10 Things I Would Do If I Were Teaching Myself Portrait Photography Again

It’s my birthday today.

I left work early, found myself with some actual free time, and figured I'd finally sit down and write something. It's also been almost a year since I last wrote for this blog, so it felt like a good time to reflect.

Photography has been a constant process of learning, unlearning, experimenting, buying things I probably didn’t need, and eventually figuring out what actually matters to me.

If I could go back and teach myself portrait photography from the beginning, knowing what I know now, I'd approach it very differently.

Not necessarily because I learned things the wrong way; I think I could have spent more time focusing on what mattered and less time worrying about everything else.

So, if I were starting over, these are the 10 things I would focus on.

Before Anything Else: Know Your Why

Before getting into the ten things, there’s probably something even more important to figure out:

Why do you want to photograph people?

It’s easy to get caught up in cameras, lenses, lighting, editing, and all the technical aspects of photography. I certainly have. But eventually I think you need to understand what actually makes you want to pick up a camera in the first place.

For me, it’s the opportunity to create an enduring representation of someone at a specific point in their life.

That’s something I’ve grown to appreciate more and more.

The person standing in front of my camera will never be exactly that person again. Their appearance will change. Their circumstances will change. Their relationships will change. Years will pass.

But the photograph remains.

There’s something incredibly meaningful about being trusted to capture that moment for someone. Whether it’s a portrait, a couple, a pregnancy, a milestone, or simply someone wanting to document who they are right now, I consider it an honor that they chose to spend that time in front of my camera.

That’s where a lot of the satisfaction in photography comes from for me.

And, of course, there’s a little extra satisfaction when they actually love the photographs.

That’s a pretty great feeling.

Understanding my “why” also changed the way I think about everything else on this list. The camera, the exposure triangle, focus, lighting, composition, editing, and even the gear are ultimately just tools.

They’re not the reason I’m there.

The person is.

And if I were teaching myself portrait photography again, I would want to understand that much earlier.

1. Know Your Camera

This sounds obvious, but I think it’s one of the easiest things to overlook when you’re excited about photography.

When I first started, I wanted to shoot.

Learning where something was buried in a menu wasn’t nearly as exciting as finding a location, putting a lens on the camera, and taking pictures. But that excitement can sometimes override the need to actually understand the tool in your hands.

Learn your camera.

Know how to change your aperture, shutter speed, ISO, autofocus settings, metering, white balance, and whatever else you regularly use without having to stop and search through menus.

You don’t need to memorize every feature your camera has. You just need to know the ones that matter to the way you shoot.

Eventually, the camera should almost disappear.

You shouldn’t have to think about how to make the camera do something. You should be thinking about the photograph you’re trying to make.

2. Understand the Exposure Triangle

Aperture. Shutter speed. ISO.

It’s probably one of the first things you’ll hear about when learning photography, but understanding the exposure triangle is different from simply knowing what those three things are.

You need to understand how they work together — and, more importantly, how those decisions affect the way your subject actually looks.

Aperture isn’t just about blurring the background.

Shutter speed isn’t just about preventing motion blur.

ISO isn’t simply a number you try to keep as low as possible.

Each decision affects the image you’re creating.

Learn what happens to a portrait when you change one variable and compensate with another. Pay attention to highlights and shadows. Learn how your exposure decisions affect different skin tones.

Don’t just learn how to make the meter say you’re properly exposed.

Learn how to expose for the person standing in front of you.

3. Learn Your Focusing Modes

There is nothing worse than getting home, seeing what you thought was the shot, zooming in…

…and realizing the eyes aren’t sharp.

Learn how your camera focuses.

Understand AF-S versus AF-C, single-point autofocus, zones, face detection, eye detection, and whatever focusing tools your particular camera gives you.

Modern cameras make focusing incredibly easy, but you still need to understand what the camera is doing.

For portraits, my priority is usually the subject’s eyes.

The expression can be perfect. The light can be beautiful. The composition can be exactly what you wanted.

But if you miss the focus, none of that really matters.

4. Practice the Technical Stuff With Actual People

This is where the first three points come together.

Knowing something while sitting at home with your camera is very different from knowing it while another person is standing in front of you waiting for direction.

Nothing disrupts the momentum of a shoot faster than fumbling through a camera menu trying to figure something out.

