There is no strong rule on how much of your subject should  be  included  in  your  portrait.  Ideally,  an  informal portrait will include everything that relates to the subject and nothing that does not. In some cases, this will mean including parts of the background because it relates to the subject. Or, it will mean throwing everything out of focus except the subject’s face. A general rule is to keep the portrait simple and concentrate on the face. Quite often it will be the available light that is the determining  factor  for  adding  depth  and  mood  to  the subject.  Although  formal  portrait  lighting  should  be avoided you should master its techniques. This will give you an understanding of the various effects of lighting and the changes they can make to the mood or shape of a  subject’s  face. The  best  lenses  to  use  for  informal  portraits  are medium   telephotos   between   85mm   and   105mm.   A medium  telephoto  will  minimize  the  distortion  you  may get by working too closely with a normal lens, and it will allow you to work at a distance from your subjects that may make them less conscious of the camera. TECHNICAL  REQUIREMENTS Always keep in mind that the only reason for you to take a news photograph is to get it published. A print suitable for personal viewing may be wholly unsuitable for reproduction in a newspaper or magazine. Most  print  media  use  the  halftone  reproduction process  in  which  photographs  are  converted  into  a pattern of dots. These dots vary in size according to the intensity of the tone they will produce. In light areas, the dots are so small they are almost invisible. In dark areas, the dots are so close together they look like a solid mass of black. The amount of printing ink applied by the dots, of course, is in proportion to the light and shaded areas of the original print. Because  of  this  factor,  photographs  intended  for reproduction must be clean and bright. The black must be strong enough to withstand a little “watering down.” Important halftones in the photograph must be separated clearly,  so  they  will  not  blend  in  with  each  other  or become lost altogether in reproduction. Therefore, a photograph can be good in content and composition, but not usable for reproduction because it is  lacking  in  the  following  three  required  technical elements: focus, detail and contrast. 12-24 Focus “Focus,’ as covered in Chapter 11, means that the subject must be distinct and the image sharply defined Focus for reproduction must entail extreme sharpness since halftones lose some of their original sharpness in the reproduction process. Detail The  halftone  will  not  produce  fine  detail.  Small detail  in  a  newspaper  is  usually  lost;  therefore,  detail must  be  overemphasized.  The  most  effective  way  to emphasize detail is to move in close with the camera and concentrate on small areas. Any detail that is important to  a  photograph  should  be  as  large  as  possible  and adequately  lighted  by  natural  light  or  the  addition  of fill-in reflectors or flash. Contrast Contrast  is  the  difference  between  the  light,  dark and  the  intermediate  tones  of  a  photograph.  A photograph  with  normal  contrast  will  have  an  image with a full range of tones from white to black with all the intermediate grays. The image will be boldly defined but  will  not  reproduce  well.  A  photograph  low  in contrast or “flat” has many intermediate gray tones but lacks  clear  blacks  and  whites.  It  has  no  brilliance  or snap, lacks strength and appears dull. It will reproduce in  halftones  as  an  indistinct  or  “muddy”  blur.  Only  a photograph  of  normal  contrast  can  be  considered  usable for halftone reproduction. SPORTS  PHOTOGRAPHY LEARNING   OBJECTIVE:   Identify   the techniques used to take sports photographs and record  cutline  information. Sports  photojournalists  must  know  the  sport  they cover inside and out and demonstrate a keen ability to spotlight the key plays and players. While luck helps, more often, anticipation and a good working knowledge of   the   event   are   the   foundation   of   a   good   sports photograph.   Sports   photography   captures   action; therefore,  you  must  research  the  sport  before  game  time in  order  to  understand  some  of  that  action  and  to  be prepared for it.