Posing for great portraits

There are many rules for portrait posing. Some of them are more important than others. In this series of articles I am going to discuss a few of the popular ones.

When taking head shots and upper body portraits of people one simple posing tip I’ve picked up over the years is to angle the shoulders of your subject rather than to have them even or squared in your shot. While the shoulders might not seem like an important aspect of a portrait they can actually set the tone for an image because they’re the widest part of your subject and visually dominant.

Generally speaking, angling the shoulders slightly gives your shot balance and helps lead your viewer’s eye towards your main focal point (the face). It also prevents your subject from appearing out of proportion as it lessons the width of the shoulders slightly.

Angling the shoulder of your subject means actually getting your subject to lean in one direction or another or it could simply mean getting them to turn their body a little so you’re not photographing them from directly front on.

Some believe when positioning your subject’s shoulders you should have the one closest to camera be the lower of the two – but I’ve found that you can get an interesting effect by doing it the other way around too. Of course – this isn’t a hard and fast rule and sometimes the completely front-on symmetrical shot can have a very powerful (and often confrontational) impact upon your viewers, especially with posing males. So as always – experiment with posing your subject in a variety of ways and see what works best for you and your subject.

Ted and the Omnilargess Team