Posing
Graduation photoshoot poses
A gown hides the body, so posing is about the face, the hands and the line of the shoulders.
Posing
A gown hides the body, so posing is about the face, the hands and the line of the shoulders.
In short: A gown hides the body, so posing is about the face, the hands and the line of the shoulders.
Stops the gown reading as a rectangle.
Two hands at chest height is the official-photograph pose and it looks like one.
Worn flat and low, it shadows the eyes. Tilted back a few centimetres, the face opens up.
Movement in the gown, real expression.
Ask someone standing beside the photographer to talk to them.
Some on steps, some standing. A row of gowns is a fence.
Start with turn thirty degrees, face to camera — the first two minutes are warm-up and the first pose should be the one that asks least of anyone. Move to hold the scroll low, one hand and cap slightly back once the shoulders have dropped, and keep group: staggered, not lined up for the end, when self-consciousness has gone. Shoot each one in bursts through the movement rather than holding it: the usable frames sit between the instructions, not on them.
Two metres back with the lens zoomed rather than close and wide — distance is what keeps facial proportions natural. Camera at or slightly above eye level for portraits, at chest height for full length. Below eye level enlarges whatever is nearest the lens, which is rarely what you want in frame.
Both arms straight down, which makes the gown a column; and the whole group throwing caps at different times, which produces one frame where everyone's cap is in a different place and nobody is looking up.
Trying to shoot in the official photography queue. Leaving family frames until everyone has dispersed. And scheduling nothing after the ceremony, when the light is best and the crowd is gone.