This is Part 5 and the last in a series of articles about how to pose (or not pose) your models to create images full of life, energy and movement. The techniques that I have shown you are not just for models. These techniques will also dramatically improve your senior portraits, wedding photos and just about any set-up shot involving people.

In part one I talked about managing hands on the body. Now let's talk briefly about hands off the body and then as promised I will review some guidelines for hands around the face. Be sure to view the video that accompanies the How to Handle HANDS articles so that you can see some of these techniques in real-time. One of the hardest things for a model to do with her hands is NOTHING! Part of what makes it hard is that she has to think about doing nothing.

This is Part One of a two-part article on the placement of hands in modeling and portrait photographs. Be sure to check back this Thursday for Part Two.

This is the second in a series of articles and accompanying videos about how to pose (or not pose) your models to create images full of life, energy and movement. These techniques are not just for models. They will dramatically improve your senior portraits, wedding photos and just about any set-up shot involving people.

This is the first of several articles and accompanying videos about how to pose (or not pose) your models to create images full of life, energy and movement. The techniques that I will show you are not just for models. These techniques will also dramatically improve your senior portraits, wedding photos and just about any set-up shot involving people.

This week we have an ebook excerpt from the ProPhotoPublishing.com release by Stephen Dantzig "Photographing Swimwear: Lighting, Composition and Post-Production".The composition, framing and posing in your image are all as important to the creation of a beautiful swimsuit photograph as is the lighting. The general "rules" of composition apply to swimsuit photography as well. For example, you will rarely create a particularly interesting image if your subject is posed head on to the camera and in the center of the frame. Move your subject around the frame and decide whether to come in close or back out and allow her to become part of the scene around her. If you choose to back up, then your model(s) become the important--but not the only--component of the story that your photograph tells.  

Gesture in portraiture is something I love to work with. Many times it is a subtle bit of motion, or composition that creates a dynamic feeling... a gesture so to speak. And other times I like the gesture to be grand, big and boisterous. These portraits show some grand gestures in the use of light, dynamic composition and simple whimsy.

Posing your subject is a topic that I am often asked about. To be honest, there are probably as many “rules” for posing as there are for composition and I usually forget them! For example, I’ve forgotten whether you are “supposed” to angle a woman’s shoulder towards or away from the camera!

In a previous creative life I was a drummer. Still have a set in the office. And I still sit and bang on them. I am a jazz drummer by training, but played in rock and metal bands for a while as well. I traveled with a "soul band" named "Salt and Pepper" and recorded on a few albums that few ever bought. Before the days of digital it was pretty hard without a record company. But, hell, I had a lot of fun.

I have been shooting plenty of bridal-style model shoots in the last few years. I use this time to evolve my compositions and branding. Yet instead of getting the same style of imagery I compose at weddings, I try to work on concepts and locations outside of traditional wedding arena. Ideas I become passionate about. I still want to retain the 'feel' of wedding photography by using wedding outfits so these images are useful in my own business.

Upon my return from the WPPI convention I got to thinking about the state of wedding photography. I sat in on much of the competition and was struck by how few photographs there were of family groups. Especially evident in album competition, I wonder, where are all of the people? There are photos a plenty of the bride and groom running down the street, jumping in the air, and sitting in every café known to man... Not to mention at least fifty photos of headless members, body parts and inanimate objects. It seems as though we've become afraid of photographing people looking in the camera.

Here’s a column that’s short on words but long on images, and the lesson is really simple; after you’ve set your lights and placed your subject in a basic position, get behind the camera and, with a little direction from you, let your client do the rest of the work.