Posing
Prom photoshoot poses
Teenagers photograph best when they are moving or with friends, and worst when arranged individually in front of an audience.
Posing
Teenagers photograph best when they are moving or with friends, and worst when arranged individually in front of an audience.
In short: Teenagers photograph best when they are moving or with friends, and worst when arranged individually in front of an audience.
Shows the dress or the suit line without standing square.
Occupies the hands and removes the pressure of an expression.
The most reliable frame of the whole session.
Relaxed, and it stops the fidgeting.
Ask them a question rather than telling them to smile.
Standing together, one arm around, both looking at the camera. Take it properly and take it early.
Start with turned away, face back to camera — the first two minutes are warm-up and the first pose should be the one that asks least of anyone. Move to hand on the dress, looking down and walking towards the lens with friends once the shoulders have dropped, and keep the parent frame 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.
Direct midday sun on faces, which produces squinting in every frame; and the whole group lined up along a garden wall.
Starting ten minutes before the cars arrive. Shooting on the sunny side of the garden. And letting twenty relatives with phones stand behind the photographer, which guarantees that nobody is looking in the same direction.