Portraits come in all shapes, sizes, and angles but do you conciously take them in a specific way. Just trying to get in you head to see your technique or if you actually have one, lets learn from each other.

If you are doing a close up portrait with fast glas and a shallow depth of field do you make a concious effort to focus on just the face in general, or are you more specific to pinpoint your focus on maybe the eyes, or the tip of the nose.

or are you taking portraits differently with long glass to compress the background

Lets see your best and your point of view

I can't wait to hear the answers to this. I always wonder if my opinions get in the way getting a portrait I don't imagine and therefore don't shoot.

For example, I have always liked the eyes to be looking straight at me. I've always thought they have so much power. And yet in your beautiful portrait above, she is gazing at something with a satisfied-looking smile and it's perfect.

Here's one I shot yesterday after Josie emerged from the dressup closet. I walked her outside where the light was nice, told her she looked so good while her sisters told her she looked like a princess, and she looked at us with that satisfied expression of hers that her mom said is so Josie.

Candid portraits can be easy or tough. Ambient weather conditions, surrounding people; friends-family-distractions, etc.

If possible I hope to develop a micro relationship (rapport) as quickly as possible to get a sense of the subjects "inner workings". Do they have a sense of humor, are they cynical, are they eccentric, etc? My personal goal is to be personally satisfied with the technical outcome but also capture the essence of the person. Nothing greater than someone who just had their photo taken to say "wow, that is the best photo someone has ever taken of me"....And, they would never realize that 40% or less of that actually comes from the camera.

Last night I had a quick little job for a local politician - Her hair looked atrocious, the wind was gusting 30mph+ and there were tons of kids to corral around her. The end of the day I got shots because I could connect with her and get her to relax, breath and take direction. Which can be impossible. I never wanted to have a studio for portraiture stuff mostly because most people are in such denial of who they are and what they actually look like and are stuck blaming everyone and everything for their lot in life. Thus, blaming the photographer for being overweight or looking old etc.

But, in a candid situation, I love taking spontaneous portrait shots.

Normally the eyes are my focus. the rest is framing, for casual street items it tends to widen to capture the environment more for context and composition, most of the time as wide on the aperture as I can get it.

Those eyes! Did you sharpen them and lighten the whites a little?

yup, a little boost when doing the black and white conversion. Not too much as the ring light set up was pretty good and making a real boost of light with the fall out behind.

i honestly prefer the subject not to look directly at the camera, generally I find it an easier shot and it also leaves that element of wonder