Salaaam & Goodday fellassss,

This is my first time doing in-depth tutorial for all photographers out there. I’m writing and sharing based on my experiences, shooting graduation portraiture in Malaysia & Australia. I thought of sharing what ever images that i have created, rather then being stored in my hardisk without contributing anything to anyone, better i do something with it! I’m not the best in town to write about this, but i’ll just throw what i feel and what i’ve been doing for the past few years.

(above) The ceremony at Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia

Chapter 1 : Introduction

I’ve been with photography since i bought my FILM SLR ( EOS88 ) during my school days, back in 1998, using my scholarship money that i got during my studies. I spend almost half of the total money on photography equipments. It all started when i shoot my own batch graduation picture just for fun! Then later, I was not that serious until i bought a Digital SLR in 2004 (EOS350D), and when my junior ask me to shoot their batch for free.

(above) Swinburne University Chancellor giving short speech before the during the convocation ceremony

In 2007, i was lucky enough, to get a scholarship again to continue my studies in Melbourne doing Multimedia Design at Swinburne University of Technology. At that time i had my own blog, and most of the people around me know that i’m doing photography as my part-time business.

Chapter 2 : How i started the portraiture business

# Shoot FREE for your friends & family

This is the best thing you can do as friends. Shoot them for FREE, and from there, you works will be known to other. Spread of mouth. They will post in their blog, and a lot more friends will see your works. Shoot with passion even though you wont be paid any money.

# Start with low price, build up your portfolio

If you really want to go for portraiture for your main business, start low price, give ridiculous offer. At this stage, you wanna start having a few good client and a good photo folio.

# Nervous? Its normal if it is the first time!

Normal, just let your client know it is your first time doing this, and let them know you are trying your best to picture them.

Chapter 3 : Gear Set-Up

You don’t have to have a good camera to get a good photo. Just get a nice decent lense. I would recommend you to have at least;

A wide angle : 10-22 or 17-40
A nice decent portrait lense : 50mm
A telephoto lense : 70-200

You don’t need a flash if you are just shooting outdoor. Most of the lenses i used for the sessions is mainly the Canon 70-200 L 2.8, it just gives you a great depth of field!If you have the budget, go for the 135mm F2! The best telephoto ever.

(above) Yaya enjoying the moments of her graduation with her lovely mum.

# Shoot Settings

The normal shoot setting that i use Aperture Priority Mode, and i’ll just compensate over or underexposed whenever i wanted. If A priority is not working, switch to manual. Set the lowest ISO possible ( now you have camera with AUTO ISO settings ). If you want to get nice & dark blue sky, used 1/1250 and aperture and F7.1 range.

# Get a nice sling-bag!

Sling bag is the best if you are shooting on location. Get one for just portraiture. The one i use was the lower pro 130 if i’m not mistaken. Or get the Crumpler sling bag series. I now use the shootsac by Jessica Claire. Awsome! Seriously, i would recommend it to everyone. Get one guys.

Chapter 3 : Getting a good photo out of your client

# Rule 1 : Keep it Simple and stupid (KISS)

This is the normal rule in photography that most of us forget. The Rule of Third. Follow this rules, and you’ll be on your way to create a simple yet powerfull photographs. When i shoot portraiture, i’ve always place the rule as my top priority on top of other things.

(above & below) Hui Bing, posing on her graduation day in Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

As we composed the images along the two-equally-spaced vertical lines ( at their intersections ), we will points more interest, tension and energy of the viewers towards the photographs.

(above ) Aqis, Monash Graduation

As the rules is just a rules, i sometimes place my subject in the centre to have variety of options rather getting the same type of picture all the time.

# Rule 2 : Manipulate DOF with leading lines

The sample photo below is a client that i shoot at Monash University, Clayton Campus. As always, my priority is to get a simple photo composition, utilizing the rows of column to take the advantage of depth of fields. The lights comes from the right of her face, and the i wanted the light to lit her face evenly. The photo shown is in its original composition, not cropped, just like i want it to be.

(above ) Yaya, posing on her graduation day in Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

(above) Dzafirah, posing on her graduation day in the University of Melbourne, Australia

Just be extra carefull when shooting Canon EF 70-200 L 2.8 as it has the distance button. You have to be alert on the distance with subjects as if you selected the 1.5m button and you are shooting very near to you subjects, the image will NOT be sharp!

