Create an instant-film portrait.
Subject: a young woman from the shoulders up, fair skin with a strong natural flush across
both cheeks and the bridge of the nose, dark defined brows, dark brown eyes, full lips with a
soft natural colour, no visible makeup beyond a trace of liner. Long dark brown hair worn
loose and undone, parted roughly in the centre with volume at the crown, waves falling past
her shoulders, fine flyaway strands catching the flash. She wears an open blue and cream plaid
collared shirt.
Action: head and shoulders square to camera, chin level, direct steady gaze into the lens,
lips softly parted, expression open and neutral.
Setting: a plain pale grey-beige wall directly behind her, with her own soft-edged shadow
falling onto it to her right.
Visual style: instant film photography — direct on-camera flash, milky lifted blacks, low
contrast, visible grain, slight overall softness, a faint warm colour cast, gentle vignetting
at the corners.
Composition: square frame, camera at eye level, head centred and filling the upper two-thirds
of the frame with a little space above the hair, cropped at the collarbone, shoulders reaching
both side edges.
Lighting: hard direct flash from the camera position, flat and even across the face with a
bright specular on the lower lip and the tip of the nose, falling off toward the frame corners,
a soft-edged shadow cast on the wall to her right.
Text inside: none.
Constraints: never smooth or airbrush the skin — pores, texture and the cheek flush stay
visible, never deepen the blacks or raise the contrast, never remove the grain or sharpen the
image, never smile or close the lips fully, never look away from the lens, never tilt or turn
the head, never style or neaten the hair — it stays loose and undone with visible flyaways,
never add a second light source, rim light or coloured gel, never crop above the chin, never
add props or jewellery.
Output: 1:1 square.
