glossary

Auto focus on a subject.

When taking a backlit picture, the subject is located between the light source and the camera body. The result is often in the form of a Chinese silhouette or shadow.

The aim of this kind of photo is to present a cosmetic product or a specific makeup done by a MUA.

Refers to a photo showing black areas with no shades or "matter".

• Shake blur : It is the blur created when the photographer is moving.
• Motion blur : It is a blur not related to photographers but to the subject. It may be or not voluntary.

It is the heart of the camera: it is the modern version of the camera obscura that contains the memory cards, the sensor, the mirror and the processor for the digital version.

It is a technical term that characterizes the background (or foreground) blur on your photos and its quality. It can be soft, granular, etc.

The book-photo, often called portfolio simply book, is essential if you want to be a model or work with photographers. Its content must reflect what you want to do as photos.

The aim is to show your work and your "photogeny".

For your information, there is a whole range of book whose destination differs somewhat but the principle remains the same in the main lines: book "starter" (for beginners), book "test" (1st book "pro" often at the request of an agency), book-photo (the most common), composite (see definition below), photographer's book, agency book, comedian's book (mainly expressions)...

Type of camera located between the compact and the SLR with a "fixed" lens but often with higher performance than compact.

Refers to a photo with white areas that have no shades or "matter".

System appearing as small red dots in the viewfinder of your camera. These determine the focus area of your photo.

Slightly different from the Pola, it is a bit like a summary of your portfolio showing your best photos on an A4 or A5 page.

Type of small camera.

It can be considered as the art of highlighting one or more subjects on one's image according to visual rules or principles.

It's a bottom-up shot.

I invite you to go to this page because it is difficult to talk about it on two lines.

Action that simply consists of keeping only a portion of an image.

This is the sharpness area on a photo. We speak of a large depth of field for a sharp image everywhere and a short depth of field for an image with blurred areas.

Operation consisting in removing the color of a photo (partially or totally) while keeping the light of the latter.

This is the device of a camera lens used to vary the aperture of the lens.

To make it easy, this is the CV of models.

The name Is certainly coming from 70ies' polaroids. It contains "simple" pictures (light/no make-up and no loose-fitting clothes or push-up and basic information such as measurements and contact data…

• face close-up
• face and shoulders
• face in profile
• full front foot
• full profile footer

The ideal outfit would therefore be a short, a legging or jeans with a tank top... at most a blouse for portraits

It is complementary to the book where you can show all your eccentricity, your photos with hyper elaborate make-up and which is, by nature, much more varied and livelier. The digitals should follow your evolution: weight gain, change of color or haircut, tattoo...

Having this kind of photos for a model is very practical, it allows your future employers/employees to have an idea of your "real features" and to start in a way from a "blank canvas" for their projects...

There is also another very practical aspect to detect fake profiles (fake casting agencies, fake photographers...), these digitals are normally "talking" enough not to have to send lingerie photos or more naked when the project does not really require it...

It is a quantity of light on an image. We speak of under/overexposure in the event of poor exposure.

Shooting at a very low speed. Speeds can range from a few seconds, to several minutes, even several hours.

It is expressed in seconds or minutes. This is equivalent to the shutter speed and is part of the exposure triangle. Below a certain speed, freehand photography is impossible.

The aim of this kind of photo is to present an outfit or a clothing brand.

Accessory allowing to give certain desired effects during the shooting in order to don't spend time in post-processing.

• Gradient filter: Also known as GND ("Graduated neutral density"), it compensates for light differences between different shots of the scene, for example the dark foreground and the clear sky.
• ND filter: Known in photo jargon as "neutral grey filter", it's mainly useful for long exposures.
• UV filter: used actually mainly as protective filter since the last lenses are almost all automatically treated against ultraviolet rays.
• Polarizing filter: Also known as a "pola filter", it reduces or even cancels reflections.

See foreground.

It 's a parasitic light due to an optical defect. It can appear as a colored blur or as spots.

System integrated in the camera or external (cobra flash/external flash/studio flash) to artificially light a scene during shooting.

It is the term used to designate the distance (in millimetres) between your sensor (for simplicity) and your subject.

Action to define the sharpness area of your image. It can be done manually or automatically (with autofocus).

Unlike the background, it is simply the area (blurred or sharp) before your subject.

It can be considered a digital artifact that appears mainly in low light and with the use of high ISO sensitivity. The image gives a bit of the impression of being made up of grains of sand, hence its name.

The idea here is to voluntarily push highlights and whites into an image. The opposite is called "low-key".

This is a graphical representation of the brightness of the different areas of your photo.

It is a type of camera halfway between the compact and the SLR. Its lenses are interchangeable and its advantage is that it is lighter than a SLR camera.

Well-known post-processing software whose advantage is that it does not modify the source files.

Darkened exposure to give an atmosphere to a scene. (Contrary: High Key)

• These are the shadows or darkest areas on a photo.
• Shooting conditions such as a concert in a small hall, at sunrise or sunset where the light is (particularly) weak.

This is the most delicate mode where it is necessary to define the speed, ISO and aperture parameters.

This is the unit of measurement for the size of your images. If you never print your photos or only in standard size, there's no need to go into a frantic megapixel race...

This is the unit of measurement of the focal length. When we talk about a 70-200 mm lens, the focal length therefore varies from 70 mm to 200 mm. The longer the focal length, the more you can zoom in without moving from place.

A moodboard is a type of collage consisting of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition.

This expression is also used to designed pictures from other photographers (from internet for instance) to present a project or the theme of a shooting.

It is one of the elements that make up the triangle of exposure in a photo, the other two being the ISO and the shutter speed. The larger the aperture (of the diaphragm), the more light will reach the sensor. The closer this value is to f/1, the greater the light received by the sensor and, conversely, the greater the value (f/22 for example) and the less the photograph will be exposed.

It is said of an image that has too much exposure. White areas without information ("burned") appear in the image.

According to Wikipedia, "Photogenic is the ability to appear well in photographs. Indeed, some people with ordinary faces appear more beautiful in a photograph. The opposite is also true. Some beautiful people lose their beauty in a photograph."

I would like to go into more detail on this subject - here is a link to an article.

It is the unit of measurement of your photos that represents the smallest element of a photo. This is the little square you see when you zoom into a picture.

see Book-photo.

Terms referring to the retouching of an image after shooting, on a computer, using specialized software.

I invite you to go to this page because it is difficult to talk about it on two lines.

It is a basic principle of composition in photo, painting or drawing aimed at placing the subjects on imaginary lines dividing the image into 3 in the direction of length and width.

See exposure time.

see moodboard

A good white balance helps to balance the colors of a photo correctly. This white balance is often reworked in post-processing.