# Rule 3 : The Formal Shot!

It is important to note that you will need a decent simple straight forward family portraits. Don’t get away getting too much candid, or mug shots and neglect the main important photos that the family will later print and frame it on their wall!

(above) Eja with her parents that came all the way from Ipoh for her graduation day at University of Melbourne, Australia

(above) Aqis & Yaya’s little sisters, on their graduation day at Monash University, Australia

Use foreground and background when shooting groupshots as you can have variety of images for their albums.

# Rule 4 : Capture the Moments

Communicate with your subjects, try to ‘crack’ them up, to laugh and smile. If you can’t do it, ask some of their friends to help you getting them loosen up. Shoot in burst mode so that you won’t miss those important moments. At this point, you’ll find how helpful shooting with A priority mode would be.

(above) Shakira’s friends, on their graduation parade at Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia

There will be situations that your client’s friend will join the fun. So be ready as you’ll need to make them comforfable during the shoot. So a little bit of introduction and get your client which is their friends to help you on getting the moments. Communicate with your subjects, try to ‘crack’ them up, to laugh and smile. If you can’t do it, ask some of their friends to help you getting them loosen up. Shoot in burst mode so that you won’t miss those important moments.

(above) Shakira’s friends, posed and laughs at me with the help of her friends at my back, Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia

(above) Shakira’s moment with her mom & day who came all the way from Kuala Lumpur to attend her graduation day, Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia

(above) Dzafirah & Farah enjoy their moment after the ceremony on  thier graduation day, University of  Melbourne, Australia

# Rule 4 : Take Elegant Potraits

As i shoot the portraits, i would imagine how i want the photo of myself would be, and how the big prints would be framed on my wall in my own office or bedroom. I want the best of me posing elegantly in the frame. I would set my clients to sit in a composition to be simple, with simplified background as possible.

The images of below was crafted with the idea of Zack (RMIT) framed looking proud yet humble, graduated from RMIT. I used the old historical RMIT building at the back because it has a nice texture at the back, that will blend the ‘bokeh’ nicely.

(above) Zack posed elegantly  with the old RMIT building as background, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia

The images of below was taken with the composition idea was to split the two contrasting colors, with the subject in the middle, slightly composed to the left. I purposely find red element around me as to reflect the graduation theme of the university (RMIT=RED)

There will be times that you’ll stuck with ideas on how to pose your subject. I will always ( when get stuck ) ask my subject to posed what ever they want as long as their comfortable.

# Rule 5 : Look for Colors & Contrast

Alert on you subject color and your background color. Find any element that would give extra ‘ummmmphhhh’ to your image.

# Rule 6 : Find the Lights

Start shooting early before they sun rise high or late evening when the sun goes down, or find shaded cloudy area. Understand in total, the area, building or compound that you are shooting as if the session was done in the morning, you want to find an area that face the morning sunlight.

Posed your subject a bit off outside an arch, when we can get a nice lighting to lit subject’s face and part of the body. For the image above, Nurul Akmar was posed in the middle of an arch, facing inside, with her body place a bit to the outer part of the arch.

For this image about, i’ve ask my client to pose in the middle of the alley, and ask her to face the light on her left, resulting a nice lighting on her left face and a nice shade on her right.

Another way to give more varieties to your portfolio is to shoot against the light. As for session for the client above ( Hui Bing ), we’ve spotted a small roundabout with nice shrubs. As it was near to sunset, so we stayed at the location around 45 minutes and tried till we got the above shot. A car near had an accident because of looking at us shooting while taking the turns. Hahahaha!

# Rule 7 : Go Low & Get Dirty

The part that i love the most, get low!get dirty.Why? As simple as when we lye down, we can take the advantage of a simple composition using the DOF. I just want to bokeh and make my composition simpler.

The images below shows two different subjects at different location, mode and color contrast. Both images utilises my suggested rule of the # DOF, # Go Low, and # Contrast.

# Rule 8 : Go Wide Baby!

The part that i love the most, get low! If you still did’nt own one wide angle lense, go and get them. We can get a very nice wide shots with the background , giving the photos much more stories to tell.

Nurul (above) was ask to do a simple posed with half of her face facing the sunlight. I meter her face and to get a bluer sky i used the setting around 1/1250 with F7.1 using the lowest ISO possible.

