Note: It’s a travel day for me today, so enjoy this post from the archives on portrait photography - one of the first articles that made it on the Cheapshooter site.

What is the most photographed subject in the world? People. Everyone is a portrait photographer, from the budding amateur with the point-and-shoot digital camera to the most advanced professional shooting photographs for the biggest magazines in the world. No matter who you are or where you are, there’s always demand for good portrait photography.

It’s unfair that portrait photography isn’t usually considered to be particularly difficult. All you do is get someone in front of the camera and click the shutter, right? Wrong. The masters of portrait photography construct their photo down to the tiniest detail and the smallest ray of light. Everything in the frame is accounted for and controlled, making the resulting photograph something more similar to a painting than a typical photo. Portrait photography is an exacting art that takes years to master, along with thousands of dollars of studio equipment, lenses and cameras.

Why should we care? The vast majority of photographers – me included – will never have the budget or time necessary to truly master portrait photographer. But it’s important to remember that portrait photography is an art to be respected. Like anything else, there’s technique and skill involved that can take a portrait from the mundane to something that can truly be treasured.

Here are nine simple techniques to help take your portrait photography to the next level without costing you a dime more than you’ve already spent. If you have nearly any digital camera that has come out in the last few years, you have more than enough to shoot great portrait photography. Start putting these 11 techniques into practice, and you’ll see an immediate difference in your results.
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Photo originally uploaded by gerome

Ever see that informercial with the annoying catchphrase “Set It and Forget It”? Sometimes the same principle applies in photography.

With some photos, you just don’t want to over-complicate things. This photo is a perfect example of a situation in which it’s easy to get a great shot without a lot of tinkering around. See how after the jump.

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I was sitting and trying to think how many snapshot photos I’ve taken during my life. You know, those quick photos of the dog in the backyard, the family on vacation — all those daily events we feel the need to preserve into perpetuity. They add up pretty quickly.

As I was thinking about this, I came to a more startling realization. Despite the fact that they fill my hard drive, clog my Flickr account and fill every photo album I own, I can’t think of one time that I’ve sat down and decided to go through my massive snapshot collection. Why? Because the vast majority of them suck.

I don’t think I’m alone. While I’ll spend hours thinking about how to set up a cool macro shot or get a better angle for a photo for the paper, I never spend much time thinking about getting better snapshots. Most photographers are the same way. It’s too easy just to set the camera to automatic mode and click the shutter, producing a mediocre photo that’ll never be seen again.

I think that’s kind of sad. There are a lot of easy ways to take better snapshots that maybe we just tend to forget. Here are nine common-sense methods to try.

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Film grain was a feature of the non-digital era, like this scan of a film image by moominsean.

A lot of people think digital cameras have taken the fun out of photography. In an era of RGB sensors, super saturation and noise reduction, the image that comes from the camera may be almost too perfect. It loses the gritty feel that was a feature of the film-era.

In response, a lot of photographers use digital camera settings or post-processing filters to add grain back into their images. It’s a divisive decision. When done well, it may enhance the feel of an image. Others think it is simply “over-processed Photoshop crap“.

In the digital era, film grain ever appropriate?

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There were a couple of interesting comments from Reddit users on yesterday’s post on lightning photography that didn’t make it into the article comments. In case my article was a bit confusing, here are their methods on how to take great lightning shots.

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