of contradictions I'm afraid to say so let's just just roll with it but she has all you know the light that looks lovely it looks great now obviously yeah we don't have this so what can you do when you can photograph in natural light I think the biggest tip if you are going to you know be a portrait photographer you want to improve your portrait photography is to learn to use natural light first of all you know it's it's great to use strobes but don't jump into the studio before you've got a handle of what's what surrounds you outside that is free to use and that you can use at any time of the day it will pay so many dividends to improving your photography you should also never be afraid to go back to look at your work doesn't matter if it was last week or 10 15 20 30 years ago go back look at it see how you have evolved see how you have changed see if there are mistakes that you can you know pick up on that you go oh well that's something that I wasn't aware that I do maybe I should change that up if you never look back at your work you can't a measure that improvement but also you don't become aware of the way that you are getting into certain habits that may not be apparent to you but are sabotaging your photographs because well they're just things that you are blind to but other people subconsciously pick up on because Annie Leibovitz went to art school she has a visual literacy a visual memory bank if you will that goes beyond far beyond just the scope of photography and I would encourage you to follow that path as well to to look outside of the narrow confines we can sometimes put upon ourselves as photographers now I am a portrait photographer am I only going to look at portrait photographers or I'm a landscape photographer and I'm only going to look at landscapes you know you know the sort of thing go beyond those limits when you put a label on yourself I am a portrait photographer then you're limiting yourself and we don't want you to limit yourself we want you to embrace far and wide everything the interest you remember we talked about you know falling in love with your subject if you love something photograph it right if you love a certain style if you love a really Lichtenstein painting or you like Jackson Pollock or you love you know Beethoven try and weave that into your photographs somehow see what happens when you stop drawing from the same pool of inspiration that everybody else is earlier I talked about Andy God's I know you're going to find it interesting I'll link to it over here go give it a click and see what you think thank you ever so much for watching and I'll see you again soon