Foundations of Posing: A Comprehensive Guide for Wedding and Portrait Photographers

by Pierre Stephenson

It is the mark of a good photographer to be able to recognize and walk that fine line between making your subject look their best and losing the person behind “the pose.” The best are not only masters of posing, but of people. The more comfortable you can make someone, the more they forget they are in front of your camera, and the more you will be able to achieve. It’s not just about getting someone into the perfect pose that flatters, but doing so in a way that you don’t lose “them.” The modern world of photojournalism, fashion, and lifestyle photography has added a whole new approach to photography. The raw energy and realism of the unadulterated moment has been the driving force for the photojournalist approach and the trend for the last decade.

Posing is not just a skill for the portrait photographer. The best photojournalists in the world know how to pose and light. Even if they never lay a hand on their subject or alter the moment, they have mastered the art of using both skills in the candid arena.

The pose not only needs to be well executed but also take into consideration the direction and characteristics of the light, and how it sculpts the face, body, and clothing of your subject.

Body language is one of the non-verbal ways we communicate. In real life, the majority of what we convey to others is communicated through a combination of how we carry ourselves, our gestures and mannerisms, how we speak, our pitch and speed, eye movements, our nervous habits and twitches—in short, our body language.

The lack of shadows to create dimension, shape, and form can visibly flatten your subject, causing them to appear wider.

All of our depth perception and size references come from the use of light, shadow, relative size, and logical inference.

Simply turning your subject off axis from the camera’s perspective will slim them and hide weight.

When your subject is looking away from the camera, it’s important for their eyes to follow the line of the nose.

Short lighting, also called narrow lighting, results when the face is turned toward the main light—so you are illuminating the narrower or “short” side of the face from the camera’s perspective. Short lighting has a slimming effect, emphasizing facial contours, because the larger side of the face partially falls off into shadow and is concealed from view. Because of this narrowing effect, short lighting tends to works best for people with average to round faces. People with already narrow features may not look their best when short lit.

An angled leading line also gives us a feeling of depth—especially when it doesn’t leave the frame but seems to travel into the image. This implied depth perspective also becomes important with posing.

The soft C curve is calmer and less energetic. It slowly recedes into the background without leaving the scene, adding three-dimensionality.

The Language of Body Facing When facing directly into the camera, the body language may be open but not very pleasing. To the contrary, its message is typically challenging or superior, creating a distance between the viewer and subject. There are always exceptions—and expression can have a huge impact on this. However, if an open, friendly look is the goal, then matching the expression and flattering the form with angles will be more attractive.

When we create angles and curves through the body, we create a corresponding softening of the body language.

If, instead, you have your subject sit forward on the lip of the chair, turn, and sit partially on one hip, they have no choice but to shift their weight and support themselves. By engaging those core muscles, they sit taller and contract their midsection. This process of elongation through posture, stretching, and muscle tone will make them appear slimmer and taller.

True for riding transit also

The S curve (or feminine pose) also starts at the subject’s head and makes an S shape as it travels down the body to the feet. It is a slow, beautiful, and relaxed stance that wanders over the contours of the body. Just like the compositional S curve, the feminine pose creates smooth movement through the body and conveys a similar soft serene feeling to the subject. It is created by shifting your subject’s weight to the back foot, causing the back shoulder to drop. Then, opposite to the C curve, the head tilts forward, toward the high shoulder to form the S curve through the body. The S curve accentuates the face and the contours of the body. Generally speaking, only women can do the S curve pose effectively. Men tend to look very effeminate in this body position.

Try to avoid cropping the arms and legs at the joints. This can create the look of a disconnected or amputated limb. Also, cropping at a joint can interrupt the flow of a leading line and cause the viewer’s gaze to leave the frame. Unless you are trying to make the viewer feel uncomfortable and create tension, always crop the body between joints.

Even when the subject is sitting, it’s important for at least one leg to have some degree of support and appear to be grounded. Typically, this isn’t an issue in most chairs—but it can be if, for example, both legs are dangling over the edge of a bar stool. Bending one leg slightly so a heel or foot can rest against the stool will avoid the mirrored leg position and create support for the lower half of the body. The same thing is true when sitting at the edge of any drop where the subject’s feet can’t touch the ground.

Bending the wrist has the added benefit of toning the forearm by engaging the muscles there.

Hands that are clutching, stiff, or curled tightly not only project nervousness but also stress, discomfort, disagreement, resistance—a myriad of generally negative emotions. When the hands are relaxed and the palms are at least slightly open, the body language is more genuine, calm, and welcoming.

More often than not it is best to avoid flat-footed stances. Shifting the subject’s weight to the heel or ball of the foot has many benefits that translate up the body. It forces your subject to flex their calf and leg muscles for support, which is visually pleasing.

