Just about anyone who can aim a camera can make a portrait. It goes without saying that some do it better than others. Top portrait photographers do it all the time, reliably producing outstanding portraits with just about every subject they photograph.  What do they know and what do they do that makes their portraits special? The answer to both these questions is “quite a bit,” because there is lots to know about a lot of things in order to produce a great portrait.  The best way to start is by learning the basics and taking it one step at a time. You may not have the studio, the equipment and the technical resources that the best portrait photographers have, but you can still produce excellent portraits by following their basic techniques and by understanding what makes a good portrait.

A portrait is defined as a likeness of a person, especially of the person’s face. Simply that. But, the word in general use has deeper connotations in life as a portrait photographer.  A photographic portrait is understood to be a good quality image that not only captures a person’s physical likeness on film or on a digital camera’s sensor, but also something of the person’s character, generally in a manner that is attractive and pleasing to the subject.  A good portrait will contain at least one element that reveals the subject’s personality, attitude, unique mannerisms or any of the other features or traits that form the individual nature of the person. It will tell us something about the subject. You may have heard someone remark that a particular photographer “really captured” their father or child, for example, in a picture. They are referring in part to the image being a true physical likeness, but what they are really saying is that the image also reveals a significant, identifiable part of the subject’s character. The portrait photographer who has never previously met the subject therefore has quite a challenge.

We all reveal our feelings and attitudes differently. Some of us may show our individual character with immediate transparency, while others may be more difficult to “read” at first. The portrait photographer must become proficient at studying people whom he or she doesn’t know in order to capture their essence. This means watching for signals in a subject’s mannerism, reactions, expressions, body language and so on, and then judging how best to have the subject’s character revealed for the camera during life as a portrait photographer.

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