More than 15 tips to shoot wonderful portrait photography. - Cooperate with your subject to achieve the best natural expression - Compose your portrait correctly and the emotions will stand out - Set your camera for the best result even in the most adverse conditions. - Experiment a lot! This is the path you have to take to shoot fantastic original photographs. All this in one single free ebook? Yes, it's possible!

1. THE BEST
PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY
TIPS

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3. About DreamsDiary®
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4. Introduction:
About Portrait Photography
Portrait photography is one of the best known forms of
photography.
It is also called Portraiture.
It is the art of capturing a subject in which the face, facial
features and facial expressions are all given prominence.

5. Many people think they don’t have an eye for
photography.
Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t take too much
talent to shoot a good portrait. You just have to master
some basic skills and apply some easy rules.
With just a few hints and suggestions, it’s possible
to take jaw-dropping natural light portraits.
This guide contains the best tips I’ve picked up during
my career.
A quick skim through them and you will be a better
photographer already!

6. In this guide I will give you some basic rules of thumb
about these aspects:
• The Subject
• Composition
• Camera Settings
• Experimentation
I believe these are the areas every photographers
trying portrait photography for the first time should
begin with.
A smart ally to have with you at all times!

8. Ready to
Start?

9. The Subject
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10. Natural Expression
The BIG SECRET about portrait
photography is to capture your subject with
a natural, not forced, expression.
Got very white teeth,
hasn’t he??
1

11. To obtain that natural expression you have to use
everything you can:
• I usually make an opportunity to make fun of
myself and distract the subject from himself.
• You should try to make them laugh a lot and shoot
when they are not expecting it. Believe me
those are the best photographs you will take!
• Another always-true tip is to shoot a lot of times,
use that burst mode and capture hundreds of
pictures.

12. Cooperation
This tip is closely connected to the first one.
Because, to get a natural expression you
have to persuade your subject to cooperate.
You help them have a good time during the
shoot and they help you get fantastic
photographs, with their natural expressions.
2

13. I’ve sometimes found myself shooting my subjects
while they were just arriving at the location; when
they weren’t even aware I was ready to shoot!
Always have your camera and settings ready before
the subject arrives. It can make them feel really
uncomfortable to wait for you to adjust the settings.
Everything to create the relationship, remember?
Once I even gave my subject the shutter release
remote. That really turned off the embarrassment!

14. Eye Contact
As we said, portrait photography is the art of
capturing the emotions and expressions of
a human subject.
Did you know that the eyes are the window
to the soul?
So it is the eyes that convey that emotions
you want to capture.
3

15. Here it is:
One of the most famous,
most intense pictures in
the world.
The Afghan girl shot by
Steve McCurry in 1984

16. Sometimes you can create a real sense of connection
between the subject and the viewer by capturing
eyes.
But there are a couple more tricks you should try:
Make your subjects look off-camera.
This can create a feeling of candidness and also
generate interest. The viewer will be intrigued and will
wonder to know what they are looking at, especially if
they convey some kind of emotion.
Remember to leave some “white space” in your
picture where the subject is looking. Otherwise you
will constrict it and ruin the emotion.

19. Also try to capture also subjects that are looking
within the frame.
A child looking at a toy, a man looking at his girlfriend
and so on.
You will create a story in the picture, because there
will be a relationship between the two subjects.
You will also give the viewer a second point of
interest.

21. Give them something to hold
During my career, I’ve discovered that the
hands are another part of the body that
communicates the subject’s emotions.
Even if they succeed in showing a nice
natural expression, their hands betray them
and display tensions and embarrassment.
4

22. Give them something to hold, and they will
concentrate on that object. You will soon find that
some of the tension has disappeared.
Always remember:
The hands are one the most communicative parts of
the human body.

23. Look at this picture.
Se is holding the bouquet
and she is really relaxed
and happy.
Him, however, is really
tense and this creates a
little awkwardness.

24. Please, sit down…
9 times out of 10 sitting subjects will lose
that nervous rigidity they might have when
they stand.
Always be prepared to ask them to sit.
Take a stool with you or find something on
the scene.
5

26. Composition
2

27. Match the Background
When it comes to background you can’t
always be sure what to do…
Minimalistic background that is not
disturbing will draw the attention right to
your subject.
6

29. Other times the background helps contextualise the
photograph.
It tells a story and places your subject in an
environment that describes him.
Think of a business man in his office. Or maybe a
homeless person in the streets. It provides context
and definition!
One golden tip: never let your background distract too
much from your subject!

