1. A recognition apparatus for taking a sequence of image data, which has been obtained by shooting pictures including at least a portion of a person containing the face, and recognizing the facial portion of the person from the image data, the recognition apparatus comprising: a facial portion-identifying unit for identifying an image region including the facial portion of the person from each image data in the sequence of image data successively; a unit for obtaining information about skin color of the person from pixel values within the identified image region; and a storage unit for storing the obtained information about skin color; wherein the facial portion-identifying unit processes the identification of the image region including the facial portion from currently processed image data by using the information about skin color stored in the storage unit, the information about skin color being obtained from previously processed image data.