they lay on their stomachs and relax
on both elbows, or they use their
arms to rest their chin and head.
Any time weight is put onto the
arms (by resting them on the back of
a chair, the knee, etc.) it should be
placed on the bone of the elbow or
the hand. If weight is put on the fore-
arm or biceps area, it will cause the
area to mushroom and appear much
larger in size than it actually is. This is
another reason to have the arms cov-
ered if it at all possible.
Using the Arms to Conceal
Problems.Posing the arms carefully
also gives you the ability to hide
problem areas, such as the neck,
waistline, or hips. I look at the client
once they are in the pose to see if
there are any areas that, if I were
them, I wouldn’t want to see. If there
is a double chin, I lower the chin
onto the arms to hide it. If I see a
not-so-flat stomach, I may extend the
arms out to conceal it.
Hands.
Hands are probably the hardest areas
for most photographers to pose com-
fortably. In most old posing guides
the hands look anything but natural,
yet these poses still fill many wedding
albums today. Other photographers
hide the hands in almost every por-
trait—or just let them hang at the client’s side. Neither of these approaches
could really be described as achieving the pinnacle of artistry, to say the least.
Bend Every Joint?When I first started in photography about twenty years
ago, the hands were supposed to have every joint bent. As a result, it wasn’t
uncommon for a woman to look like she’d missed a payment to her bookie
and he took a nutcracker to her fingers.
Let’s face it, the “all joints bent” look is a little on the unnatural side—I
don’t know about you, but I never have every joint in my hand bent. Using
48 JEFF SMITH’S POSING TECHNIQUES FOR LOCATION PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY
ABOVE—Moving the arm from its raised posi-
tion (left) to drape across the stomach area
(right) is a simple way to conceal an area
that many clients don’t want to see.FACING
PAGE—Observing the way people really hold
their hands will often give you good ideas
for natural-looking poses.