The most important thing in portrait photography is your subject. But that doesn’t mean that their environment doesn’t have any role to play. Not at all! The things that a picture shows in its subject’s surroundings have a share in how that picture feels overall. Even an ordinary bush can ruin an entire portrait—or bring it to perfection.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re taking your pictures with an expensive camera or an old phone. In portraits, the same rule of composition will always apply. And your portraits will look a lot better if you stick to them. Rules are made to be broken, of course, but before you break them, you should know them. So let’s take a look at the basic ones. As you’ll see, knowing them can dramatically improve your pictures.

Quality portrait retouching doesn’t have to just mean removing a few pimples. It can be more comprehensive—and there are several different processes involved in achieving a professional portrait. So take a look at how to get ideal faces in portraits by improving not only the skin, but everything else as well.

Sick of running around with your camera outdoors? Whether you’re cold or you just want a change of environment, sometimes it’s good to head into the warmth of a cozy studio. I’ll show you why every portrait photographer should give studio photography a try. A studio’s configurable flashes will give you almost unlimited control over light, which is a big advantage over photographing outdoors. And it’s so easy to get started. In this, the final part of my miniseries, I’ll show you that even in a studio, you’ll never be bored!

Sure, you can go to a friend, hand them your phone or camera, and let them just take a snap. That’s one possibility. But you’ll get better results if you think a little first. A profile photo is actually a portrait, and so it follows portraits’ usual rules. Master the basics among these rules, and you’ll take great profile photos one after another.

Every good photo should have a subject. And that subject needs to be the most visible thing in the photo, so that it dominates. Choosing a good composition will help, and so will adjusting the photo’s background. Join us for a look at how to do that.

Even when you’re shooting portraits outdoors, you can still have your light under control. You just have to take advantage of combined light—that is, artificial plus natural light. It’s generally ideal if you can keep the two light sources in balance. It’s best of all if your audience can’t even tell that you used both types of light.

Artificial light has one large advantage—you have it entirely under your control, and there’s nothing to hold you back from your creative goals. So learn to master flashes and continuous lights, and you’ll take your portrait photographs to the next level.

For many photographers, taking portraits under natural light is the simplest and most common option of all. That way you don’t have to worry about equipment costs. However, you do have to take into account the characteristics of natural light and subordinate your subject’s placement and your exposure settings to these.

Just about every photographer has tried portrait photography at some point. But many of them run into trouble when it comes to portrait lighting. There are several ways to go here. But for all of them, you have to keep in mind basic parameters such as the light’s intensity, quality, and color. Take a look at how to master these.