Chapter 13 — Exercises

Portraiture is learned with a willing human in front of you, so most of these exercises send you to find a patient subject and a window. Always ask first — explicit consent is the baseline of every portrait (§13.3, Chapter 32), and a relaxed collaborator makes better pictures than an ambushed target. A phone is a perfectly good portrait camera; Portrait mode stands in for a fast lens. Difficulty is marked ⭐ (warm-up), ⭐⭐ (core), ⭐⭐⭐ (stretch). Do the starred and odd-numbered ones at minimum; model answers and critiques for those live in the book's Answers to Selected Exercises. Keep your best frames — one of them becomes your Portfolio character portrait.

Part A — Read the Frame (seeing portrait light and pose)

Before you can build a portrait you have to be able to read one. These exercises train you to look at any portrait and instantly name what's happening — which is the same seeing you'll apply behind your own camera.

Exercise 13.1 ⭐ — Name the light, pose, and eyes. Find five portraits you admire (a magazine cover, a friend's profile photo, a museum image, an album cover). For each, write one sentence naming: the direction and quality of the light, whether it's broad- or short-lit, where the catchlight sits, and one thing about the pose. Fluency is the goal, not depth.

Exercise 13.2 ⭐⭐ — Broad or short? Collect three portraits where the face is clearly turned at an angle. For each, decide whether it is broad-lit (key on the near, camera-side cheek) or short-lit (key on the far cheek), and say what effect the choice has on how wide or sculpted the face looks. Defend each call from the shadows alone.

Exercise 13.3 ⭐⭐ — Write a Described Photograph of a portrait. Choose one portrait you love and write a full Described Photograph using the six fields (THE FRAME / THE LIGHT / THE MOMENT / THE CHOICES / THE EFFECT / THE LESSON). Pay special attention to the eyes — catchlight position, which eye is sharp, what the expression reveals. This is the single best eye-training exercise in the chapter.

Exercise 13.4 ⭐⭐⭐ — Diagnose the dead eyes. Find a portrait (yours or a stranger's) that feels flat or lifeless despite being technically fine. Diagnose why using §13.6: is the catchlight missing or badly placed? Is the near eye soft? Is the expression a posed "cheese" mask rather than a caught moment? Prescribe the specific re-shoot that would bring the eyes alive.

Part B — Lighting the face (Shoot This)

Now go make light fall on a face. Everything in this part needs only a window and, for one exercise, a sheet of white board — no flash, no studio. Keep your best frame from this part; it may become your Portfolio portrait.

Exercise 13.5 ⭐ — The window portrait. Stand a willing person one step back from a window, turned 30–45° toward the glass, and make a head-and- shoulders portrait at their eye level. Meter for the lit cheek (glance at the histogram — keep the brightest skin off the right wall). Make ten frames. The only goal: a clearly lit side, a softly shadowed side, and a catchlight in the eye. If both cheeks come out equally bright, you've made flat front light — turn the subject more toward the window and move yourself more to its side. Keep your best one; this is the foundational portrait setup and you'll use it for the rest of your life.

Exercise 13.6 ⭐⭐ — Broad vs. short, same person. Using one window, photograph the same person twice without moving the light: once broad-lit (nose turned toward the window so the camera sees mostly lit skin) and once short-lit (nose turned away so the camera sees mostly the shadow side). Same pose, same lens. Compare how wide vs. sculpted the face reads. Label which is which.

Exercise 13.7 ⭐⭐ — Reflector on, reflector off. Short-light a face by a window so the shadow side falls fairly dark. Make one frame as-is, then have a helper hold a white surface (foam board, bedsheet, a big sheet of paper) on the shadow side and make a second frame. Move the reflector closer and farther for two more. Four frames, one variable. Watch the shadow-side cheek and eye lift as the reflector comes closer, and note how the mood shifts from dramatic (no fill, deep shadow) to gentle (close fill, soft shadow). You're setting a lighting ratio by hand, for free — try to judge, by eye, when you've reached roughly a two-stop difference between the lit and shadow cheeks, which is a flattering default for a character portrait.

Exercise 13.8 ⭐⭐⭐ — One light, three patterns. With a single window or one off-camera flash in a modifier, recreate the three Chapter 12 patterns on one face by moving the subject's head (or the light): butterfly (light high and frontal, small shadow under the nose), loop (light a bit to the side, small nose-shadow looping toward the mouth corner), and Rembrandt (light higher and more to the side, a small triangle of light on the shadow cheek). Make one clean frame of each and caption where the light was.

Part C — Posing (Shoot This)

Posing is free, transferable, and the fastest way to make ordinary people look extraordinary. Practice these on yourself in a mirror first if you can — you can't direct a pose you've never felt.

