Low-Angle Portraits in a Studio Setting, with Gilmar Smith

By: Gilmar Smith

Last week was my daughter's 4th birthday.  Celebrating her birthday is always a little tricky, because she suffers from all kind of food allergies. So much so that last year, we spent her birthday in an emergency room. So this year, instead of going crazy with sweets, my friends from Spectacular Themes let me borrow a few candy props, and instead of eating candy, we turned our place into Candy Land for her birthday!

Now, we are all used to take pictures at eye level because it is the most comfortable way to do it and even when we use a tripod, we tend to set it up at that height or at waist level. 

To show you a more creative approach, I went ahead and set my camera on the floor on my Platypod Ultra to get a few low-angle shots. Low-angle perspective, or worm's eye perspective, allow us to see the world in a different way -- pretty much as kids see it. It's also a great way to increase the height of a subject and make him/her more powerful and for a more dramatic-looking image. Low angles are often used by fashion photographers to make models look taller and more dominant.

Next time you're in the studio, try setting your camera low and fill the frame with your subject. Try not to set it up too close so you don't get any kind of distortion unless that's the effect you are going for.

In my next post, I'll show you a different way of taking low-angle portraits. See you next time!

Gilmar Smith is an Orlando-based photographer, content creator, Photoshop addict & social media junkie! Visit her at  gilmarphotography.com and be sure to follow her on Instagram!