I’m naturally introverted, so getting someone comfortable in front of my camera already takes conscious effort. It’s bad enough that I sweat a lot during shoots from all the core muscles apparently required to sustain my questionable shooting positions. Add me frantically digging through camera menus while sweating, and suddenly I look extra sus.

If I’m staring at the back of the camera wondering why something isn’t working, that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

And perception matters.

Your subject doesn’t know whether you’re changing a complicated autofocus setting or desperately trying to remember where the setting is.

They know you’ve stopped engaging with them.

The better I know my equipment, the less attention I have to give it — and the more attention I can give to the person I’m photographing.

That makes the entire experience better.

5. Learn How to See Light

Photography is light.

It’s another phrase that sounds obvious until you really start paying attention to it.

Learn what different types of light do to a face.

Direct sunlight. Open shade. Window light. Overcast skies. Golden hour. Backlighting. Side lighting. Hard light. Soft light.

Don’t automatically assume one is “good” and another is “bad.”

Sometimes backlighting looks incredible. Sometimes harsh sunlight is exactly what the photograph needs. Sometimes, moving your subject a few feet completely transforms the image.

More importantly, learn your camera’s limits.

Shadows can often be recovered surprisingly well. Completely blown highlights on someone’s face usually can’t.

Pay attention to the light before you start worrying about poses.

Sometimes the best thing you can do isn’t changing your settings.

It’s moving your subject.

6. Pay Attention to Everything Around Your Subject

Once you start concentrating on expressions, poses, exposure, and focus, it’s surprisingly easy to stop seeing everything else in the frame.

Until you get home.

Then suddenly you notice the tree growing directly out of someone’s head.

Or the trash can in the corner.

Or the bright sign behind them.

Or the person walking through the background.

I’ve learned to consciously scan the entire frame before taking the photograph.

Look at your subject.

Then look behind your subject.

Check the edges of the frame.

Look for lines, distractions, bright objects, awkward intersections, and anything else competing for attention.

Sometimes fixing a photograph requires nothing more than taking one step to the left.

7. Learn to Manage All of It at the Same Time

This is where photographing people starts to become challenging.

Now you’re thinking about your camera settings.

Exposure.

Focus.

Light.

Background.

Composition.

And there’s still a human being standing in front of you.

You need to communicate with them, give direction, watch their body language, notice their expression, and recognize those tiny moments when something genuine happens.

This is why practice matters so much.

Eventually, numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 start happening almost automatically.

You notice the light changing.

You see the distracting object.

You adjust your exposure.

You know where your focus point is.

And you do it all while continuing the conversation.

That’s when photography starts feeling less like operating a camera and more like making photographs.

8. Learn to Edit — Then Learn When to Stop

Opening Lightroom for the first time can be dangerous.

Suddenly you realize just how much you can change.

Colors. Contrast. Skin tones. Shadows. Highlights. Grain. Saturation. Curves. Masks.

And because you can change everything, there’s a temptation to change everything.

I definitely went through that phase.

Over time, though, I’ve found myself moving in the opposite direction.

My editing has become increasingly minimal because I want the finished photograph to remain true to what I saw and what we created during the shoot.

That doesn’t mean editing isn’t important. Editing is absolutely part of my photography.

But now I think of it less as fixing a photograph and more as finishing it.

Get as much right as you can in camera.

Then use editing to bring the photograph the rest of the way.

9. Find Inspiration — And Be Open to Feedback

Look at a lot of photography.

Save photographs that stop you.

Study photographers whose work you admire.

But don’t just collect images. Ask yourself why you like them.

Is it the lighting?

The colors?

The composition?

The expressions?

The intimacy?

The environment?

The way the photographer uses negative space?

The way the image feels like a still frame from a movie?

Eventually you’ll start noticing patterns in the photographs you’re drawn to. Those patterns can teach you a lot about the photographer you want to become.

But there’s another part of learning that I wish I’d had more of: critical feedback.

I wasn’t lucky enough to have a photography mentor when I was learning. I didn’t really have someone in the field who could regularly look at my photographs and tell me what was working, what wasn’t, and — more importantly — why.

I’ve always asked friends what they thought about my photographs, and I still value their opinions. But there’s a difference between someone telling you they like a photograph and having another photographer really geek out over it with you.

Why did you choose that aperture?

Why did you put the subject there?

Did you notice what the light was doing?

Why this crop?

Why this lens?

What would happen if you moved two feet in either direction?

