Outdoor and Location Portraits - Professional Advice from Matt Hoyle

Creating a photography is a bit like a sculpture. As you style it, light it, pose it and even as you post-produce it, you're chipping away things that don't make sense to you. What's left is something that is intrinsically you. How you come to select the subject in the first place has to be equally, if not more, personal.

Shooting Themes Projects
Shooting themes is about trying to capture the people of my time in a creative way. As a former creative director in an advertising agency, I tend to see in themes rather than individual, one-off portraits. There's nothing wrong with those but to carry through a vision with multiple images makes more of a statement. There are always going to be one or two shots that resonate more strongly with any particular viewer - it's a subjective field we're in - but you go further to strike a chord if you have multiple characters.

My advice is to begin with yourself. Any photographer who's going to succeed continually and not by accident has to do something that interests them and makes them feel something first. Otherwise they are just going through the motions and will create something quite hollow. Draw on your own world, your past, your present and your surroundings. This could be something that has touched you, whether in reality or in your imagination, or something around you.

Start with something accessible. Discipline yourself to your own neighbourhood to get a taste of a series before jumping into anything too grand. A really good photographer is going to make the mundane and bland seem quite unique and wonderful - just look at the work of William Ecclestone. The most important thing is to set yourself some guidelines and a focus. This will help you to overcome that series of a blank page, which you don't how to begin to fill.

Candid Portraits
When I started taking street photographs, the first thing I had to teach myself was how to find the places where there is what I call 'a hive' of good subjects. In other words, where there is a lot of activity that is likely to yield the ind of photos I am looking for. I went to these places in happenstance mode, ready for anything, and this really taught me how to observe. Of course, these hives are a subjective thing fro any photographer - mine could be very different from the next person's - but, for me, it was initially about finding interesting characters.

Posed Portraits
With my posed portrait shots, I want to take the viewer somewhere that being a fly-on-the-wall, however observant, cannot take them. I want to tap my subject on the shoulder and say, 'Hey, talk to me, relate to me. Let our personalities meet for one moment and let me see the essence of you.' In doing this, eye contact is paramount and you're not going to get eye contact without getting their attention.

If you find, by research or pure chance, a hive of wonderful people, or even just one, and you feel that the unguarded moment is not going to give you a good enough shot, or you think the person is so powerful that you must approach them, then you must make that decision. By doing so, you're running the risk of them saying no and it's a time when you have to have your wits about you and be skilled in dealing with people. This is something that I don't think they teach enough on any photography course; just like being a teacher, you can be knowledgeable and academic but if you're not good with people, you're going to be terrible at your job.

Outdoor Lighting
For outdoor photography, unless you particularly want the harsh shadows of midday sun, go for what photographers call 'the magic hour', which is either at sunrise or sunset, when the sun is at it's lowest , creating deep colours and long shadows of buildings and trees. Both times of day have a different quality of light so find out which you prefer. If you do decide to shoot at midday, or if that is the only time you will find your subjects, avoid a totally open area like the middle of a field or beach. Shoot somewhere where there is some sort of shade or cover so that light on the subject is reflected and therefore much softer than harsh, direct sunlight.