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Styles: Portrait Photography (Groups)
Avoid horizontal/vertical lines of people - work with shapes 
Have people crouch down, stand in front of or behind other members of the group, have some sitting and some standing. Long lines of people can lead to a very dull image.
For groups of three, arrange in a triangle with no horizontals or verticals
Photos of any group of 3 or more people usually look better if the faces of adjacent people are not positioned on a horizontal or vertical line in the image - think in terms of triangles. Have some people sitting and some standing. Also have some in front of others.
 
Use continuous shooting
With a group of people - there's a good chance that a near perfect shot is spoilt by one person blinking or having a slightly wrong expression. If you set your camera to continuous shooting so you can capture 4 or 5 pictures for each shot, you have a much better chance of capturing a perfect one.
Ensure you have sufficient depth-of-field
If there are many people in the picture, you may be best to focus, not on the nearest or furthest away person, but someone nearer the middle (in terms of distance from camera) and use a smaller aperture to ensure you have them all in focus.
Avoiding having anyone blink in large group pictures 
With big groups, someone is bound to blink on the picture so have everyone close their eyes and then to open them when you count "3, 2, 1, open!" - count one more in your head and shoot. Works a treat - try it.
Wait until the group think you're done and relax, then shoot a few more
You might be after a specific posed shot, but sometimes when the group think it's all over and start to relax, you may end up getting an excellent informal picture.
Groups of Two
Should you want to have the people at different distances from the camera such as a person sitting down with another standing behind them, make sure that you select an aperture small enough to get them both in focus. Alternatively you can be slightly more artistic and have one in focus and the other out of focus. If you adopt this technique make sure that the out-of-focus person is not just slightly out of focus as this will just look like poor technique – get them either completely out of focus or in focus, not just slightly blurred.
Sample Pictures
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First - here's an example of how not to take a group photo. One of the worst possible configurations is to have everyone standing in a line. This says nothing more than "I was there". |
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Photo courtesy of Andrew Larsen.
Here's a nicely composed group photo. It looks like the photographer might have just said "you guys get over there so I can take your picture" - however the position of the 4 people in it has been carefully considered. Despite that it still looks very informal and relaxed. |
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Photo courtesy of Alena Navarro-Whyte.
Here's a slightly more unusual group portrait where only one member of the group is in focus.
This technique might be used to draw attention to a particular member of the group while still showing the group setting (maybe the girl in focus was the birthday girl at a party). |
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Photographs
This is a site about photography so I'm sure you are expecting to see plenty of pictures.
For now, why not take a peek at the flickr galleries belonging to the two authors of this site.
Colin's Flickr Page
Phil's Flickr Page
"If I had a picture of two handcuffed criminals being booked, I would cut the picture in half and get five bucks for each."
- Arthur H. Fellig
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