How to Position a Model for Professional Photography

Video Transcript

"Now when you are working with a model, whether they are your client and they are paying you or whether you've hired them it's important to make sure that they are comfortable because you want them to be able to react and be fluid with your ideas and the way you want to move and touch their body, so try to keep them comfortable, like keeping the studio a comfortable temperature and I like to provide them with a snack, or some water, just offer that to them. So now that you've got a comfortable happy model, a great simple pose is just to have your one leg at forty-five, pretend I have another leg on the background and then go ahead and turn their body at a slight forty-five degree angle, it tends to be more pleasing but then have their face come over to you at the camera. Now you can vary this by having your camera either up higher or lower but shooting somebody square on tends to make their face seem the most wide and may bring out a strong jawline or their other features that aren't as appealing where if they are turned just slightly and usually if they dip their chin just a little bit you can get a great picture. Now the trick is, don't just take the one picture and move on, you have to wait for certain nuances or even little subtle movements of their eyes or their face or maybe even the way that they are smiling and I work with a model by talking to them or joking with them about certain things. I try to develop a rapport so that they are really comfortable and confident and I give them a lot of positive feedback so that they feel good about themselves and they know that we are getting the kind of shots that we want"