Portfolio

I'm know this topic has been discussed, but here we go anyway...
When you were first starting out, what did you do to build up your portfolio? In regards to portrait work that is. I know that no one wants to come off as the "free photo guy", but obviously you can't just start charging right out of the gate (I mean technically you could, but I wouldn't feel right about it).
I have a few kids in the family, and some friends that I could build up work with, but are those 4 or 5 people enough?

Sure, that's plenty of people. Of course, it's better to have different people in your portfolio, but what's more important is that you have good photos of people. You can have 100 people to shoot, but if your photos aren't good, it doesn't matter how many "models" you have. Work with what you have and show that you can take good photos.

A dozen excellent samples are enough. You have enough people for one good shot of each. Maybe a two-shot of siblings. Then a good group shot & maybe 2-3 fun shots.

And since you used a descriptive title, the forum has done a mini-search for you. Look at the links at the very bottom left hand corner of this page.

I joined up with some local FB groups that did some group shoots (10 photographers, 5 models kind of thing), did one of those then joined up on Model Mayhem, have since shot a few people there. That got me working a fair bit with a certain makeup artist and we both made the transition into more styled wedding stuff, that got me a wedding gig and now I'm a full-time wedding photographer.

Point being, you only need to start small, but realise when it's time to grow out into something bigger. JUST shooting friends and family for free won't get you anywhere until you take the next small step up

Thanks for the advice! I love this site.