Okay, it’s Monday, yay, and as I promised on the earlier post, we will dive into Posing for Portraits tips and tricks today.
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Today it’s all about headshots. Lets look at the different options (depending on your facial features and shape) and one universal rule.
The universal rule is important for everyone: To avoid awkward expressions and to eliminate your double chin I always suggest my clients to move their chin forward. Not too much so it’s obvious, but enough to make your jaw line sharper and more defined. If you don’t do this, at least never ever suck your chin in; it will create you a double chin even if you never had one! Not mentioning that it gives you a really weird facial expression of a confuse or a surprise. On the snapshot below I am showing what it looks like.
So our universal posing rule for the head is: Push your chin a bit forward! Your photographer or a mirror can tell you how much.
Next, many photographers suggest you to also move your chin down, to define your jaw line even further. To me, it doesn’t fit everyone, because we all have different facial shapes and features we want to focus on or hide.
Should you move your chin up or down? It depends on your specific concerns. When you move it down, it makes your forehead and eyes larger, your nose longer, and your face thinner and more defined. When you move it up, it makes your chin larger, your nose and forehead smaller, and your face rounder.
For example, I want my nose look smaller and don't mind my face to look more round, so I always pose my shin forward and up. My friend is concerned about her round face, and also wants to make her nose look thinner, so I pose her slightly to the side (45 degrees), to make her face and her nose more slender.
Whatever your concern is, never make too drastic changes; don’t move your chin too much up or down; or it will distort your face and make you look awkward.
Also, make sure you understand the distance between the camera and your face. The closer you hold your IPhone or a camera, the more drastic your changes will be. Ideally, hold it far enough and zoom in, instead of holding it too close to your face. For the phone cameras, you can use a selfie stick, or ask a friend to help you. Look at the difference it makes to the face!
Stay tuned; and I will give you more posing tips on next Monday! We will continue talking about how to pose and angle your face to look flattering on your portraits; and we will dive into our facial differences, so you could choose exactly what matches your facial shape and your specific concerns.
I am all about individual customizing rules and options to every client’s goals and concerns. It’s not only about making the unique YOU look your best, but also about showing your personality through posing. The right posing can make you look more confident, more elegant, more open, or more conservative; you name it. However, this is a completely new topic, and I will talk about in a different blog.
Please feel free to contact me, if you have questions you want me to address, or need specific advice.