John Hedgecoe, who has died of cancer aged 78, photographed a variety of subjects but was best known for his portraits of artists and writers. His style ranged from the formal, such as posed shots of artists with their work in the studio, to close-ups revealing their various reactions to being photographed. Hedgecoe took portraits of Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, David Hockney, John Betjeman, Ted Hughes and Agatha Christie, but his most famous sitter was the Queen. Hedgecoe's image of her has effectively sold more than 200bn copies, as it is used on postage stamps. It is credited with being the most frequently reproduced image in the world.

In 1966, he was approached by the postmaster general to take a portrait of the Queen. A session took place in the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace and, despite the quantity of film expended, lasted only 20 minutes. When the Queen inquired whether he had finished – "So soon, Mr Hedgecoe?" – he seized the opportunity for a second impromptu shoot in the music room. The Queen selected her preferred image and the sculptor Arnold Machin then made a plaster bust, which Hedgecoe photographed for the stamps.

Self-portrait by John Hedgecoe Photograph: Personalities/ 2006 John Hedgecoe/Topfoto

Hedgecoe was born in Brentford, west London. His father, William, a banker who worked in the far east, gave him his first camera for his 14th birthday. During the second world war, John was evacuated to Gulval, a village near Penzance in Cornwall, and attended the local school. He later wrote a memoir of the time, thinly disguised as a novel about an evacuee growing up in the West Country, called Breakfast With Dolly (1996; Dolly was the name of the aunt with whom he lived).

During his national service, he participated in an aerial survey of wartime bomb damage. In 1957, he enrolled at the Guildford School of Art to study under the pioneering photographers Ifor and Joy Thomas, who frowned upon the use of 35mm cameras. The students were encouraged instead to pose their subjects before giant half-plate Gandolfi cameras, to get things right in the studio before venturing further afield.

Hedgecoe spent much of his free time on his own photoshoots, experimenting with colour, and selling his work wherever he could place it, from Amateur Photographer to Queen magazine, where he was staff photographer from 1957 until 1972. He considered Queen magazine "a great shop window for me" and picked up freelance work on other publications, including the Sunday Times, Observer and Telegraph magazines.

As his freelance work and advertising commissions increased during the 1960s, he employed an assistant, Angela Chadwyck-Healey. She recalls him as focused but great fun; on one occasion, she had to find a model with "perfectly beautiful hands" for a cigarette advertisement, which also required 10 pairs of gold cufflinks from Asprey's.

Angela and her husband, the photographer Charles Chadwyck-Healey, an early business partner of Hedgecoe's, had a family and would be called upon whenever Hedgecoe wanted to "borrow a baby" – a child or grandchild – for his handbooks on photographing infants, toddlers and young children.

Hedgecoe met Julia Mardon during their first year at Guildford, and they married in 1960. Julia was a friend of Henry Moore's daughter, Mary, and Hedgecoe's introduction to the Moore family brought about a lengthy documentation of the sculptor at work, from carefully posed interior portraits to informal long shots of Moore engaging with large chunks of Carrara marble.

The portraits were widely exhibited and led to three books about Moore. Less reverential in style were Hedgecoe's 1960s images of the fashion designer Mary Quant and the painter Sandra Blow; Peter Blake looking pensive before his easel; or a shot of Hockney turning down the corners of his mouth for the camera. Hedgecoe also photographed establishment figures, including Winston Churchill.

In 1965, Hedgecoe's ideas and dynamism persuaded the Royal College of Art in London to allow him to found a department of photography, and in 1975 he became Britain's first professor of photography. The Book of Photography, which he wrote and illustrated, was published the following year.

Hedgecoe was the author of more than 30 books on photography, which accrued sales of more than 9m, including The Art of Colour Photography (1978), Aesthetics of Nude Photography (1984), Practical Portrait Photography (1987), How to Take Great Vacation Photography (2003) and The Art of Digital Photography (2006).

He taught until 1994, when he was made an emeritus professor at the RCA. He always regarded writing as his other career and, at the time of his death, had completed the first three chapters of a second novel about his national service. In 2006, Hedgecoe signed a deal with a picture agency for the first time; Topfoto plans to place all his work online.

He and Julia divorced in 1995. In 2001, he married Jenny Hogg, whom he had first met working at Queen magazine. She survives him, along with his children, Sebastian, Dolly and Auberon, from his first marriage.

• John Hedgecoe, photographer, born 24 March 1932; died 3 June 2010