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Studio Lights Education

Some Taboos of Pose in Portrait Photography

When taking pictures of female friends, if you want to look good, you should first avoid the following taboos! We’ll show you the 10 “no’s” for portrait shooting and teach you to take more beautiful and professional portrait photos.

1. Show Your Teeth Whether You Laugh or Not

Unless it is intentional, under normal circumstances, whether taking cool photos or sweet smile photos, showing your teeth is more relaxed and natural. Pursing your lips only makes the subject’s face look tight. So when shooting, guide your subject to relax the muscles on his face and expose his teeth.

2. Grasp the Shoulder Height

If you want to be a model, you must have the “momentum” of a model. Put one shoulder up and let the subject’s body show a curve. This is pose photography. The position on the right is obviously a position to quarrel with you.

3. The Window of the Soul Should be Open

Many girls like to take pictures with glasses and sunglasses. At this time, if the lens blocks half of your eyes, your picture fails 90%. So either completely block the eyes or let the eyes completely show. When taking side face portraits, remember to fully expose one eye in order to make the photos look good.

4. Don’t Block Your Face

When posing, guide the model to show his face. You can let her “shape her face” by adjusting her hair style, or you can make a popular “melon seed face” by taking a top shot. However, blocking your face with your arm is obviously a defect left by shooting, which should be avoided as much as possible.

5. Control Shoulder Height

Revealing fragrant shoulders is also a very common shooting pose. At this time, too high shoulders will also block the chin. You need to get the model to lower her shoulders a little. The example is extreme, but it is safer to leave a little space for the neck between the shoulder and the face. When shooting a big close-up, you may use an airtight composition. At this time, you can try to stick your face and shoulders together.

6. Caress Your Face Gently

In many photos, in order to show charm, you need to touch your face with your hand and give a small look (this depends on your charm). In this action, many girls will be very sincere and really press their hands on their faces. This will change the face shape and create unnecessary shadows. So at this time, just gently catch it and pretend to make this action.

7. Expose Your Fingers

This posture is suitable for girls with various hairstyles. Whether soft long hair or handsome short hair, can achieve good results. But it’s best to show some fingers when shooting. Don’t just let the viewer see two wrists. Little attention has been paid to this detail, but by comparing the pictures, you will find that the photos with fingers exposed are more like art photos, while the picture on the right is like doing sit ups.

8. Hands Must be Natural

When shooting, many awkward postures can produce good results, such as chest and hip. However, the hand must be natural. Don’t let everyone feel that the hand is broken!

9. Don’t Show Anything Strange

When shooting girls with long hair, be sure to pay attention to whether the end of the hair is exposed from the armpit, otherwise it will cause this… Um… Uncomfortable effect. In addition, whether the corners of the clothes are exposed and whether the belt head behind the pants is exposed are all issues that photographers need to consider. Don’t let those strange things show up.

How to Create Portrait Photography According to Local Conditions?

wide-angle lens

In this shooting, we also see the lines with perspective effect formed at the joints of ceramic tiles. We want to integrate these lines into the photos. Because we know that short focal length will particularly enhance this effect, we chose the lens with the shortest focal length. Then invite the model to the scene. The room was pure white, so we chose a red dress with great contrast.

Pose instruction we only gave the model a key word – stretch pose. For us, it is important that our limbs should be very stretched and our posture should have a deep depth in space. Our models should stretch their hands, feet or other parts of their body to us as much as possible. The compact, huddled posture is not suitable for this kind of photo. After a brief explanation, we asked the model to pose creatively.

For these poses, it is important that you further understand and make use of the characteristics of your wide-angle lens. The distance between a nearby object and a distant object is magnified. Therefore, it is very important to shorten the distance between the camera and the model.

If your shooting site — as in our example photo — already has distinctive lines that can enhance the feeling of this extended posture, you can integrate the posture accordingly. For example, we can use the seam of ceramic tile as a line of sight to enhance the perspective effect.

Forest Elf

When it comes to expressing emotions, posture plays a very important role. Changes in body language alone can produce completely different photo themes. The question is how flexibly you guide your model.

In our example photos, the basic shooting concept is “spirit and her dark side”. Our model will dress up as an elf and do something a real elf will never do – predation! Interestingly, this idea comes from models, so we don’t need too much guidance in expression, expression and posture. We found a suitable shooting place together with the model, and then made a performance outline according to our ideas. Within the scope of the outline, our model can play freely.

