Posing
First-timers need explicit direction. Say what to do with the weight, the hands and the chin, and repeat it — vague instructions produce a closed face.
In short: First-timers need explicit direction. Say what to do with the weight, the hands and the chin, and repeat it — vague instructions produce a closed face.
The default; narrows the stance and relaxes the shoulders.
Comfortable, solves the hands, and it is a campus frame.
Reliable and unfussy.
Shot in bursts, repeated three times.
Weight genuinely shifted, not propped.
One deliberate frame — usually their favourite.
Start with weight on the back foot, turned — the first two minutes are warm-up and the first pose should be the one that asks least of anyone. Move to seated on steps, forward lean and hands in pockets, thumbs out once the shoulders have dropped, and keep straight to camera, no smile 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.
The chin on hands, the crossed arms and any pose borrowed from a decade-old yearbook. Also the tree lean, which every senior gallery already has.
Booking at midday in full sun. Letting parents direct from the sidelines. And shooting only the smart look, so nothing in the gallery looks like the person.