Where to put your hands when posing | Articles | Photo, video, optics

The posi­tion of the hands of the mod­els can add a spe­cial mag­net­ism to the pho­to, or it can destroy the whole idea. The pos­ture of the hands, palms is impor­tant in com­mer­cial shots, fash­ion, when pho­tograph­ing clothes, etc. But how to hold hands while shoot­ing? They said a lot of use­ful things in this arti­cle.

A female mod­el holds her hands near her face, focus­es on her chin. Pho­to: allyou.gr

Do some­thing and touch some­thing
How to pose cor­rect­ly — bad hand posi­tions
Cross­ing the arms at the elbows
Hands close to the cam­era
hid­den hand
Sym­met­ri­cal posi­tion
Pos­ing with hands in front of the face
Right angles
elbows on cam­era

Do something and touch something

Inac­tive hands are evil. When the mod­el does not know where to put them, her pos­ture becomes unnat­ur­al, tense. But where to put your hands when pos­ing? The first step is to relax them. To do this, you need to raise them and sharply low­er them. Now one hand can be left in this posi­tion, and the sec­ond:

• put on the thigh;
• put on the waist;
• hold under the chin;
• lead behind the head (at the lev­el of the back of the head);
• raise above the crown;
• pull for­ward (as if hid­ing from the cam­era).

An exam­ple is where you can put your hands when pos­ing. They should be part of the process, not just hang­ing down. Pho­to: vecteezy.com

Two hands can hold an object (on both sides at the same lev­el or one hand is high­er, the sec­ond is low­er). They can also:

• fold on the chest (as if clos­ing from every­one);
• put on the waist. So that the pose is not too rough, one shoul­der can be tilt­ed for­ward;
• raise to the face (close it par­tial­ly or com­plete­ly, touch the very oval from dif­fer­ent sides);
• ful­ly raise;
• bend and raise your elbows.

With your hands you can:

• lean on any object that is in the room (even on the walls);
• tou­sle your hair;
• hug your knees (in a sit­ting posi­tion). In the same posi­tion, you can lean on the floor with one hand, and touch the shoul­der, knee, face, chest, fore­head with the oth­er;
• break the fourth wall — pull them to the cam­era, wave to the view­er.

Pos­ing with hands will enhance and visu­al­ly change any fig­ure. For exam­ple, if you put one hand on the belt, then the tri­an­gle that forms between the armpit, elbow and waist will visu­al­ly make the fig­ure slim­mer.

An exam­ple — an arm raised to waist lev­el can make the fig­ure more slen­der. Pho­to: pexels.com

Only now with two hands it no longer works. If you put two hands on the belt, then the fig­ure can become very mas­sive, rough. Or even wider. For exam­ple, if the waist itself is poor­ly defined (the mod­el has a straight fig­ure). In this case, you need to change the pose a lit­tle. For exam­ple: turn in 3⁄4 to the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, tilt one shoul­der slight­ly for­ward.

Two hands on the waist is not an easy pose. The first pho­to shows that she can make the fig­ure wide and bulky. For exam­ple, when the mod­el looks direct­ly at the pho­tog­ra­ph­er and her shoul­ders are in line. The sec­ond pic­ture is an exam­ple of how the sit­u­a­tion can be cor­rect­ed. For exam­ple: under­stand one shoul­der, place the hands at dif­fer­ent lev­els and bend the knee. Pho­to: pexels.com

Impor­tant: fin­gers should not be pressed against each oth­er. It is bet­ter to leave a small dis­tance between them. Oth­er­wise, the hand appears visu­al­ly flat and the posi­tion unnat­ur­al.

How to pose correctly — bad hand positions

Crossing the arms at the elbows

A very incon­sis­tent pos­ture. It is closed and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly repels the view­er. The sec­ond impor­tant point is that this ges­ture does not look har­mo­nious in itself. How to sup­ple­ment it:

• the back should be straight, but relaxed;
• feet shoul­der width apart;
• you need to stand 3⁄4 in rela­tion to the pho­tog­ra­ph­er;
• the chin should not be low­ered;
• the look is direct, con­fi­dent.

With­out these addi­tions, the pose will be very tight and uncer­tain.

A closed posi­tion that is best avoid­ed. Pho­to: get.wallhere.com

Hands crossed at the bot­tom of the abdomen (usu­al­ly the tor­so is slight­ly tilt­ed for­ward) is anoth­er pose that is not always appro­pri­ate. Most often, she cre­ates an unnec­es­sary empha­sis on her knees, col­lects folds on clothes. As a result, the pose is con­strained, the curves of the fig­ure are not vis­i­ble and there is an extra accent.

You can cor­rect the sit­u­a­tion by slight­ly push­ing one shoul­der for­ward. But this does not always save the sit­u­a­tion. If the mod­el has mus­cu­lar arms, a straight fig­ure, or is over­weight, it is bet­ter to refuse such a pose.

