In My Library: Professional Posing Techniques for Wedding and Portrait Photograhers

When it comes to posing subjects, my natural gift of interacting with people helps them achieve comfortable positions for shots. But I have trouble posing group portraits and making sure I carefully pose a subject to flatter their figures. To get a more sound understanding of the fundamental skills needed to pose men, women, couples and groups, I picked up acclaimed photographer Norman Phillips book, "Professional Posing Techniques for Wedding and Portrait Photographers." The book is a comprehensive, must-have tool for photographers new to portraits, but it's also got enough new tricks to keep old hat photographers interested as well.



I loved the chapter on slimming techniques. The photographers who get the most business are the ones who are aware of making their subjects look their best. I also found the group portraits chapter indispensable. Phillips' decision to split his examples into groups of two, three, four and larger were extremely helpful in learning how to keep subjects visible, evenly lit, and showing some type of affinity for one another. The important of placement of arms, hands, feet and legs is simple, yet effectively, explained to make sure one subject doesn't dominate another. His design strategies for group portraits offer reliable concepts a photographer can arm himself with no matter the shooting situation.

Highlights in the book include:
1) Understanding the goals of good posing, and the most common obstacles to success.
2) Styles of posing, from formal to casual
3) Critical differences between posing me and women
4) Understanding body language and how it impacts the viewer of a portrait
5) Tips for making each part of the body look its best
6) Standing, seated, and floor poses
7) Strategies for posing group portraits
8) Before and after sequences showing common posing problems and how to fix them
9) Using careful posing to flatter every figure type