Portraits from above: turn faces into landscapes

Methods for taking beautiful portraits... from a privileged position

Aerial photography doesn't only mean photos with landscapes as the subject, but any photo taken from a vantage point higher than a photographer's eye level. The expressive potential is remarkable even when the subject is a person; the immediate effect is a sense of gradually approaching the subject, almost like the vertigo of falling.

Let's see together what a photographer needs, both technically and creatively, to take beautiful portraits from above.

The ability to wait and... negotiate

It may seem a bold comparison, but photographing a person from above can be like shooting a wild animal. An example is this beautiful and highly successful photo by the photographer Davide Marcesini, of a woman captured 'by chance, but not entirely' during the setup of a photo shoot in Morocco.

The photographer described how the shot happened: a chance passer-by who caught his attention, asking the woman to look up and then, not satisfied, asking her to look elsewhere.

This type of work therefore requires a lot of patience, as well as luck, and also an ability to mediate and cooperate between model and photographer.

Geometric skills

In the realist photographic painting of Lee Price, and in her shots of women and food in everyday life, the setting has the same expressive importance as the female subject. The work on colors, object placement, choice of costumes and even the models' hair color were components of an almost cinematic direction of her latest photographic project.
But even for projects where the setting is less elaborate, the subject must be balanced with the surrounding space, which in turn must enhance but not distract attention. For this reason, people often work with focus to blur the background as much as possible, perhaps leaving its colors accentuated when they help enhance the foreground.

When the eye has its say

Precisely by working on focus, what remains in the foreground is the face and above all the eyes, the undisputed protagonists.
When the eyes are brought well into the foreground with proper work not only on focus but also and above all on colors, the shot will convey greater emotion and the idea of 'falling' into the subject's eyes. We see this, for example, in this wonderful portrait by the photographer Massimo Ursella.

What tools to use?

• As in the first example, position yourself on elevated vantage points, staircases and small balconies a few meters above the ground, depending also on your lens and the reach of your zoom. The patience to wait for the 'perfect subject', rare and fast like a wild animal, is the fundamental weapon.
• A telescopic pole, like the Magic Pole, is extremely useful for organized sets and for spaces without elevated surfaces to rest on (so 90% of locations)
• Along with the telescopic pole, a device for remote shooting, such as Cam Ranger, is also useful. This makes it possible to check the framing and move the subject or subjects as preferred, without any 'acrobatics' by the photographer.

And you, do you have any portraits from above that you would like to share with us?

See people from above.