I paint portraits from photographs. The key to me being able to paint a great portrait is to have a great portrait photo to work from. Here are some hints and tips to taking a great portrait photo.

The most important thing about portrait picture taking is an interest in your subject. Show the subject and their surroundings. Let the portrait show something of the persons personality and self. If the photo captures something that you remember about a person, there is no need to show the whole face clearly. The photo may have a lot of meaning to friends and family even if it doesn’t convey much to a stranger. However you do want a controlled background which will focus attention on your subject and avoid too many distracting elements in the frame. If you absolutely cannot control the background, the standard way to cheat is to use a long fast lens, which have very little depth of field and will therefore blur the background.

The second element of a good portrait studio is controlled light. . The most flattering light for most portraits is soft and off-camera. As you won’t have proper studio photography lights the standard way to cheat is to park your subject next to a large north facing window and put a white reflecting card on the other side. If your subject is outdoors, an overcast day is best. If the day is sunny, make sure to use a bit of flash to fill in shadows underneath the eyes.

If you want to flatter your subject, you’ll probably want to deemphasize their nose. That means you want to stand at 10 or 15 feet away and use a zoom lens so that the nose isn’t significantly closer to you than the rest of the face. It is amazing how much the direction of your subject’s eyes can impact an image. Most portraits have the subject looking down the lens – something that can build a real feeling of connection between a subject and those viewing the image. Why not get your subject to focus their attention on something unseen and outside the field of view of your camera. This can create a feeling of  intrigue and interest as the spectator of the shot wonders what they are looking at. alternatively you could have your subject looking at something (or someone) within the frame. A woman looking at her baby, a child looking at a toy, a man looking hungrily at a juicy steak

Most portraits are taken with the camera at (or around) the eye level of the subject – altogether changing the angle that you shoot from can give your portrait a real WOW factor. Sometimes posed shots can look somewhat…. posed. Some people don’t look good in a posed surroundings and so switching to a candid type approach can work. Photograph your subject at work, with family or doing something that they love. This will put them more at ease and you can end up getting some special shots with them reacting naturally to the situation that they are in. You might even want to grab a longer zoom lens to take you out of their immediate zone and behave like a naturalist stalking a rare bird.

Taking a great portrait takes time, forbearance and some experimentation. With modern digital cameras you can snap away as much as you want and fiddle with the settings until you get something that is just right. Once you have that perfect photo portrait you  might want to turn it into an art work of a different kind by getting a portrait painter to paint a portrait painting from the photo or the cheaper (but not so good) option is to get the photo printed on canvas. Put it on the wall and admire.