Anoth­er wrong hand posi­tion when pos­ing. Pho­to: review.bukalapak.com

Hands close to the camera

We wrote above that one of the options for pos­ing with your hands is to stretch them for­ward. But in this posi­tion it is very easy to make a mis­take — com­plete­ly cov­er your­self with your palm. To make the pose mod­el and beau­ti­ful, you need:

• do not hold your hand direct­ly in front of your face and do not bring it too close to the cam­era;
• move your palm a lit­tle to the side and up, so that you only get the impres­sion that you are clos­ing from the cam­era.

Sec­ond mis­take. Even if the mod­el has beau­ti­ful hands, they are easy to ruin. For exam­ple, if the hand is incor­rect­ly placed and placed clos­er than it should be. Let’s take this pho­to as an exam­ple.

In the first pho­to, the right palm of the man is posi­tioned incor­rect­ly. The sec­ond one is cor­rect. Pho­to: deboramilke.blogspot.com

The young man in the first pho­to has a curved hand and palm that is not quite nat­ur­al. And they are clos­er to the cam­era than the rest of the tor­so. Due to this, an unnec­es­sary empha­sis is placed on the hand, and it seems larg­er. In the sec­ond pho­to, the hand is not cut off, but is par­tial­ly hid­den behind a tree trunk. She does­n’t get that much atten­tion any­more. And the view­er pri­mar­i­ly con­cen­trates on the faces of young peo­ple.

hidden hand

If the young man in the pre­vi­ous pho­to had put his hand behind the bar­rel more (com­plete­ly hid­ing the hand), he would have made anoth­er mis­take in pos­ing. In the pho­to, the hands of the mod­els must be vis­i­ble. Even if a per­son par­tial­ly hides his palm in his pock­et or behind some object.

The “hid­den hand” error is rel­e­vant for men. It is they who most often try to hide their hands in their pock­ets, hide their palms and hands entire­ly.

It may:

• make the hips of the mod­el visu­al­ly larg­er;
• show that the per­son is very closed and tense.

The way out is to par­tial­ly hide the thumb or part of the palm in the pock­et (no more than 1⁄3–1⁄2 of the whole).

The first pic­ture does not show the entire brush. This posi­tion is incor­rect. The sec­ond image shows most of the palm. This posi­tion is more har­mo­nious. Pho­to: pexels.com

Symmetrical position

The hands of female mod­els in pro­fes­sion­al pho­tos are rarely sym­met­ri­cal. This is not to say that sym­me­try is 100% wrong. But this pose most often looks bad. Espe­cial­ly on non-pro­fes­sion­al mod­els, they are very tight. Excep­tions are sym­me­try as a com­po­si­tion­al device.

There­fore, a sim­ple rule applies — do not put your hands sym­met­ri­cal­ly. For exam­ple, if you want to put both hands equal­ly on the waist. Move one to your thigh. Or, con­verse­ly, lift it up. The same applies to the posi­tion of the shoul­ders. If they are par­al­lel to the plane of the image, the fig­ure appears heavy and square. The way out is to raise one shoul­der.

The asym­met­ri­cal posi­tion of the hands makes the pose more dynam­ic, relaxed, and the pho­to inter­est­ing. An exam­ple is the pos­ing of Alla Kostro­miche­va. Pho­to: moda314.com

Posing with hands in front of the face

Avoid pos­es where the arms are strong­ly pressed against the body. You need to show a light touch, not a push. In por­trait pho­tographs, it is the hands that cre­ate the nec­es­sary accents. Every­thing they touch attracts the atten­tion of the view­er. There­fore, the twist­ed fin­gers that dug into the cheek are the first thing the view­er will pay atten­tion to.

Exam­ples of pos­ing — pho­tos of the hands of mod­els in front of the face. Pho­to: i.pinimg.com

Impor­tant life hack - You can touch not with the whole palm, but with your fin­ger­tips. Best medi­um (you can add name­less or index). Touch­ing with the tips of all fin­gers is also not nec­es­sary. This cre­ates unnec­es­sary vol­ume and clum­si­ness of the image. No need to clench your fists. This shows that the mod­el is clamped. The brush­es need to be relaxed.

You can touch to:

• fore­head
• cheek­bones;
• chin
• oval face;
• ear;
• strands of hair;
• occiput.

Right angles

90-degree angles are eye-catch­ing, psy­chol­o­gists say. If you do not have the goal of riv­et­ing the view­er’s eye to the mod­el’s elbows, try to get rid of right angles. If the arms are bent so that the elbow forms a sharp angle, this adds dynam­ics to the frame.

elbows on camera

This is a com­mon mis­take of those who raise their hands to their heads. If the elbow looks into the lens, the arms seem short, thick, clothes can be slop­py stretched. But then where to keep your hands? Need:

• raise your hands to dif­fer­ent heights;
• spread your elbows in dif­fer­ent direc­tions.

We hope that our tips will help in pos­ing. And if you are a pho­tog­ra­ph­er and you have to shoot with an inex­pe­ri­enced or stiff mod­el, we rec­om­mend this mate­r­i­al. We have put togeth­er a com­plete guide that will help set up and lib­er­ate even the most restrained per­son.