Posing
Travel photoshoot poses
Travel portraits work when the person is doing something in the place, not standing in front of it.
Posing
Travel portraits work when the person is doing something in the place, not standing in front of it.
In short: Travel portraits work when the person is doing something in the place, not standing in front of it.
The most reliable travel frame there is.
Occupies the hands, gives the background a role.
Real, and it uses the location as context.
Movement plus texture.
No expression needed and it puts the viewer in your position.
Architecture frames the subject and gives scale.
Start with walking away, glancing back — the first two minutes are warm-up and the first pose should be the one that asks least of anyone. Move to leaning on a balcony, looking out and sitting at a table, mid-conversation once the shoulders have dropped, and keep small in a doorway or arch 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.
Standing centred in front of a landmark with arms at your sides. It is the frame everyone takes and the one nobody looks at twice.
Photographing everything and printing nothing. Shooting only at midday because that is when you are out. And building the trip around one landmark that photographs badly at the only hour you can visit it.