Photography - portraits

There are some rules for portrait photography however it seems that they are there to be broken. However you have to know what they are first before you can break them.
For portraits you would want the camera to be level, or slightly above the model's eyeline, you don't want a double chin. Nice, flat, even lighting is best e.g. a shaded place or a room lit by a single big window. Direct sunlight should be avoided. A low f number will help you blur the backgrounds and help the subject pop. It is always wise to avoid built in flashes as they wash the face out.
For the technical side of things the aperture should be set between f 1.8 - f 2.8. The shutter speed should be about 1/100th second. This gives you a shallow depth of field.
You need to consider what a portrait means before taking a portrait photo. It may be a person's lifetime memorial or it might just capture an instant. A good portrait draws attention to the subject and this is normally done through some combination of shallow depth of field, composition, colour and lighting.

There are other ways of taking a portrait. You don't have to take a picture at eye level, you can take from above or looking up, both of which can give interesting results.
You can play about with eye contact. The model looking directly at the camera can give the model and viewer some kind of connection. However if the model is looking off camera this can create a sense of wonder in the viewer - e.g. what is she looking at. Also if the model is looking at something within the frame, this helps to create a story.
You can break the rules of composition, the portrait doesn't have to be dead centre, they could be half off the page if you like.
You can experiment with lighting to get a random look. The photo above by Bukutgirl has a fairly extreme lighting look whereas David Bailey's two portraits below use lighting to very different effects - the Queen has been lit softly against a white background to make a lovely portrait which I think is reminiscent of her wearing one of her pastel outfits - but the values used is creating a personality that they want portrayed.
Whereas this photo is very different, the darks are very dark and it helps create a moody striking look.
I selected this family portrait of Princess Margaret by Lord Snowdon as I thought it a bit different. And it is the way the photo has been cropped which makes it fresher. Two of the heads are partially missing.
There are other suggestions about how to make more interesting portraits and they include taking your model out of their comfort zone e.g. make them jump instead of stand. Shoot candidly - a good zoom lens will help with this. Introduce a prop or obscure part of your subject. Or focus on one body part.
I took the above photo with my Nikon SLR in 2018 and it is clearly posed. However I used the zoom which has had the effect of blurring the background to make the subject pop more - I think the checked shirt helps too.
And I took this photo below on Saturday when I was doing the parkrun. I was looking at the camera but I got caught out by shutter lag - I had to look down or else I might have fallen over. I do like the way I have unintentionally got the three heads in a row. This is from my - if you keep on snapping, maybe something will look okay - philosophy.

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