Exercise 7: Varying the pose

When I read through the brief for this exercise, I immediately thought about one of the most photogenic men that ever walked this earth, James Dean.  However that man posed he looked perfectly at ease.  I don’t know if he was directed by a great photographer each time or he just had ‘it’.

                          

If you look at this selection of photographs of James Dean you will notice that his hands are always posed in a natural and comfortable way.  In the top left photo he is leaning with his arms on a car but one arm is stretched out.  In the photograph bottom right James is lying down with one arm propping him up but notice his other arm is resting on his body and he looks perfectly at ease.  He also poses his legs in differing was for example, In the top right photo in addition to his hands holding a rail he has replicated the symmetry with one of his legs.  If his leg wasn’t raised this would be a very different, less pleasing photograph.  All of these photos have other qualities too with great lighting and the use of props but fundamentally this was a man who knew how to pose.

Actually, the brief was to look through magazines for different types of poses, not just the basic standing, sitting, leaning etc but how the limbs are positioned.  I looked at online zines so I could post my findings on this blog.  All the time thinking about James Dean and how many great portraits exist of him.

In an attempt to fulfil some of the brief I found this posing board online:

It gives different ideas for posing women and in particular what to do with their hands.   Here are some photographs of these poses in practice:

                

These photographs demonstrate some differences in poses although there is one of these poses which I think doesn’t work very well. Take a look and decide for yourself before I continue.  Yes, it’s top right!  I think the model in this photo looks hunched over and rather butch.  To improve this I would have had the forearm resting on the wall as well as the hand and more of a gentle glance over the shoulder.  You may disagree but this is my opinion.

The next part of this blog is putting what I’ve learnt into practice.

The main reason for me wanting to do this module is that I photograph children for a living. My aim is to improve upon this and also venture out into other genres of portrait photography. So, it seemed natural to photograph a child for this exercise although I realise directing a child is far more difficult than an adult.

I wanted to create a series of shots that showed the direction I was giving in terms of limb position whilst standing, sitting and lying down.  The way I achieved this was to demonstrate to the child what I wanted her to do i.e. The photograph of her lying on her tummy, proper up with her arms and hands crossed; I got on the floor myself and showed her the pose.  She thought it was a game and was happy to copy me hence the fact she’s laughing in most of the photos.  Where children are concerned I want them to feel at ease and have fun.  I find this gets the best results.

I’m happy with what I’ve achieved here.  The main point for me was for these photos to appear natural and relaxed.  There was one pose I wanted the child to do which was both feet up on the side of the chair, if you look at the photo above I don’t think it was successful.  The reasons are that the child’s legs weren’t actually long enough for this pose and when she tried it looked awkward.  Then we tried one leg up which is the next photo along and it worked much better.  The child had a natural tendency to look at the camera but I wanted to vary the direction of her eyes and encouraged ‘mum’ to call her on my signal. The photo of this kind that works best if the one where she is on her tummy looking back at mum.  It’s very natural, fun and cute.  The other photo with her looking out of the frame isn’t so successful.  It’s ok, it’s just not great.  It’s slightly forced and she doesn’t look at ease.

I’ve been looking through my books to cress reference some of the work I’ve done here but I can’t find a photographer that jumps out at me.  I will revisit this again in my next session.