Formal Portrait photography (also known as portraiture) is the capture by means of photography of the likeness of a person or a small group of people, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The objective is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. Like other types of portraiture, the focus of the photograph is the person's face, although the entire body and the background may be included. A portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the camera, but not always.

An Environmental Portrait is a portrait executed in the subject's usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject's life and surroundings.

By photographing a person in their natural surroundings, you will be able to better illuminate their character, and therefore portray the essence of their personality, rather than merely a likeness of their physical features. It is also that by photographing a person in their natural surroundings, the subject will be more at ease, and so be more conducive to expressing themselves, as opposed to in a studio, which can be a rather intimidating and artificial experience.

The surroundings or background is a key element in environmental portraiture, and is used to convey further information about the person being photographed. The details that convey the message from the surroundings can often be quite small, and still be significant.The key seems to be in the symbolism expressed by various elements in the background, for instance, a baseball cap may not tell you much about your subject (unless he or she is a baseball player), but a chef's hat gives you a lot more detail about who he is and what he does.

There are several factors to consider when photographing people:

Location
The first thing to do is find your location. Choose a spot with a simple, medium-toned background. Tree foliage, grass or the ocean works well. For darker skin, look for a similarly dark background to keep the highlight (and thus the camera's exposure) on the face.

Minimize patterns, shapes and colors. Keep that background simple, or include a famous landmark.

Lighting
Get the sun behind you and to one side. If it's bright, put people in the shade (harsh, direct sunlight washes out the face). If it's dark in the shade, use the fill-flash feature to brighten up the face.

The best time is the late afternoon as it gives a nice, warm, golden glow.

A popular technique is to put your subject in the shade, then use fill-flash to lighten up the face. Bring a small reflector or white card reflect sunlight into the harsh shadow areas.

Occasionally, having the sun shine from behind the subject (backlighting) looks good as it creates a halo through the hair, showing form and drawing the face out of the background.

If you're shooting indoors try to 'bounce' the flash off a wall or ceiling for more natural lighting. A separate hand-held flash is best and can be positioned far enough away from the lens to avoid red eye.

Lens
Favor longer lenses for the most pleasing perspective. Use the widest aperture (lowest f-number) to blur the background and highlight the face. If the background is important, use a small aperture (high f-number) to get everything in focus. If you are doing environmental portraiture you may need to use a wide lens to incorporate more of the subject's surroundings.

Positioning
Get close. Don't include their full body, instead zoom straight in to the face. For close ups, crop out the top of the head and overfill the frame. Being at eye level usually works best, so for children, kneel down.

Proportion
Generally try to keep the eyes, not necessarily the head, in the center of the frame. If the person is looking slightly to one side, add extra space to that side.

Focus
Focus is best kept on the subject's eyes. If you can only have one eye in focus then choose one. If your subject is to one side of the frame you will need to manually interface with your auto focus. To do this on most auto focus cameras, dead center your subject's face or their eye (depending on how close you are), press the shutter release half way down locking focus, then recompose the shot, and then press the button down all the way.

Relax Your Subject
Get your subject relaxed and happy. For friends or family, remind them of a silly event. With children, give them something to play with. For local people, ask them about the location, their job or skill, or complement their clothes. People hate waiting while you adjust your camera so always plan the shot and adjust your camera first, before asking people to pose.

Fun Shots
To add fun and action to a shot, hold the camera at an angle - 30 degrees with the right side up works well. It looks as though the photographer was caught off guard, emphasizing danger and action, and is great for parties! Stage a joke shot by pretending to interact with a statue. Or use a wide angle lens to distort the face.