Perkins - Professional portrait posing: techniques and images from master photographers

JEFF SMITH is an award-winning senior photographer from Fresno, CA. He owns and operates two studios in Central California and is well recognized as a speaker on lighting and senior photography. He is the author of many books, including Corrective Lighting, Posing, and Retouching for Digital Photographers and Jeff Smiths Lighting for Outdoor & Location Portrait Photography (both from Amherst Media), and Senior Contracts (self-published). He can be reached via his web site: www.jeffsmithphoto.com.

J eff Smith is an acclaimed portrait photographer who specializes in senior portraits. Yet even when working with these subjectspeople who are probably the slimmest and most attractive they will ever behe approaches each shoot with one question in mind: What would this person not want to see in his or her portrait?

It may seem like a negative way to approach a session, but Jeff actually has his bottom line in mind. After all, regardless of the style, the props, or the composition, people ultimately buy portraits that make them look good. The easiest way to accomplish that goal is to identify potential problem areas and minimize or disguise them. And keep this in mind: whether the appearance issues in question are real or imagined from the photographers point of view, its the clients point of view that matters. Even if you think her nose looks just fine, if a woman feels its too big, youd better deemphasize it in her portrait if you want to make the sale.

If theres one thing that all portrait subjects have in common, its the fact that they all want to look good in their pictures. As Jeff notes, these are also the portraits that people ultimately buy, so making subjects look their best is also critical to photographers.

One way to minimize the appearance of a double chin (top) is to have the client stretch their chin forward (bottom).

According to Jeff, there are two general types of problems that you will come across when working with your clients: imagined problems and real problems.

The imagined problems are usually very slight. Most of the time, says Jeff, the person who has these problems is the only one who can see them. Since no problems are readily apparent, these are the problems most photographers fail to correct. A typical imagined problem, says Jeff, is something like, One of my eyes is smaller than the other, or My smile is crooked.

The real problems are the issues that almost every one of us has. Says Jeff, We are never as thin as we would like, we think our noses are too large, our ears stick out too much, and our eyes are too big or too small, etc. These problems are more easily identified as things that need to be disguised in the portrait.

Fortunately, a clients problems can be evaluated in a matter of seconds. When you sit someone down with the main light turned on, says Jeff, you can immediately start to see what that persons strengths and weaknesses are. As you sum up the problems that need to be addressed, you can start to make decisions about what poses you can use to hide this individuals flaws, which of the clients outfits would give you the most to work with (in terms of disguising problem areas), if the person should do full-length images or not, etc.