Do these hand placements work well? I'm always very skeptical of hand positioning in portraits.
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Do these hand placements work well? I'm always very skeptical of hand positioning in portraits.
Hand are very difficult to position in portraits, and your model has to have great hands to put them into composition. For me upper is no go, bottom one got potential, but she's got massive hands/arms in general and holding them tight to the body makes everything unnaturally bigger. Would say it didn't work this time sorry :( However strictly about hands only on bottom picture I like it, so maybe cropping after wrist should make nice frame in my opinion. Cheers.
>> but she's got massive hands/arms in general and holding them tight to the body makes everything unnaturally bigger.
To my eye the forearms dominate the second picture. Perspective and balling up the muscle magnify each other. I don't link the hand angle either - the the base of the left thumb is looks really huge, again because of angle.
I think that with a model like this - great face and athletic build - poses that lengthen the arms and keep them away the camera are best. I'd rotate the right elbow further out in the first picture. The second needs a different model
Cool, i'll try that with her next time, and yea, she's pretty athletic (we had just finished a ballet dance shoot). Thank you so much for the tips! :)
Awesome! Thanks! Usually I try not to put hands in the pictures, but for some reason she loved using her hands to pose, so just went with it this time. But fair enough, thanks for the tips :)
Hands are the worst thing to pose IMO… Especially when shooting close up. In both shots, it seems like you photographed your model slightly from below, I'd guess with an 85mm? If your image's subject is the model's face, shooting at eyes levels will avoid making her arms and hands bigger than they are – keep in mind, what's the closest to the camera looks the biggest on the image. Longer lenses with more compression also help.
To me, the first image could work with a slight tweak of the camera angle, like said above, but the one below makes her look larger and shorter than she probably is – no neck, wide shoulders and back. It could have worked as a beauty close-up if her hands were lower to let the neck show, but with this framing I feel it doesn't make her look her best.
Btw, beautiful color toning!! I love it :)
Oh I know, I dont usually put hands in portraits, but she loved using her hands to pose for some reason, and just went with it this time. Her eyes dont open too wide so had to shoot her from below. Shooting her straight makes her eyes look droopy. I was using the 70-200 around the 130-200mm mark.
But i'll keep that in mind about posing, hands are super weird to get right and I'm just starting off using them in portraits. Thanks for the tips! :)
And thank you so much :)
Umar - I don't think you should back away from putting hands in portraits, you've done really well. You've got a feel for how to use them to create leading lines and add emotion. You just have to accept it's a difficult area of photography and practice!
...I think a good starting point is to understand that shots where any part of the arm is significantly closer to the lens than the face are the most difficult. So avoid those at first. And maybe use a longer lens and shoot from further away.
Thank you :) Oh for sure, definitely need a lot more practice with emotions/micro-expressions and hands in pictures.
It's like QD said - when I started shooting, I though faces and overall stance would be hard. Well , they are - but not compared to hands! But they can do so much for you.
in my opinion everything depends on what do you want to show. if everybody would frame the same way, photography would be terribly boring. Do what you feel is right.
at the first glance it looks wrong. But when you just look at the picture for a bit longer, you start appreciate what is on the picture and everything works. amazing work! great lighting.