Nurul (above) was posed in the middle of the composition. Composed in symmetrical way, i used the awesome tress with the flowers at her back as a backdrop. Again, the red flower will contrast and complement the whole composition.

For the shot, i wanted to get the elegant look of Najman (above). I posed and composed him a bit to the right, so that i can let the right part of the photo taking the advantage of the clock tower at back. It was shot with STE-2 set to my body and remote flash on the right.

When using the wide angle, just be-careful on the distortion on the back, so reduce it by not using the widest range. If you are using 10-22 wide angle lense on 1.3x crop factor body, you might want to use around 17-18mm zoom range

# Rule 9 : Shoot some details

Sometimes when we are out of ideas, try to look for different angle. As i was in the ceremony hall (University of Melbourne) I sat beside my client’s parent ( for this case, Thanges’s parent ) and notice they were searching for their daughter’s name on the ceremony book. So i thought of grabbing details of her name on the book.

# Rule 10 : Get into the Crowds

In the event of the graduation day, there will lots of people around the hall, or the open space area. But we don’t have much time to wait for people to go away as more people will come and go. What can we do is just ask your subject, for my case, i ask my client Hafizi,(UniMelb) to go in the midst of people and i’ll shoot from a distance!

# Rule 11 : Reflections

When shooting, try to alert to your surroundings. As for the images below, it was taken at Federation Square during RMIT graduation parade. I did a quick scout around the buildings and found a very nice spot, a glass wall in the middle of the square. I posed the cliet to lean to the wall, with her face facing the nice morning sunlights.

# Rule 12 : Pre-plan your shots!

As for this rule, you should plan what is coming ahead of you.You should take your limitation, your constrain as the biggest possible opportunities for creating great pictures.

How do i get these shots? I’ve pre-planned this shoot before i went into the ceremony hall. I knew already they will be seating in rows and easily i can get the advantage of # leading lines to compose my images. I asked my client to be alert, and try to look at wherever i pointed my lense.

# Rule 13 : Use available lights or Hit the ISO

For the case of University of Melbourne, the ceremony hall has one side of glass curtain wall, where it allows natural light to lit the hall most of the time. If you have a totally low lighting indoor situation, used to the maximum iso setting, as we would have to sacrifice a bit on the images quality in order to get a nice decent pictures.

If your clients request you to shoot their indoor ceremony, you won’t much options as you can only shoot with available lights. It depends to which ceremony you are attending, sometimes you would face different type of accessibility.

# Rule 14 : Shoot your clients friends and families

Your clients shares their success on the day with their families and friends, therefore these people are equally important. So be flexible enough to shoot in different mode, location and pose.

Chapter 4 : How much should you pay/charge

# For Photographers

If you are a beginner, you should start low, or charge reasonably. The pricing should consider the hours you spend on location plus the items you are offering to the clients. For my case, I charged my clients around $200-300 per 2 hour on locations per head. The will be some time a few client at the same ceremony, so i drop a bit the price as i have to consider shooting for others. At graduation season ( usually within a week ) i can get up to 10-11 clients per/season so with my pricing, i could get around $2000-3000 in one week. Don’t charge like crazy thousands of dollars for one simple session unless you are really a master photographer!

But hey, don’t charge lah if you are shooting your best friend! lol.

# For Clients

I would advice if you have the budget for a graduation portraiture, be reasonable, do pay to high for a low quality photographs. Do scout around for good photographer. They usually have  websites or blog that contains their previous work. Establish good comfortable relation with your photographer and

About the Author

Mohd Suhaimi Ismail a.k.a Archiprezmosis, 29, Malaysian, has been photographing wedding & potraiture sessions in Kuala Lumpur & Melbourne respectively. He have shot well in excess more than 100 weddings both in Kuala Lumpur, Australia and overseas with a remarkably similar style that’s creative, natural and relaxed. Archiprez brings a balanced mix between traditional and contemporary photography, with formal training and creative flair to produce amazing unrepeatable artistic images.His wedding photography can be described as a distinctive pictorial style approach with an eye for artistic and breathtakingly beautiful compositions. Archiprez loves shooting with a candid and photojournalistic approach with limited disruptions to the day’s proceedings. You can be sure that with this unique and interpretive approach, that your photos will be set apart from other mainstream wedding photographer.

He is available for shoot anywhere in the world.

archiprez | +60133332490 | archiprez@gmail.com