looks like a forest, nor would
you put a girl in overalls in a
scene that appears to be the out-
side of a castle.Taking Your Cue from Clothing.
Clothing. Clothing is an excel-
lent clue as to the type of posing
that should be used. With sen-
iors, in one session you go from
shorts and summer tops to a
prom dress. Primarily, the cloth-
ing sets the look for the por-
trait—a look that the posing
needs to reflect to create an
image with a sense of style.
You can select the clothing
to match the type of posing you
want to use, or you can match
the posing to the client’s choice
of clothing. However, you and
the client need to realize that
the best type of posing is deter-
mined by the clothing. When
a young lady walks out of the
dressing room in a pair of
shorts, barefoot, and with a
summery top on, it doesn’t take
a rocket scientist to figure out
you will be using casual posing.
When the a girl comes out in a
prom dress, again, it isn’t difficult to select glamourous posing to
suit the dress. Of course, you can also decide to use a style of pos-
ing that isn’t the obvious choice, but you need to make sure that
everything in the portrait comes together to visually make sense.
In the upcoming chapters, we will look at the various parts of
the body and the best ways to pose them to make them look their
best. Remember that the overall look of the entire pose will be
determined by how you pose the individual parts of the body. A
good pose positions each part of the body effectively to achieve the
desired look. Basically, it is each part of the body, as well as the sum
of the parts, that makes a pose work or not.
You can think of this like posing a group. If you are familiar with
the old posing charts that used to be employed to suggest posing for
family groups, you know that they only explained where to put each
DEFINING THE POSE 33Tilting the cameras will turn strong horizontal
or vertical lines into softer diagonal ones.