Portrait photography tip: Keep arms away from the body

Thursday 4 April 2024, 16:08 by Elja Trum | 3,220 views | 1 comment

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

If you let your model keep their arms against their body, it often doesn't look very good. The arms make the body look wider than it is and the pose often looks very static. Fortunately, it's easy to fix.

Britt - f/9.0, 1/125s, 100 ISO @ 70mm
Ask your model to place their hands on their hips or at their sides. This creates some space between the arms and the body, which works well in a photo.

Most people also naturally stand a little straighter when you ask them to put their hands on their hips. A more confident pose, you could say. That also helps improve the photo.

Try to prevent the arm from resting on or against anything. This creates a noticeable 'dent' in the arm. If necessary, ask them to pretend they are leaning, while in practice the arm is not quite touching it.

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About the author

Elja Trum is the founder of Photofacts and online photography course website Photofacts Academy. He has been writing about photography since 2006. Elja is also the author of (Dutch) books on composition, black-and-white photography, flash photography and portrait photography.

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1 comment

Donald Willemsen wrote on Tuesday 9 April 2024 at 11:12 | reply
Excellent tip. You can also give the model something to keep her/him (yes yes, men can be models too) occupied with. That also makes it less static.
Translated from Dutch.

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