31. How Close?
How close should you go or zoom for a
good portrait?
It depends on what you want to focus on.
You have several possibilities:
• Wide Shot: in this case you shoot the
entire figure of your subjects in the
frame. This is the best solution if you
want to contextualise them in an
environment.
6

32. • Half-Crop: in this case you crop the subject at waist
or chest level. This composition allows you to
draw the viewer’s attention to the two most
communicative parts of the human body:
• Hands
• Eyes

34. • Head and Shoulders: in this case you crop the
subject at the shoulder level.
For a successful head and shoulders portrait, fill
the frame with the face, and place the eyes on
the top third (put them on the upper horizontal line
of the grid).
Tip: play with shoulder angle, you might come up
with much more interesting pictures.

36. • Extreme Close-up: in this case you want to focus
your picture only on one particular detail of the
person’s face.
This technique is ideal if you want to convey a
mood or feeling.
For great close-ups, crop in tight on the face (or
even another body part) and exclude the
background entirely.
In this case you have to combine composition plus
expression, so if your subject is not conveying
much emotions, try another composition.

38. Think about Proportion
Proportion is important in Portraits too.
You have to consider how the subject is
dressed.
A nice dress can make a female subject
look thinner or taller; in a male subject you
could hide that little belly with the right shirt.
7

39. But most importantly, what you
have to think about proportion
is:
NEVER crop on the joints!
You will ruin the picture if you do
and the subject will look really
weird.

40. Camera Settings
3

41. Aperture
To shoot portraits you have to select a Wide
Aperture. This means a low F-
number (F/2 or lower).
This will result in a Shallow Depth of Field.
Which means that the background will be
blurred and it won’t distract the viewer from
the main point of focus.
8

42. Shutter Speed
It is common practice to use a Fast Shutter
Speed, when shooting portraits.
This means a time equal or inferior to 1/50
seconds.
This will give you a sharp picture.
You don’t want to have a blurred portrait, do
you?
9

43. Shutter speed setting depends also on the length
of your lens.
Specifically, the longer the lens the faster the shutter
speed must be.
If you are interested in using more powerful lenses
and raising your photography to a much higher level, I
definitely suggest you to take a look at one of the
others e-book I’ve created.
At the end of this guide you will find a link to it! Don’t
worry for now and enjoy the reading!

44. ISO
Especially in low light conditions or when
you have to increase your shutter speed
and you need the aperture level to remain
the same, you have to Increase your ISO.
This will produce a slightly grainy effect, but
it will brighten and compensate for the loss
of light capture caused by the higher shutter
speed or smaller aperture.
10

45. Exposure Compensation
When shooting a portrait you can easily end
up with an under-exposed picture.
Which means that your photos are too dark.
This happens a lot when you find yourself
shooting a back-lit subject, when you are
shooting full-face photos or when you have
a lot of white in the scene (brides at
weddings are a common example).
11

46. You can easily overcome this problem by using
Exposure Compensation.
Dial up to +1 stop of positive exposure compensation
to lighten up your subject’s face.
-3 -2- -1- 0 +1 +2 +3

47. Focus on the Eyes
Unless you are trying to highlight a
particular detail in your subject’s clothing or
environment you should always Focus on
the Eyes.
This is definitely the most
communicative area of the human body.
It is by capturing the eyes of your subjects
that you will convey their emotions.
12

49. Experimenting
4

50. Effects with Light
You can create really captivating pictures by
letting only very little amount of light reach
your subject’s face.
Or maybe by brightening up just one side of
the subject.
Basically, play with light to make your
picture interesting and unique.
This is the time to use your creativity!
13

52. Hide part of your Subject
Another experiment that has often helped
me is to hide parts of the subject’s face.
It may be with a piece of cloth or with a
detail of the environment.
You may even frame your subject’s face to
highlight only a part of his face/body.
14

54. Add another Point of Interest
Another way to make your photograph out
of the ordinary is to add another point of
interest for your viewer.
It might be another person, or maybe a
prop, a strange accessory, whatever might
describe your subject or deliver a message
to your viewer.
15

56. Add some Mystery
Adding mystery to a photograph will always
make it interesting.
You can try with a really dark environment,
or maybe with an out-of-focus scene.
This could be really powerful, so be
creative!
16

58. And this is it for this presentation!
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