Those are the conversations I wish I’d had more often.

I’ve always valued critical feedback, even when it’s uncomfortable. Someone simply telling me that a photograph is good might make me feel good about it, but someone explaining why it could have been better gives me something I can take into the next shoot.

And you have to learn not to take that personally.

Criticism of a photograph isn’t necessarily criticism of the photographer. If you trust the person giving you feedback and respect their work, listen.

You don’t have to agree with everything they say, and you certainly don’t have to change your style to satisfy someone else’s preferences.

But be open enough to consider it.

The goal isn’t to copy someone else’s style or make photographs that everyone approves of.

It’s to develop your eye, understand your own decisions, and eventually become confident enough to know why you made them.

Sometimes I look back at old shoots and wish I could do them all over again. Not because I think the photographs were necessarily bad, but because I can see things now that I couldn't see then. I notice the light I would've used differently, the background I would've changed, the direction I would've given, or the moment I would've waited just a little longer for.

I think that's actually a good thing.

If you can look at photographs you made years ago and see exactly what you would do differently today, that's evidence that your eye has grown. At the same time, I try not to dismiss those older photographs. They represent where I was at that point in my journey, just as the portraits I make today will probably look different to me years from now.

Maybe that's part of the beauty of learning photography: you don't get to redo every photograph, but you get to take what you learned into the next one.

10. Let Your Style Determine Your Gear — Not the Other Way Around

I’m not going to lie.

I had a serious case of GAS — Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

You name it, and there’s a decent chance I either owned it or convinced myself that I needed it.

Lenses. Strobes. Modifiers. Props. Accessories.

And new gear is fun.

But eventually you realize that owning more equipment doesn’t necessarily give you more options. Sometimes it just gives you more decisions to make.

As I became more confident about the photographs I wanted to create, I also became more confident about the equipment I actually needed to create them.

That’s the direction I wish I had taken from the beginning.

Figure out what you want your photographs to look and feel like. Then build your kit around that.

Not the other way around.

And interestingly enough, that brings everything back to number one.

Know the gear you have.

Know it well enough that you understand what it can and can’t do.

Then, when you eventually add something to your kit, you’ll know exactly why you’re adding it.

If I Had to Start Again…

I don’t think I would start by buying a better camera.

I wouldn’t start by collecting presets.

I wouldn’t worry about having every focal length covered or building the perfect kit.

I’d grab a camera, learn it inside and out, understand exposure and focus, find some good light, and photograph as many people as possible.

Then I’d look at the photographs.

Figure out what worked.

Figure out what didn’t.

And do it again.

I’d also try to remember that sharing the work isn't the same as measuring its value.

Social media engagement is for the birds (not worth obsessing over). Instagram is set up to encourage you to post, interact, and keep feeding the platform, but the numbers don’t necessarily reflect what your work means, what it’s worth, or what you’re trying to say.

It’s easy to post a photograph, watch the likes and comments, and start wondering whether the work is good enough. But engagement is often influenced by timing, algorithms, trends, and how often people happen to check their feeds. It isn’t a reliable measure of your growth or your ability.

Don’t get discouraged because a photograph didn’t receive much attention.

Stay true to what you do.

Keep making the work that feels honest to you, even when the algorithm seems indifferent. The right people may not always be the loudest or most visible audience, and sometimes the photographs that matter most to you won’t be the ones that perform best online.

Instagram is a place to share your work. It doesn’t get to decide what your work is about.

Because after all the cameras, lenses, Lightroom edits, techniques, and lessons I’ve picked up along the way, I think portrait photography ultimately becomes much simpler:

Know your tools well enough to stop thinking about them.

Then you can concentrate on the light, the moment, and, most importantly, the person standing in front of you.

And that last part is probably more important than anything else I’ve written here.

Respect your subjects.

Be appreciative of their time and, more importantly, their trust.

Having someone step in front of your camera can be a surprisingly vulnerable experience. They’re trusting you with how they’re going to be seen. They’re giving you their time, their energy, and a little bit of themselves in the process.

Never take that for granted.

Make them comfortable. Communicate with them. Listen to them. Don’t push boundaries for the sake of getting a photograph. And remember that creating a great portrait should never be more important than the person you’re photographing.

Cameras will change.

Your editing will change.

Your style will probably change too.

Maybe that’s the most important thing I’d teach myself if I could start all over again.

Andrew