TL;DR: Avoid elbows out for portraits. Right thumb on shutter button, camera body on right palm, lens barrel on right knuckles, right elbow in your ribs.

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Contrary to the instructions in most camera booklets or even books, and contrary to most images such as the one featured in this article, some sports photogs or photo journalists that learned to shoot in a crowd will tell you the hero image of this article is how not to shoot a portrait.

If you stick your elbow out, you’re banging the person next to you in the face, or blocking them, and if not, they will jostle you when you’re composing your shot.

It’s also super unstable. High quality glass lenses are heavy, you’re trying to focus with the hand underneath, and the elbow out doesn’t support it.

INSTEAD:

Rotate the camera 180 degrees (shutter button at bottom, not at top), plant both elbows (or start with just your right elbow) in your front torso just below your ribs, rest the grip on your right palm, and put your THUMB on the shutter button. If it’s a telephoto lens, rest the lens weight on your knuckles (fingers folded in to your fist).

With your right arm, camera in your palm, lens on your knuckles, thumb on the shutter, you are now a mono-pod, and the camera is stable. You may now use your left hand to focus or zoom, as lightly as needed. In fast light, this is probably enough.

This looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/LpVBA4Q.jpg

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In slow light, you can get more stable still…

For rock solid shots, buying you perhaps 2 stops of light (really!), when ready to take the shot, plant your left elbow in your front torso, brace the karate chop part of your left hand against the back of your right hand, and cup the lens focus or zoom ring with your fingers. You now have the camera on a tripod (your forehead, and two arms braced). Feather press your thumb to take the shot.

This looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/cbIEi1D.jpg

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Doing this (a) you won’t jam other people up or get your shot jostled because of a jutting elbow, (b) you’ll support more weight with less fatigue for longer, (c) all your portrait shots will be more stable and you can handhold low light portraits you wouldn’t believe.

Btw, here’s what a landscape stance looks like before rotating the right hand behind the left hand: https://cdn.photographylife.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/H...

Practice, and you’ll transition smoothly between this, and moving the camera weight onto the palm with the right hand tucked behind the left.

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PS. Manuals get this wrong, even while saying not to do the wrong thing.

It’s essentially impossible to find an online photo correctly depicting the technique, so above I posted selfies from the past using a full size camera.

To see what instructions books usually offer as (BAD!) example, notice how this starts out well for landscape:

https://i2.wp.com/digital-photography-school.com/wp-content/...

Look carefully at the lower left TIP, where it says:

> “tuck your elbows into your body. The farther out your elbows are, the more unstable you will be.”

GREAT! But … then it goes horribly wrong, and pokes out someone’s eye with the right elbow in step two, instead of shifting the right hand behind the left hand to support the camera weight and keeping your elbows braced. WTF, didn’t we just cover that in step one? :-)

Step two also has NOTHING holding the weight of the camera except the left hand that should be focusing, meaning holding the weight, bracing, and focusing are fighting for muscle motor control. Don’t do this. :-)

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But wait, you say, my camera is so Pro I have a second shutter button, just for portrait shots!

Yep, that looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/Avx7MlU.jpg

However, unlike landscape where the weight of the camera body can sit in your right palm, braced on your arm, braced in your torso, this keeps your elbow in but doesn’t hold the camera weight. So elbows aren’t braced and the weight is on your focus hand.

Compare again to having your focus hand free to focus, with camera weight on the brace: https://i.imgur.com/LpVBA4Q.jpg

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OK, back to the regularly scheduled comments.