Top Tips Shooting the life-size portrait

Now it’s time to set up your subject – or yourself – in a similar pose…

We need to match the lighting on our full-size portrait with that in the main background scene. Here we’ve used a single light, positioned above, behind and to the left of the subject. Aim for similar shadows to those that you captured on the posing doll.

When you know beforehand that you’ll need to cut the subject out, you can shoot smart by using a plain backdrop like the roll of vinyl here. The hat is also helpful – it means we don’t have to cut out around the subject’s hair, which can be tricky.