Choose a position near a large window or Glass sliding door where there is plenty of light, Open the curtain if need be, but you don't want the model to be in direct sunlight. Have a Light back ground that is uncluttered so not to distract from the model. Have the light falling on the face of your model at about an 45 degree angle. You can use a large piece of white cardboard reflect more light onto the model from the opposite side to reduce dark shadows.
Use Manual Camera Settings if able.
A 50mm to 100mm Lens is best if you have a choice.
Set your Camera to ISO100 or the lowest Setting Available, ISO settings changes the sensitivity, the lower the number the better the quality but requires more light.
Choose a Large Aperture F-1.8 to F-3.2 The Lower the F-Number the Better ( Different Cameras and Lens will have different Lowest F-Stops), This will give a blurred Background drawing more attention to the subject of the photo.
If your not using a Flash adjust the shutter Speed to about 1/80th of a second, then point your camera at the model and push the capture button down half way, this should focus for you and give you a light sensor reading, often a bar with a dot that move from left to right, if the dot is in the center, your camera settings should be at its optimal settings for the photo, if the dot is on the left hand side, it means there is not enough light, so reduce your shutter speed till the dot hits near the middle. If the dot is on the right side then you need to increase your shutter speed. As General rule try and keep your shutter speed above your focal length eg. 50mm set to higher speed than 1/50th of a second. You can go lower but risk of image blur from camera shake increases. If you don't have enough light you can increase the iso speed but keep in mind this will reduce the quality of the photo the higher the iso setting, quality will vary from camera to camera but staying below 800 or 400 should still give ok results.
