Portrait Photography Tips - Take great people photos

Taking portrait photography can be much different than taking pictures of objects and things that are not alive. You are no longer 100% responsible for the image and must control the model and manipulate his or her looks to the desired way you want the picture to be.
Working with models successfully can take a great deal of patience and people skills. Some models will have short attention spans and get bored, others will want food all the time and be nagging, others will be shy and nervous playing with their hair and such. You want to make sure the people you are photographing are as relaxed and comfortable as possible.

In portrait photography, the primary objective is to photograph the person and show their best photographic traits and even part of their personality. Usually with portrait photographs you want the person to be looking happy and pleasant. There are, of course ,other types of photos as well for portraits. Serious portraits of people thinking can be very nice as well. Also overly relaxed photos of people laughing hysterically can be nice too. Do not, however, make a person try to be some eccentric person if they are not comfortable doing this. This will make them look fake and unauthentic to anybody that sees the picture.

The background of the picture is also very important for portrait photos. If you have a studio then you can have quite some flexibility setting up the props and the background to different things as you desire.

Photos of people in real locations and outdoors can be very nice as well. An outdoor background well composed can make a photo really that much better .It can also ruin a perfectly modeled person.

Some great locations to take pictures at where the background will look nice are in nature such as mountains, beaches, fields, and even at historical places or old landmarks. Even if the background is nice, still pay attention to be sure the background matches the person. Everything in the photo should be contributing to the general message or mood you are trying to get across. Having a person laughing hysterically with a graveyard background will not work unless you want some sick type of message like that.

Lighting is also critically important with portrait photographs. You want your model to look as nice as possible. The best type of lighting for portrait photography is usually front lighting. This will reduce blemishes and such. It will, however, make the photo less flat. Side lighting can also be used but you will need to properly diffuse the shadows or else it may look really bad.

About the Author
Al Sanchez has a great program that teaches you how to take better photos. He also teaches people how to sell photos online.