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IHFExperiment with these basic lighting patterns. It’s best to use a patient adult or inanimate objects rather than children. Once you can fully under stand and also know how broad vs short lighting effects a photo, go ahead and move on from there.
If you are dealing with limited space, just stick to headshots to three quarter, until you have the space to do full.
The goal with photographing and using light is to take what is essentially a flat image, and give it dimension. Study good portraiture notice and learn what works, and make note of where and how the light falls. Look up Monty Zucker. There are lot’s of resources out there on the net, or better yet get ourself a good book on lighting basics.
But before you delve in deeply, back up and make sure you are understanding the exposure triangle, and how iso, shutter speed, and aperture play together. You want to try to keep that iso as low as possible to keep the quality of the final product as high as possible. learn how to optimize/prepare your images for the web vs for print. As it stands these images dont show well for either. Start printing, learning file handling, your camera’s maximum iso before quality loss, and learning color management ASAP. Printing and finishing your photos is a huge learning process, that will help you shoot better, crop/frame better,edit better, etc. Its skipped by so very many, yet so very important to learn from the very beginning. Learn how aperture, and focal distance affect DOF. Sometimes we want a shallow DOF and sometimes a larger DOF is optimal. Do some googling and camera manual reading. Get that camera out and shoot some objects at different focal lengths and apertures to get an understanding of the above, before you get people into the mix. People add new challenges like , expression, movement, posing, directing, and more complicated lighting. In other words, slow down, baby steps, don’t take on too much at once and overwhelm yourself. I think just by slowing down you’ll see major improvements a lot more quickly than you will jumping all in head first. Don’t go into this thinking “I am going to be a portrait pro”. Not only does this close doors and give you tunnel vision, but it also gives you unessesary pressure. Step by step, let you and your camera lead the way. Try to turn off those voices from loved ones pushing you to do otherwise. Let them know that right now your photography is for you, and that you need time to learn first before ever thinking of taking money for it. Listen to that gut, work at it, shoot and experiment anytime you have the chance, study, seek critique often, and don’t get caught up in equipment and get yourself in debt. You already have everything you need to learn. Seek out the good stuff, and quit looking at the bad stuff and comparing your work to it. That will get you no where, but better than a hack. No more complaining about fauxtographer’s, until you yourself aren’t one of them. You can do this Melissa!
If you’re in business, stop. This will only serve to slow down your learning and its not exactly in your best interests. Have a good basic understanding before you seek out clients, or even shoot for others for free. Shoot for yourself, this step alone will help you learn faster and more effectively.
And before the time comes to open up shop, learn the business. Give yourself every chance you have to succeed in this competitive market.
JMO but lose the watermark. Watermarks won’t stop theft, and will only make people think you are in business trying to market and advertise yourself, and cause lots of unwanted inquiries and confusion. Trust me when I say, absolutely everyone gets told they are fantastic and gets asked “will you take my pictures” when they first let it be known they have an interest in photography, watermark or no watermark and regardless of what their images look like. Seriously, everyone, its not unique to you. No need to market that you are learning how to photograph. Your children, family, friends and objects around the house are all you need to learn the foundations of taking good portraits.