Modeling Do's and Don'ts at a Shoot, Part 1
Featuring: Shauna Anne Marie
Photoshoots are the bread and butter of our industry, they can make or break models as well as photographers. A great photoshoot can show a model's true potential or accent his or her strong-suits where-as a terrible photoshoot can reveal inexperience, ignorance , and even several unbeknownst weaknesses. In this series we will explore the do's and don'ts of photo-shoot's, starting with this article's topic of posing and positioning.
Don'ts
Proper posing and positioning is very crucial to models in order to make up an excellent photo or set of photo's, but a key step to doing this is understanding the photographer's angle as well as being aware of how the body looks. In this photo, Shauna, who is an excellent yet rookie model was taking the advice of a terrible "wannabe" model. This is the first don't, do not take advice from another model on set unless they have the accolades to back up their advice. The second don't is that the model is positioned such that she is facing out of the field of the photo. Generally speaking, a model should point into the photo or toward's negative space, there are a few times this is an exception. The third don't is that Shauna's shoulders and hips are almost parallel to the ground. The fourth don't of this image is that Shauna's body is very stiff which comes off as being posed and unnatural.
|
Do's
With proper direction and angling, a model can more better utilize the field of a photo. To the left, Shauna is better utilizing the field of the photo by facing in towards the negative space as well as in the two lower photos. In the photo to the left, Shauna is demonstrating some skill by perfectly executing a squatting pose. While many models attempt to perform a squatting pose, they make their photos look trashy by having their bottoms too far away from their leg's, this creates a "too natural" look of the model defecating. To properly execute this pose, the model should have their buttocks close to their legs or heal, a good rule of thumb is that if the model were defecating and would get feces on themselves, they are probably posing properly.
|
In the bottom two photos, Shauna demonstrates a proper standing pose and sitting/laying blend pose. In both photos Shauna has good form in that her shoulders and hips do not create parallel lines with the planes of her surface. A good rule of thumb for posing is to have staggered lines between your surface, your shoulders, and your hips as these create less "boring" angles and are more visually appealing. In both bottom photo's Shauna is utilizing her surroundings to assist her posing, using them as prop's which is a good "do." Her posing also appears natural and comfortable, where the bottom left she appears to be taking off her hat and the bottom right she is relaxing and looking over in the distance. Finally, what Shauna demonstrates better in her bottom two photos than she does in the above two is proper eye-posing. In the bottom two we get a good idea of where her eyes are going so that the photo's lend itself to the inquisition of what she is looking at rather than trying to figure out where her eyes are trying to point.
In this article we have examined the fundamentals of some do's and don'ts of posing and positioning in the photoshoot. Whereas not all will agree with these, they are very simplistic rules and will serve models well trying them. Comment below in the forums with your opinions.
Also feel free to checkout Shauna's modeling page, as well as follow her career:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shauna-Ann-Marie/753561214681146.
Also feel free to checkout Shauna's modeling page, as well as follow her career:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shauna-Ann-Marie/753561214681146.