When pictures paint a thousand words: Getting started with portrait photography

Portrait photography is probably the best kind of photography since it captures human emotion. Someone once told me “you’ve captured my soul”. It’s a high standard – but I aim for nothing less. Here’s some of my ideas about portrait photography.

First of all: a portrait photographer should have a genuine interest in people. Any person could eventually become your subject. You should care about people in general, and be able to naturally strike up a conversation with anyone to break the ice. But above all else, portrait photographers should master the art to observe their subjects’ characteristic gestures and expressions, and use those observations to identify a person’s best side and angle.

Getting started

There are many different types of portraits depending on the use or purpose for the image.

Some of the common categories include:

• amateur portraits of friends and family

• photos of people in a social gathering

• editorial portraiture: pictures taken by photographers for newspapers, magazines …