Posing guys has always been a hard thing for me. With my fantasy work, I am used to photographing women and it’s always been so easy. Women have such beautiful curves that are easy to manipulate for the camera. As I have branched into the fashion world and started to photograph more men I’ve had to really branch out on my posing techniques. Giving me lots of opportunities to test myself creatively and try new things. It’s been such an exciting journey learning how to make male posing more dynamic and engaging that I wanted to share those techniques with you today.

So here are some of my 5 tips and tricks to posing male models.

DSC_2325 1.jpeg — Have them Sit Down

Sitting down gives the body a lot more range of movement.

I know the idea sounds weird, sitting down shouldn’t allow you more movement. But honestly, for men, I have found this is one of the best ways to get them comfortable and into engaging shapes. Have your model sit down on whatever you have available, steps, a chair, even the ground. Allow them to use their legs to bring depth to the image. Have them put one leg towards the camera while the other is back closer to their body. They can put their arms on their legs and lean in towards the camera, or have them put their arms back and widen your shot to involve them more into the scene.

I always believed that birds have the absolute best views of the world. Being able to see what’s happening in the world from above, I love to capture that same feeling in my photographs. Get your guys to lie down and let them relax into the earth. Find a way to get above them either by finding higher ground and shoot them from a higher angle. Or if you have a log or stool, stand on top and get right above them. Or even get down to their level on the ground but incorporate some of the ground in a wider shot.

Get him to Move Around

Motion tells story’s.

A great photograph will always tell a story. Get your model to move around and capture the movement. Have him walk away from you, or down some steps towards you. Get him jumping up and down, or off of objects and walls. Or to keep it simple just get him to turn around while you capture the back and forth movement. If he’s got a cool coat on, get down low so you can get some of that juicy coat movement in your immediate shot.

Give him a prop

Get him animated and engaging with products and clothing.

In fashion, the clothing and what the model is doing with the clothing is an intricate part of telling the story. If he’s got a hat on, get him engaging with the hat. Have him take it on and off, or get him playing with his watch or coat lining. Get some props for him to hold, like some fruit or a jacket he can pull over his shoulder.

DSC_1733 1.jpeg — Get him to just stand

Face on Portraits are always amazing!

Whenever I shoot models I always want to get that one simple shot. I always ask my models to stop for a second, take a deep breath, and then just stand there and relax while I take a few shots. These I find to be the most authentic to who they are. Maybe have them switch their weight between feet to give their body a little different of a tilt. But I usually just ask them to stand and look at the camera as I turn around to find the right angle’s.

Well, that’s it! I hope you enjoyed my 5 tips and tricks to photographing male models and that they help you during your next session. Feel free to share some of your tips and photographs, I would love to see how others photograph men.

Take care everyone!

Nicole

Nowadays everyone is a photographer. With high quality cameras available in your back pocket we can all take amazing photos. But there are still basic photographing techniques that you should understand to make an every day photo go from good to WOW! In today’s post i’ll teach you 5 tips and tricks to take your phone photography to the next level.

Tip #1: Composition. Understanding the rules of composition will improve your photographing skills dramatically. One of the most important rules is the Rule of Thirds, it is all about dividing your frame in to 9 equal sections with a set of vertical and horizontal lines. Your phone has an internal feature for your camera to have grid’s pop up while your taking a photograph, you can turn that feature on within your camera settings of your phone. Two basic guidelines to follow for this rule are as following;

You should place the most important aspect of your photograph along one of these lines or where two lines meet. This will give more space for your eye to move around the image and is much more visually appealing than having your subject dead center.
Keep the horizon line in close proximity of the grid (and keep it straight). The horizon line is wherever the sky meets the land. Ocean scenes are the easiest time to spot the line than if your shooting a mountain range or city scape. In all the other situations the Horizon line would be where ever the base of the mountains or buildings meet the ground.
Fill your frame. Make sure that whatever you have in your image, you want in there.

Tip #2: Use the brightness setting on your phone’s camera. A lot of people don’t know that it exists, but when you tap the screen to lock your focus in the photo there will be a little sun icon that pops up and there you can slide it up and down to adjust the lighting that comes in through the camera lens. This will help you make more dramatic images by making the shadows darker, or the highlights brighter.

Tip #3. HDR! I use the High Definition Resolution mode all the time. Especially if it is a bright sunny day and you have a lot of sky in the image. Instinctually your camera will expose for wherever your focus square has been placed. That is you telling the camera that this is the most important aspect of the image so please expose for this. With HDR mode, when you choose your focal point of the image your camera will then take multiple photos all at different exposures and then compress them all together. You will then end up with an image that has the most ideal exposure in all aspects of the image. That way you can get your blue sky’s, and the nice color pops of your subject. You can find the HDR setting in the internal settings of your phone, under Camera.

Tip #4. Editing. There are so many different editing apps that you can download for free to help make your images stand out. My personal favorite is Snapseed, it has all of the image editing capabilities that you would ever need including exposure, spot healing, curves, and tons of filters to play with. Adjusting the lighting and coloring can go a long way to get an image to pop. Don’t forget to spot heal the images as well, get rid of any distracting elements like unwanted power lines or blemishes on the face. If you have a Adobe Creative Cloud account, you can download the Lightroom app for you phone, this is another fantastic tool (that I use all the time) and it gives you more color changing capability’s.

Tip #5: Just have fun! Photography is all about experimenting and having fun, so go out and shoot more. Try different subject matter, and different angles, figure out what you like best. Play around with all of the editing app’s out there to find the one that best suite’s your photography needs. All of this well eventually lead to you discovering what your style is and you will keep improving as a photographer.

5 Tips and Tricks to Posing Men

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