Portraits are photographs of people and they are usually close up. A portrait is traditionally a serious type of image but more recently, people have started to have fun family portraits taken. As a photographer, taking a good portrait photograph is a unique skill.

You should start off by using the portrait mode on a digital camera. This gives you less to worry about so that you can focus on getting the right angle and encouraging the right facial expressions out of your subject. Once you know what you’re doing, you may choose to do it manually.

Taking a portrait is a good skill to have. You can take photographs of people, friends and family, making them into beautiful images that really mean something. It’s great for commercial work as lots of people want portraits with their family. Just be careful to choose a suitable setting and background as you don’t want to distract from the model.