Last week, I started a series of posts about how to pose people in your photos. Whether you are taking pictures of one person or a large group, you can get more pleasing results if you keep a few posing secrets in mind. Today we’ll focus on the shoulders and head.
Tip #1: Angle your subject’s shoulders slightly rather than having them even or squared in the frame, especially when you are taking close-ups (from the chest, up). In general, when you angle the shoulders, you give your shot balance and lead your viewer’s eye into the shot towards the focal point (which is probably your subject’s head).
KitKat was a good sport about being my example today to show the difference between a straight-on shot and one with angled shoulders (as long as I don’t ask her to say cheese!)
Tip #2: Have your subject lean in towards the camera. This is one of the first tips that my sister gave me when I started to branch out into a more serious photography hobby. Here is an example from this week’s Cub Scout Pack Meeting that illustrates this tip:
Need I say more? ;)
I hope Lis won’t kill me for using this as an example…..at least I cut her out of the “bad” shot! As soon as we saw the previews of the first shots, we knew exactly what to do to fix our chin problem….
Tip #3: This is less of a posing tip, but it goes right along with making the upper body look better. Smiles can become “stale” very quickly. One of my favorite things to do is to tell people to relax while I’m settling up the picture. Don’t worry about smiling (the longer you try to hold a smile, the more fake it will look!) until you’re ready to take the picture. Sometimes I ask my subject to look down or away and then back up towards the camera as I take the shot.
There you go! Nothing revolutionary, but hopefully some good things to think about next time you’re taking pictures of people. :)
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