Below are two photos by world-famous portrait photographer: Elsa Dorfman. Elsa has the same kind of studio, background, lights, and equipment as a lot of folks with more technical skill. Yet those folks aren't portrait photographers and Elsa is. What's the difference? Elsa cares about people. She is genuinely curious about people she has never met and can connect with them in just a few minutes. After a one-hour session, she knows more about her average subject's life than I do about my sister's.
Elsa uses a 20x24" Polaroid camera. Film costs about $50/exposure, so she limits herself to two exposures per subject. Yet her photo of me and Alex (below right) is one of the only pictures of myself that I like. Our advice to digital photographers is to fill the flash card with at least 50 images in hopes of yielding one that captures the essence of a subject's expression.
Elsa's artistic success implies that the most important thing about portrait photography is an interest in your subject. If you are so busy working that you can't care about strangers, don't take their photos! Or at rate, don't expect those photos to be good. Some of my better portraits were taken on a trip to Alaska and back because I had 3.5 months in which to be alone and learn to appreciate the value of a stranger's company and conversation.
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