Posing your clients for pictures can be extremely overwhelming. In the beginning of our photography career, Chelsea and I would get so flustered during a portrait session. We would always make boards on Pinterest for inspiration but would always freeze when we would get behind the camera lens. We were already still learning how to use our cameras so when you added posing to the mix, it didn’t work well.

We would always run out of ideas after the first 2o minutes and revert to looking back at our “list”, as we told our clients which was actually code for our Pinterest page.

Finally, we got to a point where we got tired of the awkwardness of it all. We wanted to take a more professional approach. So, we invested a lot of our time into learning about posing and flattering our client’s body types. Here are a few tips we’ve picked up along the way.

For Women: 

01. Create space between her arms.

02. Keep her body turned 45 degrees from the camera.

Our main objective when photographing a women is to make her look dainty and feminine. We know that is how we would want to look if we were the ones being photographed. It is natural for a women to want to look as small as possible. Turning her 45 degrees away from the camera instantly cuts her in half, so naturally she looks smaller. By creating space between her arms, the shape of her arm is well defined as well as the curve of her waist.

For Men: 

01. Keep his shoulders straight to the camera.

02. Keep his hands in his pockets.

When photographing a man, our main goal is to make him look as masculine as possible. Because we know guys want to look more manly. By keeping his shoulders and body straight towards the camera, his shoulders look broader and more defined and his waist looks slimmer.

We also make our guys keep their hands in their pockets. It looks more natural and makes the image look more polished. It also allows the guy to create space between his arms too.

FREE NEWSLETTER

Are you interested in FREE photography and business tips and tricks that you can’t find on our blog delivered straight to your inbox? Click here to sign up for our newsletter for photographers.