How using portrait in a photo story ...

Nikon D4, 85mm, ISO 125, ƒ/1.4, 1/100

These are three quick photos I made of a student yesterday in class to help the students see two things that they can do very quickly to introduce a character into the story.

We preferred to not have a posed portrait but rather something of her in action. I did not take a photo to illustrate that point, but did want to illustrate lens choice and as well aperture.

The first photo here is shot with a shallow depth-of-field of ƒ/1.4.  The emphasis is all on the lady.

Nikon D4, 85mm, ISO 12800, ƒ/14, 1/100

I then just stopped down the aperture to create a greater depth-of-field so that the map was much sharper.

Now I talked to the class that my purpose was to show the student was in a class with photo students and they were going to then leave the class and do stories around the world.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 9000, ƒ/14, 1/100

For the last shot I change the lens to a wide-angle and then had the class behind her. We talked about how we can then introduce her in our story this way as well.

All three photos are acceptable photos in their own right, but the question was which one does the best job of helping tell the story.

Today I will show them another technique, so stay tuned for that example.