Exercise 13.9 ⭐ — The four-frame pose build. Photograph one person making exactly four frames, keeping the light and lens identical so the only variable is the pose: (1) squared-up, weight on both feet, chin level, arms at sides — the line-up photo, on purpose; (2) shift weight to the back foot and turn the shoulders 30–45°, face back toward you; (3) add a relaxed, purposeful hand (on a hip, in a pocket, holding something); (4) add forehead-forward, chin-down. Lay them side by side. Watch flattering posing assemble itself one decision at a time — and notice how much of the improvement came from the feet, which beginners ignore.

Exercise 13.10 ⭐⭐ — Hands with a job. Make five portraits of the same person, in each one giving the hands a different concrete task: holding a mug, hand on a hip, thumb in a pocket, lightly touching the face, holding a tool of their trade. Keep hands edge-on and relaxed. Compare to a sixth frame where the hands just dangle. Identify which hand positions read best and why.

Exercise 13.11 ⭐⭐ — Chin forward, not up. Demonstrate the chin principle on one subject: one frame with chin lifted up (the instinctive, unflattering move) and one with forehead pushed slightly toward you and chin down-and-forward. Shoot both from the same height. Note the difference in the jawline and neck. This counter-intuitive move is worth drilling until it's automatic.

Exercise 13.12 ⭐⭐⭐ — Build from the feet up. Photograph a standing full- or half-body portrait, consciously building the pose floor-first: shift weight onto the back foot, turn the hips, then the shoulders, then place the hands, then the chin and eyes. Make a frame, adjust one thing, make another — at least eight frames. Choose the one where the whole line of the body reads as relaxed and dynamic, and say what made it work.

Part D — Directing and connection

This is the part beginners skip and professionals obsess over. No setting lives here — only the human skill of getting a real person to show up in front of your lens. It will surprise you how much it matters.

Exercise 13.13 ⭐⭐ — Action, not "smile." Photograph someone using only actions and prompts, never the word "smile." Try: "drop your shoulders on an exhale," "look out the window, then back to me," "walk toward me and stop," "close your eyes, take a breath, and open them on three," "tell me about your favorite meal." Shoot through each — fire several frames as the reaction unfolds, because the keeper is rarely the first. Then make one frame where you said "say cheese." Put the cheese frame next to your best prompted frame and study the eyes: the real one has the muscles around the eyes engaged; the cheese one has a mouth-only smile and flat, dead eyes. Once you've seen this in your own files you'll never ask for a smile again.

Exercise 13.14 ⭐⭐ — Put the camera down. For one portrait, deliberately set the camera in your lap for two full minutes and just talk with your subject about something they love before raising it slowly and shooting. Compare the frames from after the conversation to any you grabbed before it. Write what changed in the face — and what changed in the room.

Exercise 13.15 ⭐⭐⭐ — The rhythm of a session. Run a fifteen-minute portrait session as a rhythm: connect, give an action, shoot the moment, ease off, reset, repeat — for several cycles. Make at least sixty frames. Then do the harder half: cull to your best five, looking at the eyes first. Write one sentence per keeper on what made its expression the real one.

Part E — Lens, aperture, and background (Settings Drill & Shoot This)

Here your equipment choices finally shape the look. The goal of every exercise in this part is the same: separate the person from their surroundings so the eye goes straight to them.

Exercise 13.16 ⭐ — Settings drill: dissolve the background. You're making a single-person headshot by a window and want a soft, uncluttered background and a flattering face. Write your full starting exposure (mode, focal length, aperture, shutter, ISO, focus mode, what you focus on) and one sentence justifying the aperture and focal-length choices. (Check yourself against the §13.4 Settings Box.)

Exercise 13.17 ⭐⭐ — Distance changes the face. Photograph one person's head-and-shoulders twice: once standing very close with the widest lens/camera you have, once backed well off with the longest. Match the framing as closely as you can. Compare nose, ears, and proportions. This is perspective distortion made visible on a real face.

Exercise 13.18 ⭐⭐ — Clear the background. Find a portrait spot with a deliberately messy background (poles, branches, bright windows). Without moving the subject's pose, move yourself and change your subject-to-background distance until the background is clean and soft and nothing grows out of their head. Make a "before" and an "after." Narrate the moves you made.

Exercise 13.19 ⭐⭐⭐ — Near eye, every time. Shoot ten portraits at the widest aperture your gear allows, deliberately focusing on the near eye each time (single-point AF or Eye-AF), and confirm each at 100%. Then shoot three "mistakes" on purpose — focus on the nose tip, the far eye, the eyelashes — and study how wrong each one looks. You're burning the near-eye discipline into reflex.

Part F — Environmental vs. studio (Recreate It & Shoot This)

Two families of portrait, two different sentences about a person. These exercises make you choose deliberately between showing someone in their world and stripping the world away.

Exercise 13.20 ⭐⭐ — Two stories, one person. Make the same person two ways (the §13.5 In-the-Field): an environmental half-body in a meaningful place (35–50mm-equiv, stopped down so the setting reads), and a clean headshot against a plain wall (longer lens, more open). Keep your best of each and write one sentence on what each says that the other can't.