If the movement is not perfect, I try praising them. I tell them that what they did was good, then ask them to repeat it—only this time with their hand turned slightly (for example). This kind of repetition is easy for most people to do. Because they just did it well and it wasn’t painful, they are empowered to do it again, even though it’s completely staged the second time around. It’s important to praise your subject and reinforce their successes. Let them know they are doing it right and they look great. There is nothing worse than dead silence. Subjects who are not professional models usually don’t know what looks good and if they are doing it right. Silence can be deadly. Remember your attitude is contagious. If you are positive and excited, they will be, too—and you’ll be able to achieve much more during your session.

Truth

Relative size allows us, as photographers, to create the illusion that something is smaller or larger than it is in reality. If the viewer lacks the references necessary to make a definitive judgment, they will still unconsciously make a snap decision based on what they see and on their past experience. This inference can be a powerful posing tool. While it is possible to make someone look smaller or larger by the size of the objects around them (see the image above, where the large chair overshadows the child and makes him look even smaller) relative size with posing is most effective when comparing two or more subjects.

To photographers, “perspective” does not refer strictly to where we position ourselves relative to the subject to take a picture. A consideration for perspective should also inform our approach to posing and how we choose to render our subjects. Perspective also impacts the visual relationship between people and objects in our scene, changing the apparent depth and relative size of our subjects. It can create (or eliminate) visual blocks to the body at the point of contact, distort the face and other body parts, and even control whether someone appears dominant or submissive.

Warping your subject in this manner can broaden their features and make the body look strange. In the right situation, however, perspective distortion can be a cool effect for a more stylized look or to draw attention to a specific body part. I occasionally enjoy shooting what I refer to as “first person” for that in-your-face perspective that is very casual and raw. It is, however, not appropriate for every application, and I choose when to use it very carefully. For classical portraits, we typically want the body to look balanced and non-distorted.

Part of the reason we typically have our subjects shift their weight to their back foot is because this moves their midsection, the largest part of the body, away from the camera for a more slimming perspective. We can further accentuate this effect by having them bend slightly at the waist, bringing their upper body forward and shifting their hips and buttocks away from the camera.

By bending at the waist, we bring the face and chest forward and can use the upper body and legs to obscure the hips and buttocks.

In some cases, we want to elongate the legs and add to the overall height of our subject. However, you can also use foreshortening to help diminish a part of the body that is too long or distracting. In the bottom image to the right, I shot from a lower perspective. This not only brought me down to the child’s level, it also allowed me to foreshorten his upper legs and make the lower half of his body appear disproportionate to his upper body.

Unless you are shooting a flat, almost two-dimensional scene that is parallel to the camera’s focal plane, wide-angle lenses will typically accentuate the depth in your image, making the foreground elements appear closer and the background farther away. The closer you are to your subject (or anything in the foreground), the more obvious this perspective distortion will be. Up close, wide-angle lenses have a tendency to stretch and warp foreground subjects. By stepping away and moving your subject closer to the background you can avoid much of this effect—however, your subject will become smaller in the scene. Standard Lenses Changing to a standard focal length, usually 50mm to 70mm, can be a good compromise to avoid distortion, maintain a moderate working distance, and still have some depth perception. Some portrait and environmental photographers swear by their 50mm lens because it can provide a versatile angle of view with beautiful optics and a very shallow depth of field. It is also a close representation of what we see with our eyes.

“When it comes to posing, the real benefit of the telephoto lens is its ability to flatten the perspective and compress the scene.”

A moderate 85mm telephoto (on a full-frame dSLR) is generally viewed as a good focal length for limited distortion without overly compressing the facial features. (Extremely long telephoto lenses can compress the face and enlarge the ears when used for close-up head-and-shoulder portraits.) The

Some of the more fun crazy moments start off with infusing your energy and playfulness into the group. You light the match and then step back and watch the silliness catch fire. It can be very effective if you have a good rapport with your subjects and they share that playful nature. It can also be a total disaster if you try to make them into something they are not, so be conscious of the personality and group dynamic. You want it to become real, and that will never happen if what you try to stage is just not “them.” Most often, I have my subjects doing things that they would normally do with their friends or loved ones, but simply in settings where I can control the lighting and scene.

Get your lighting and camera settings down first, before hitting go on the pose.

Just as athletes limber up before a sporting event, it’s important to do some creative calisthenics before picking up your camera. Look at magazines, art, movies, other imagery—anything to help stir your creativity. This has nothing to do with copying someone else’s work; it has everything to do with untangling you from your safety net. When we’re short on time, feeling uninspired, or lacking vision, we all tend to fall back on what we know works. We re-create the same scenes, poses, and lighting scenario formulas that produce consistent results. It works, but it doesn’t help us grow or improve. It doesn’t feed our souls or keep us excited about our work. Take the time to warm up and you will be amazed at what you begin to see. Often, it will be things that have no obvious comparison to what initially inspired you.

“Rather than concentrating on the whole body, try to break things up into separate parts so you can mix and match . . .”