The number one way to improve your photographic portraits is to make sure you have a blurred or plain background.

Your portraits will look more professional if your subject's face isn't competing with background "noise" such as buildings, trees and other people. We've all seen an otherwise beautiful photo portrait spoiled by a lamp post apparently sticking out of the subject's head.

How do you make sure the face in your photo is the only thing that attracts the viewer's eye?

There are two simple ways to do this.

PLAIN BACKGROUND

Firstly, you can choose a plain background so that the viewer's eyes are drawn only to your subject's face. Before you push the shutter, look through the viewfinder or at the screen and see if there is anything competing for attention with your subject. If there is, move them to a new spot. Remember that YOU can move and take the photo from a different angle to eliminate visual distractions.

SOFT FOCUS BACKGROUND

The second method is to use your camera's settings to decrease depth-of-field. This simply means having less in focus. Your aim is to have your subject in focus and everything behind them out of focus.

If your camera has automatic settings, choose the portraiture program. It will often be shown on a dial as a head or face. Your camera will automatically choose a setting which is most likely to give you a soft, blurred background.

If you have a camera with manual settings, choose an f-stop with a small number. An f-stop of 2.8 would give you a good soft focus background while your subject's face is in sharp focus.

If your camera lens doesn't have such a small f-stop, you can still achieve a blurry background with a larger f-stop by making sure your subject is as far away as possible from the background. For example, if they're standing right in front of a brick wall, ask your subject to take ten steps forward. If you focus your lens on your subject's face, the lines on the brick wall will be softened.

There are many other factors that contribute to making a great portrait photo, but if you allow your subject to stand out from the background, you've made an excellent start.

Learn more about this author, Dianne Dakota.
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