With portrait photography try to use natural light, position your subject 4-5 feet away from a window looking towards the window, now position yourself to the left of the window, compose and take your photograph.
Allow some room between your subjects and the outer frame of the scene, this will allow you to crop the image later.
The photographs below were taken with a Nikon fe 2 manual 35mm camera, iso 200, 50mm lens, aperture f/2.8 with a shutter speed of 1/60 sec and a Canon eos 5D with a 24-70mm lens at an aperture of f/2.8.Â
For more portrait tips check out the Photography 101 page on the side bar.