A little story here also helped us. This little story gives a frame to the plot and the pose of the model. In the example photo, the main idea of the plot is: “imagine that you are an elf, who has just done an incredible thing – hunting, catching prey and avoiding the tracker.” our model is showing “seeking protection”, posing in a compact, huddled posture and looking warily at the forest.

The following picture is produced under different storylines. This story is true. You were caught on the spot and stood there innocently with your face on. You said, “I? I don’t know anything. How could this happen?” the model’s posture here is also very natural. The slightly sideways legs and the low, innocent eyes over the shoulders give the impression that “I didn’t do anything” – although the prey is still in hand.

When practicing such stories, we should pay attention to that the posture can really emphasize the theme of the photos. It is a pity if the beautiful field and excellent props do not achieve good results due to improper posture.

A naughty child

Everyone has seen interesting pictures of people jumping. Our customers often like to shoot this popular theme. However, it is often difficult in practice. Because it’s not just jumping up. There are some aspects to pay attention to when doing this lively and explosive posture to a certain extent.

It is important that the model is ready to jump really correctly. Many times, photographers need to give models some encouragement, because a shy jump can’t bring the expected results. The photographer should have the courage to demonstrate the whole process to the model – it will make the atmosphere more relaxed.

When jumping, you should pay attention to the model’s arms and legs. In addition, leg bending jump is more dynamic than rigid jump. The model’s limbs should move together to truly express his love for life. In this sense, the open posture with arms and legs pointing in different directions is much better than the compact leg bending posture.

By the way, another tip: jumping is very laborious. Make an appointment with the model to let him know when to jump. So you can accurately record the right moment.

And facial expressions must not be forgotten. Models often focus too much on posture, so that facial expressions reflect more concentration than happiness and enthusiasm.

Don’t urge the model to jump. Only when jumping really makes the model feel happy and fun, the picture will be more special.

Follow the instructions!

Home accessories are a very popular theme for free pose. Models can perform with these accessories – whether it’s chairs, windows, sofas, or curtains like the one in this example photo. In this case, most models can pose very real postures, which are known by the model in the ordinary “communication” with these objects.

Our model stood by the window and was instructed to gently pull the curtain aside and look out of the window. Because it is very important for us to show the model’s face, we agreed an instruction with the model. When the model heard the instruction, he turned his head to us and looked at the camera. The model should give the impression that she was distracted when she “looked out of the window”. You will find that if the model does not turn his head after hearing the instructions, but looks directly at the camera, his eyes will appear dull and unnatural after a period of time.

When arranging the posture, we should pay attention to the basic posture of the model’s arms and head. The model should raise his right hand and caress the curtain. Put your left hand on your hip. In terms of framing, we put the model’s left hand out of the picture and let this slightly curved arm form a boundary on the right side of the picture. We let this pose open to the viewer in this way. After hearing our instructions, the model turned his head to us. The result is a nervous, alert and vibrant look.

Door frame

The empty room is the perfect shooting scene. Especially an empty room with outstanding features like this room – an old tile fireplace and a black-and-white tile floor with beautiful perspective lines. Our model spontaneously stood in the door frame and finally proved that this was the best position.

In clothing, we pay attention to extending the dark and light colors of the floor to the model. We ask the model to wear black underwear so that the clothing can be clearly revealed in contrast to the model’s light skin. The lines of the floor play a role in guiding the line of sight. The model has a keen sense of smell for the best position. Her hands are supported on the door frame at different heights from left to right. However, this is not enough for a tense posture, because the model’s body is still too relaxed as a whole. In addition, parallel legs do not look beautiful enough, because they look a little thick, which visually increases the width of the hips.

 

We adopted this spontaneous posture and made some adjustments. In addition, we asked the model to bend his left leg slightly and tilt it to the right. In this way, we get beautiful converging lines to make the model’s thighs look thinner. The model tilts her hips to the right, causing a slight twist, resulting in a thinner waist. In addition, the upward opening of the arm visually increases the width of the upper body. This pose emphasizes the most important part of the aesthetic body shape, making the body like a beautiful and swinging “s”.