Portrait Photography for Beginners: A Practical Start

A good portrait does not depend on the most expensive camera, but on a handful of choices you make on purpose: your lens, your settings, your light and how you work with your subject. When you are just starting out, that feels like a lot at once. So here are the portrait photography tips laid out in the order you are best off learning them. Work through them one by one and you will quickly notice your shots looking sharper, softer and more professional, even without pricey gear.

Choosing the right lens

Your lens matters more than your camera body. For portraits you want a lens that renders faces naturally and lets the background fall away nicely. Two classics for beginners:

• 50mm - affordable, light and versatile. Great for half-length portraits and shots that include a bit of the surroundings. On a crop sensor a 50mm behaves roughly like a 75-80mm, which is perfect for portraits.
• 85mm - the classic portrait lens. The longer focal length compresses the background, gives flattering facial proportions and produces that soft, blurred background (bokeh) portraits are known for.

Stay away from a wide angle (say 24mm or 35mm) for close-ups: it distorts faces, making noses larger and ears smaller. The longer the lens, the more natural the proportions. Feel free to start with a 50mm f/1.8, the cheapest good portrait lens there is.

Getting your base settings right

Put your camera in semi-automatic (aperture priority, A or Av) or manual, and think in three dials: aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

• Aperture: for a single portrait, f/2.8 to f/4 works beautifully. You get a soft background while the whole face stays sharp. Shooting two people together? Close down a bit to f/5.6, or someone will always be slightly out of focus.
• Shutter speed: handheld, keep at least 1/160 to 1/200 second to freeze movement and camera shake. With studio flashes, the flash sets the exposure and you park the shutter around 1/160.
• ISO: keep it as low as possible (100 or 200) for clean, noise-free images. In a studio with enough light that is effortless; at home in low light you will have to go higher.

Not sure whether to start with flash or continuous light? First read our comparison of studio flash versus continuous light. For beginners, continuous LED light is often easier, because you see exactly what you get.

Start with a simple one-light setup

The biggest beginner mistake is too many lights at once. One well-placed light source teaches you more than three you do not understand. Take a softbox, place it about 45 degrees to the side of your subject and slightly above the face, angled down. From that base you can practise a few classic lighting patterns:

• Loop lighting - the light just off to the side, so the nose shadow forms a small downward "loop". The most flattering and safest starting point.
• Rembrandt lighting - a little further to the side and higher, until a small triangle of light appears on the shadow cheek, just below the eye. Dramatic and timeless.
• Butterfly lighting - the light straight in front of and above the face, casting a butterfly-shaped shadow under the nose. A classic for beauty and glamour portraits.

On the shadow side, add a reflector (or simply a white board) to bounce some light back. That keeps the shadows soft instead of pitch black. That single extra tool makes a surprisingly big difference.

Tip: move your light in small steps and keep watching the eyes and the nose shadow. The pattern you are after is often just ten centimetres away.

The background and your workspace

A clean, even background makes sure all the attention goes to the face. At home that is often tricky: a wall is full of sockets, skirting boards and bumps. An infinity wall (a seamless wall that flows smoothly into the floor) gives you an endless, distraction-free background with no horizon line. Your subject can stand right on it without you seeing an edge.

That is exactly what you rent a studio for. Our photo and video studio in Aalst has a 5 metre wide infinity wall ready to go, with daylight through large windows and the option of full blackout. All the lights, softboxes and stands are already there: you will find the full overview on our equipment page. As a beginner you do not have to buy anything to practise with professional gear.

Posing and putting your subject at ease

Technique is half of it; the other half is the mood. A tense subject gives you stiff photos, no matter how perfect your light. A few things that always work:

1. Talk and give direction. "Chin down a touch", "loosen the shoulders", "turn your body away from the camera a little". People do not automatically know what to do with their hands, so guide them actively.
2. Never let the body point straight at the camera. A slight turn looks slimmer and more natural than posing head-on.
3. Give the hands a job. Holding something, a hand in the hair or loosely in a pocket: it calms things down and prevents dangling arms.
4. Show a shot along the way. As soon as someone sees themselves looking good, they relax and the rest of the shoot improves.

And then the single most important technical detail: always focus on the eyes, and specifically on the eye closest to the camera. A portrait where the nose is sharp but the eyes are just slightly off always feels wrong, even if the viewer cannot explain why. Turn on eye-detect autofocus if your camera has it. Seek eye contact with the lens for engaging portraits, or look off-camera for a quieter feel.

Common beginner mistakes

• Opening the aperture too wide. f/1.4 sounds exciting, but then often only one eye is sharp. Start safer around f/2.8.
• Focusing on the cheek or nose. Always the eyes, always the nearest eye.
• Giving too little direction. Silence makes subjects nervous. Keep talking and steering.
• A messy background. Check what is happening behind your subject before you press the shutter.
• All the lights at once. Master one light before you add a second.

The fastest way to get all of this down is simply to practise a lot in a place where the light and the background already work. Want to go deeper on one specific genre? Read our separate guide on taking a professional headshot. And if you would rather learn with guidance, our studio photography workshop walks you through it step by step. Ready to get going on your own? Book a session at portal.boenkop.be and practise at your own pace, 7 days a week.