portraiture woes

it really depends on who you are, but i can be very demanding and bossy.
however, when it comes to photography, i am uncomfortable telling people what to do. for this reason, i love documentary photojournalism and tend to despise portraiture. i enjoy figuring out where to place myself so the light, person, action, scene all add up to a great documentary frame. for some reason i have trouble translating this into portraiture. i'm told by a good friend that portraits can be fun if you just use all the elements that you wish for during a documentary shoot, whether it be nice window light or a cleaner background or interesting layers. use the control you've been given.
well, if a portrait subject is comfortable and expresses they'll do anything for the portrait, i can loosen up and have fun. but same goes for the opposite, people who are being photographed with expectations of it being a quick shoot or who don't like having their photo taken rub off on me and i try to rush and escape the discomfort.
lately, i've become a bit more confident with portraits, which is lucky because i pushed for and was given a portrait column on teen cliques. (i'll post the teen column shots once the column stops running.) i want to get better at lighting and knowing how to make people relax and how to tell them what to do no matter their discomfort with having their image taken or their expectations. i'm working on it. people at the newspaper can often tell which photos are mine and i hope to develop a portraiture style of my own, as well.

here is a frame from a last second singer/songwriter portrait assignment i got yesterday. the musician told me he was game for anything after the reporter told him about some of my cooler photos in his memory. so after i shot a solid obvious playing guitar frame, i experimented with the stairs...