How to Pose for Photographs

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Richard Petty, I'm a photographer in St. Louis and this is how to pose people for photographs. The first thing you need to do is really take a good look at your subject and figure out what you want to do about posing them if you're just going to pose one person. Almost everybody has one eye that's a little bit higher than the other and you don't notice this so much when you're in conversation with them, but in a picture it does show up. So you'll want to tilt their head to try to even out their eyes. The other thing is if they're a little overweight you'll want to turn them sideways to minimize the look of the weight. If they have a beautiful figure and are very slim you might want to do a full length picture. But with most people posing photographs you're going to do a three-quarter length, that is generally from the waist on up to the top of their head. You want to turn them, kind of at a forty-five degree angle and for women you might want them to drop their shoulder toward the camera, this makes them look more feminine and maybe a little more vulnerable. You also, it's best not to photograph people with their face straight on, you might want their face off about a thirty degree angle with them looking at the camera, if there's not too much white in their eyes. The other thing is be sure you focus on their eyes because that's the center of attention on the picture. With men, sometimes if you square them off, they look more masculine and that's always a good way to do it too. Some people even look good in, with their silhouette like this, on the side, but it depends on your subject, you have to analyze your subject in order to get good results. Then if you're going to pose more than one person the important tip is that you want to try to pose so that their eyes form a V or a W or an N. The reason you do this is if the eyes are all at the same level, it's very difficult when you look at the picture to know where your eyes should go as the observer of the picture. It makes a much better composition if you have peoples' eye levels at different levels in the picture. It's easier to pose an odd number of people than it is to pose an even number of people. Start with the, in a family group start with the grandma and grandpa in the middle, and maybe even sit them down and then gather their children and then maybe sit their grandchildren down in front of them. That's kind of the best way to do it. When I'm doing large groups, I like to do them in a park and not in the studio. Have a great time taking your pictures and posing your subjects and I'm sure you'll get great results."