fused about which direction (and how far) to tilt it. How I wish that every
college teaching photography would just avoid this one subject. I have never
seen one aspect of photography that so many photographers leave school
doing so badly. I have had some truly talented photographers work for me,
and that is the one obstacle I have had to overcome with almost every one of
them.
Classic posing taught photographers to tilt the head toward the lower
shoulder for a man and toward the higher shoulder for a woman. Essentially,
tilting the head toward the lower shoulder shows strength, while tilting the
head toward the higher shoulder makes the subject look more passive. So, by
that standard, every woman would be photographed in a “passive” pose—and
I guarantee that just won’t work for a lot of your clients. Therefore, the real
rule of tilting the head is that there is no rule. You don’talwaysdoanything
in photography—especially nowadays. If you are photographing a woman,
you don’t tilt toward the high shoulder and you don’t tilt toward the low
shoulder, you tilt toward the shoulder that looks good and best fits the over-
all feeling desired in the final portrait.
The easiest way to learn about the head tilt is to first pose the body. Then,
turn the face to achieve the perfect lighting and look. Then stop. If the per-
son looks great (as about 80 percent of clients do), take the image. If the
subject is very uncomfortable and starts tilting their head in an awkward di-Here are two poses that are very similar aside
from the tilt of the head. As you can see, the
tilt just adds a different flavor to the shot.