The Rules Of Good Portraiture
There are 35 rules (suggestions) that should be followed if one expects his or her portrait images to rise above the "that is a nice picture" to "WOW you did that?" status. I have never seen them assembled into a book and published, other than a book by master photographer Don Peterson written in 1985. He listed 25 of them. Even when Googling it all I get is his rules (posted by myself and one other person) over the past several years on various websites. Several of those "old rules" have become "obsolete" in the new millennium. My list has been garnered over the last 25 years and modified somewhat by the "relaxation" of posing in the last ten years or so.
Why rules? People will simply not spend $100.00 for an 8 x 10 snapshot. They will however spend $100.00 for an 8 x 10 if it is a beautiful portrait, and if you follow the rules you should get beautiful portraits. Once you learn them you can then judiciously bend or break them a little to acheive that "perfect" image that you see in your mind.
These rules are for PORTRAIT images. Just as there
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