mr, welcome to the Hog!
When I start to read things like blow out the background etc, here's what you need to be proficient at:
You need to be able to handle the increased light.
You don't say if you're shooting outside in the daylight or at night or in a studio setting etc.
It's difficult yo use a lens at 1.8 during the day unless you're shooting without strobes so you can increase your speed.
Otherwise you have to be ready to use an ND of about 2 stops or more.
If you add a speed light in the day you need to have the ability to HSS to accommodate the higher HS sync.
Basically you've given us ZERO information to advise you, on other than the lens. Good luck
SS

If you are using one of the Canon APS-C sensor cameras (Rebel series, 80D, 7D-series, etc.), 50mm acts as a "short telephoto" and is a good portrait focal length. Plus the large aperture of the prime lens will be able to strongly blur down backgrounds if that's needed (on-location shooting you may not have much control over the background). But some lenses aren't at their sharpest wide open, benefit from stopping down slightly, which also increases depth of field to be a little more forgiving of focus accuracy. Experiment with the lens wide open and stopped down to about f/2.2 or f/2.8. The two earlier versions (and the EF 50mm f/1.4) tend to be a little "soft" wide open. Stopping down helps them sharpen up significantly, while still being able to render a fairly strongly blurred background. I haven't used the latest STM version so don't know if it's the same.

Image below was shot with Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens on Canon 30D (APS-C) at f/2, ISO 400, 1/30 shutter speed (indoors and handheld)...



Focus on your subject's eyes.... those are usually the most important in portraits.

There have been three different versions of the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens. The first two are "micro motor" versions which you must be careful not to manually override AF or you can damage the mechanism. With both of them you need to turn off AF at the switch before manual focusing them.

The latest and current "STM" version.... no worries. You can override AF manually any time without doing any harm. (USM lenses also can be safely overridden manually at any time. One difference is that since STM lenses are "fly by wire", the lens must be "powered up" before it's possible to manually focus it. Most USM lenses can be manually focused any time, even when not powered up.)

The reason I mention this is because often I find myself manually "fine tuning" focus with portrait shots.... Or I'll manually de-focus, re-focus using AF, then re-compose after focus has been achieved and locked (in One Shot focus mode).

Another lens I use a lot for portraiture with both APS-C and full frame cameras is Canon's EF 85mm f/1.8 USM. For the image below I used it at f/2 on an APS-C EOS 30D at ISO 1600, 1/400 shutter speed, hand held. Lighting was by a single. very large soft box (but only using the modelling lights, which is why there's such strong light to shadow ratio)...



On an APS-C camera an 85mm lens allows me to stand farther away and can make for more candid types of shots, but requires considerably more working space than a 50mm (above was shot with 85mm in a large studio). Longer focal lengths are generally needed for portraiture with a full frame camera.... 50mm is still usable for full length portraits, couples and small groups. But it's no longer a "short telephoto" and care has to be taken not to get too close with it. For that reason I instead use 85mm and 135mm as my primary portrait lenses, when shooting with a full frame camera. Of course, my EF 135mm f/2L USM works fine on an APS-C camera too, but since it's a fairly strong requires a WHOLE LOT more working distance, so I mostly only use it on APS-C outdoors (here at f/4.5 on EOS 7D at ISO 800 and 1/8000, hand held)...



I recommend simply shooting subjects in shade as an easier solution than trying to deal with shadows in strong sunlight, fill flash or reflectors, etc. If shooting in the shade, you might want to set a Custom White Balance. Letting the camera set Auto White Balance can appear too "blue". To set a Custom WB for portraits I like to use Warm Cards that give images a slightly warm bias... looks better for most skin tones. (https://www.vortexmediastore.com/pages/warmcards-white-balance-system) If not using Custom WB, I recommend shooting RAW so that color temp and tint can most easily be adjusted later in post processing (if you need JPEGs for immediate use or just want them for any reason, shoot RAW + JPEG so long as you have plenty of memory cards because this will fill them up faster).

You may be able to use the camera's pop-up flash for fill or to add a "catch light" to peoples' eyes.... However, because of where that flash is located, this risks redeye problems and will slow you down (waiting for the flash to recycle). It also will drain your camera's battery a lot faster AND limit your shutter speeds to 1/200 or 1/250 on most Canon APS-C cameras, unless you use "High Speed Sync" setting of the flash. This is the "HSS" Sharpshooter refers to above and setting the flash to this mode allows you to use shutter speeds faster than the camera's sync speed, though it significantly limits the distance the flash can reach. For portraits an off-camera flash is preferable (at a minimum, on a flash bracket that moves the flash to the side and farther up), to reduce problems with redeye and shadows.

Once set up, fill flash is super simple to use on Canon cameras. So long as you use any of the auto exposure modes (your choice of Av, Tv or P) the camera will continue to make exposures based on the ambient light conditions (as if the flash weren't there) and the flash will fire at reduced power (typically -1.66 stops, approx.) to act as fill, opening up shadows nicely without being "too strong".

I used an off-camera (bracket mounted) flash for the following, which is semi-backlit AND heavily shaded by her hat (lens is EF 70-200/2.8 IS at 180mm, camera is an APS-C EOS 10D at ISO 100, 1/320 shutter speed with HSS, handheld). Note the catchlights in their eyes (tho they're hard to see in her eyes, at Internet resolutions and sizes)...



Hope this helps!

probably not the best choice for head shots.. Can work for full length, 3/4 length and environmental type portraits or groups.. Getting close enough for a headshot will cause perspective distortion even with the crop sensor which will still capture the same image but a cropped view of it. Too close will make features like nose, forehead, ears, larger and sticking out more. head will be too large for upper shoulders/body. Longer lenses tend to compress features making for a more pleasing portrait (especially head shots)….