Exercise 13.21 ⭐⭐ — Recreate the documentary portrait. Study the case study (Lange-tradition documentary portrait) and recreate its spirit with your own subject and consent: honest soft light, eye level, a person within or hinting at their real circumstance, frame closer than feels comfortable. Six frames, moving closer each time. Choose the one where a gaze and a gesture align.

Exercise 13.22 ⭐⭐⭐ — The luthier treatment. Find a person with a craft, hobby, or trade and make an environmental portrait in the spirit of Figure 13.6: short-lit face by a window, their tools/work ordered and a stop darker behind them, a ~50mm-equivalent at f/5.6 so the setting stays legible but the face wins the eye. The challenge is balance — include the world, subordinate it.

Part G — Eye Training & the Light Log (no camera required)

The highest-return practice in photography costs nothing and uses no camera: noticing. These prompts feed your Light Log and train you to read portrait light and expression in everyday life.

Exercise 13.23 ⭐ — Catchlight spotting. For one day, look at the eyes of every person you talk to and locate the catchlight — the reflection of whatever light is in front of them. Note its position (clock face) and how alive or dead the eyes look as a result. Add one entry to your Light Log about how a room's light lands in people's eyes.

Exercise 13.24 ⭐⭐ — Where's their key light? For one day, every time you see a person well-lit (a barista by a window, someone on a screen, a face in a café), silently answer: where is their key light, is it hard or soft, are they broad- or short-lit? Log three of the best examples. You're learning to read portrait light backward from its effect.

Exercise 13.25 ⭐⭐ — Real smile vs. social smile. Spend a day quietly noticing the difference between smiles that reach the eyes (the muscles around the eyes crinkle) and smiles that stop at the mouth. Note what tends to trigger the real ones in conversation. This is field research for §13.3 — you're learning what to provoke.

Part H — Interleaved (mixing prior chapters)

Portraiture doesn't happen in isolation — it pulls on exposure, light quality, flash, and composition from everything before it. These exercises deliberately mix this chapter with earlier ones so the skills compound instead of sitting in separate boxes.

Exercise 13.26 ⭐⭐ — Expose for the lit cheek (Ch. 3). Make a short-lit window portrait and deliberately practice metering: take a frame metered on the bright cheek, one on the shadow cheek, and one on the whole scene. Read the histogram for each (Chapter 3). Decide which exposure protects the highlight on the lit side without crushing the shadow detail, and say why.

Exercise 13.27 ⭐⭐ — Golden-hour outdoor portrait (Ch. 5). Take a person outside during golden hour and make a backlit portrait (sun behind them, low and warm), exposing for the face and letting a warm rim light the hair. Compare to a frame in flat midday shade. This interleaves Chapter 5's light quality with this chapter's faces.

Exercise 13.28 ⭐⭐⭐ — Off-camera flash portrait at dusk (Ch. 11–12). Make a portrait at dusk balancing one off-camera flash (in a modifier, short-lighting the face) against the darkening ambient sky (Chapters 11–12; the full technique is Chapter 15). Drag the shutter a little to keep the sky blue while the flash lights the face. Keep the catchlight clean and the near eye sharp.

Exercise 13.29 ⭐⭐ — Compose the portrait (Ch. 6). Make three portraits placing the subject's eye (not their body) on a rule-of-thirds intersection (Chapter 6), with the gaze leading into the open space of the frame rather than off the near edge. Compare to a dead-center version. Note how composition directs the viewer to the eyes.

Exercise 13.30 ⭐⭐⭐ — The red door gets a person (anchor). Return to your "red door" (or any strong, simple background you've used before) and add a person to it: pose and light them so they're the clear subject while the door becomes an environmental backdrop. The same location you've photographed empty for chapters is now a portrait set. Note how adding a person changes what the frame is about.

Stretch challenge

Exercise 13.31 ⭐⭐⭐ — The twenty-minute character portrait (Portfolio). Run the full Portfolio Checkpoint as a real session, working the five phases of Case Study 13.2: consent and a throwaway test frame to lock your light, exposure, and near-eye focus; dial the reflector to set your ratio; build the pose from the feet up; then put the camera down, make the connection, and shoot through the real moments; finish with a few safety-net variations. Use controlled soft light (broad or short by choice) and keep focus locked on the near eye throughout. Make many frames. Then cull in passes — eyes first, then expression, then craft — down to one revealing portrait. Write a short paragraph: which frame you chose, exactly what you said or did that produced the real expression, and what you'd change next time. This is the keeper your Portfolio has been missing, and a strong one will likely survive to your final curated set in Chapter 40.

Model answers and critiques for the starred and odd-numbered exercises appear in the book's "Answers to Selected Exercises." Shoot each with a real, consenting person before reading them — in portraiture, the attempt (and the conversation) is the lesson.