Am I a Portrait photographer?

Portraiture is cool but I think its tricky to define. The majority of people would think of school photos when the word portraits are used.

eHOW says: "Portraiture photography is when a person, couple or family has their photo taken in a posed manner."

Wiki says: "Portrait photography or portraiture is the capture by means of photography of the likeness of a person or a small group of people "

Vague definition I agree but the images I took today were posed and were mostly of the face and upper body. A fellow student at SCAD organized a large photoshoot around 8 different themes. Four of which I was the photographer for.

Ethnic Theme - had male and female models and they all had some type of ethnic accessory that was to be the main focus of the image.
Women-Power
Men-Strenth...

These last two didn't turn out to be as the student hoped but I loved what it turned into. The female models could easily show emotion in their poses but many could argue if they really represented "power" I honestly don't think so. BUT what did end up happening I think was much greater!
Their hearts poured out of their eyes and bodily positions. Their current emotions of thoughts were bleeding through their skin and I enjoyed every moment and oppourtunity to photograph that. And VIOLA I got lots of beautiful portraits with an assortment of models.
All the models were decked out by make-up artists Mosi and hairstylist Demarcus they were they main two that I knew of.

I was on the outdoor set the whole time and waited in my lounge chair as the models came to me. I really liked that flow. The models had their look put together than sent to me to be photographed. I thought that was cool it made the whole thing seem very professional. The sun was kind to me and I negotiated with it throughout the day. I never had to use my flash at all.

Just as I explained what happened with the "women-power" theme the same happened with the "men-strength" I really just showed their age and personality.

I think I did a good job paying attention to the overall color palette of the backgrounds to contrast and compliment the models the best I could. I used manuel when the sun was unruly(most the time) and Aperture priority when the sun was giving me a break. The backgrounds were blurred mostly since I used a low F-stop and tried to keep my models as far away from the background as I could.

Editing was done in Lightroom.
Here are my favorites from the first batch I edited it. These are the portraits of both men and female. When I upload the ethnic accessory ones you WILL know its mighty obvious.

My greatest achievement in these images is that I think I'm starting to find my WOW factor that comes first in composition and later in post-production. And not to toot my own horn but my compostion is always beautiful. Every professor and photo professional that has looked at my work always begins with " You definantly have a good eye" which I love and is comforting but I know that everything else needs work including my editing skills. In these images I feel as if my wow factor is coming on slowly but surely.

WOW FACTOR - the awesome flawless looks like candy and money glow in professional photography. Every photography has their own glow like Jill Greenberg and my intern guy from over the Winter Break Sam Robles. No one seems to be able to teach me how they get their wow factor and I think its cause I have to find my own myself.

More images as always on the facebook page:
Saje Creations Photography on FB