Tips on How to Pose Men

in this tutorial i'm going to give you tips on how to pose men hi my name is gerry guinness i'm a wedding portrait and fashion photographer i've been shooting for 27 years and teaching for 20. in this tutorial i'm going to give you tips on how to pose men we're going to teach you how to go from this to this by the way i had this amazing course the portrait quick start click on the link below to camera they don't downl like to be photographed nowhere near as much as girls now what he's doing naturally he's putting his hands over his crotch which tells me that he's covering up the most sensitive part of his body now body language will suggest that he's feeling uncomfortable not that he's feeling uncomfortable but he's just waiting for a photograph also he's sort of parting his feet now personally i actually don't like it when feet are parted in for a guy especially see here's what happens curves define the female form as far as the male form chest and shoulders define the male form now if you want to emphasize something you push it towards the camera and towards the light so in this case for a guide the chest and shoulders will be great towards the camera and also the waist further back we'll come to that in a moment and as far as the the feet are concerned we have to understand that posing starts from the feet okay even if you're photographing head and shoulders we have to actually begin to understand what's happening here because that'll affect what's happening over here so i often think of posing like architecture that we've got peaks and valleys so if curves define the female form as far as the male form if he's standing up straight like this there is just nothing going on there's no peaks and valleys this we often refer to posing like letters here is just an i there's a line and a dot nothing but what i want is i want a v okay we often talk about that strong v particular look and feel so here's what happens if we turn his body on a bit of an angle my suggestion is most of the time now here we've got the lighting right over here most of the time you want to turn the body of the male form towards the light so posing is not just understanding posing you have to understand posing according to the light source so if a light source is over here this is going to make him look bigger and broader even if he's wearing black in this case so now what's going to happen is even though he's turned his body towards the light i want to do this i want to put your feet together like this now put all the weight on your back leg and just bend that knee perfect and now put your hands in the pockets right like this okay so remember if you're wearing a jacket with two buttons you always do it up and you never do it up so that just gives you a bit of room to breathe now i want you to hang your body and do a glorified slouch that's it let's relax too much there we go and now turn your body a little bit towards the camera so now as you can see what we've got is a v we've got peaks and valleys even that slight little bend is bringing this in if this looks thinner this looks wider now here's the before and after by the way this is jacob i call him a disney prince and this is a normal 47 year old australian greek american dude okay so right now he was like this the difference between this and this is just is ridiculous of course i'm handsome in my own way but uh he's got the dimples to die for is that all we're saying but anyway like this is fine but again you can't compare it with a shot like this this makes him look more casual think of all the male icons that we actually have seen uh in in in the movies like marlon brando hanging on the bike think of james dean sort of hanging on the on that sort of that piece of wood there i think east of eden sort of thing what i'm getting at is guys in many ways more than one like to hang okay i'm not gonna go down below but let's we like to hang this is part of what we do as men especially with this case okay so now if you've turned your body like this and you're turning your body towards the camera we are looking a lot better now what i want to do too now is just let's just reset let's unravel for a second and i want to show you guys the easiest way to pose anyone let alone in this case we're talking about posing tips for men and that is this simply get your subjects to mirror you so if you stand a bit more that way okay all right perfect so right now let's say for example now jacob we've only met once before we have not done a little tutorial beforehand you don't know what i'm going to do but if i said simply to you just mirror exactly what i do just copy exactly what i do as if you're looking into a mirror okay [Laughter] so what we've done now is we've quickly proven with a bit of a wink and a smile that posing and actual posing and getting people to mirror you is the easiest way for someone uh to understand posing let alone to communicate it and if you attach a humorous thought to it so i just did the good old john travolta sort of up and down and finger up and down now i've sort of stopped demonizing posing he's more relaxed with it so when we talk about posing we often think of it like posing being a dirty word it is not a dirty word it is simply bringing out the best in someone so whether it's a girl or a guy or whoever i'm photographing i'll establish this i'll say as handsome as you are i can make you shine brighter than ever before with a simple direction would you like that absolutely that's it it's important that whoever you're photographing to understand that posing is actually going to bring out the best in them and actually a really important part of the process so if we stop demonizing it now we can work together and we can actually make it less taboo and then have some fun so what do we do with hands i believe hands are the most expressive thing after the eyes so we have to use them wisely now here's the problem here's what a lot of photographers will do to their subjects and in fact they won't do anything just do what you want now if you put your hands in your pockets naturally how would you do it so maybe just undo that so you would say this is quite common so here's why this is a problem now in my opinion these little fingers look like two little penises coming out actually pointing to the real thing and this is not a really good thing so now that i've told you that you're going to be conscious of it for the rest of the time we shoot and you don't want that okay so this is now body language would suggest that this is actually quite a relaxed way of photographing a guy but it's not aesthetically pleasing this is even worse we're framing the boys right now we don't want to frame the boys we actually want to just put the hands in the pockets either in or out now especially if you're actually just wearing pants like that it either has to be in or out if you're wearing jeans you can do the good old relaxed fists and all that kind of thing and that's totally fine so really really important hands in or out and let's just go back to the jacket being done up so if you're wearing a jacket so put the hands right in okay so nice and relaxed very good and then we sort of drape that over and again this button is undone now don't forget of course you can actually combine the poses so let me explain see if you over pose a guy he's going to look a little bit feminine and that's going to be an issue so my suggestion is if you put a hand in the pocket and want to do something else well see give him something to do what else can he do with his hand well let's just copy what i'm doing so let's say one hand the pocket and you can put one hand holding the jacket yep you can put both hands holding the jacket you can adjust your watch because that's what you would do you would adjust your cufflink you would just roll up your sleeves you would also maybe just put your arms and arms crossed see if you're working with someone like me i'm a tall guy i'm six foot two but i have very very small arms right so here's what i would do for me i would get my fists put them underneath my biceps and then i would just bring that down and then it makes the biceps still not look so big but that's where you can liquify the crap out of it afterwards in photoshop on both sides but yes that's a good way of doing it naturally if you were to relax most guys will do this they'll put one one hand in and one hand out how do you do it naturally without thinking how do you cross your arms okay so you do it the big way so he's got small arms as well he's hiding small arms there but like this is fine see if you do this for a guy it looks feminine we don't want that so one hand out will actually make that look masculine without it looking feminine or we do this if you want to look a little bit bigger and bulkier remember too we are never going to be straight and flat-footed we said that's a wrong thing that's not going to work well for a lot of people so we said let's combine these ideas now so we're going to turn our body towards a light source in this case an open garage door we are going to hang the body a little bit more forward we're going to slightly sort of bend that knee so shake the feet out sometimes we can overdo it okay so bring the feet together don't think about it okay bend that front knee hang the body and then lean the chest forward so now we've created that v let's go a little bit a little bit taller basically depending on the body type and the body shape and the face is how far you go with that particular pose so for example let's say we have plus size guy and again he was setting up two straight like this his guts hanging out there's double chin showing we don't like that well in this case we're going to lean him way forward and then chin forward almost like a turtle so if we basically look out that way for example now i want you to pretend like your your head's like a turtle and do this for me okay i am serious there'll be times where i actually do that over and over dramatize it but i'll crop the awkwardness out because right now if i just do this it looks stupid you can tell that i'm doing it but the minute my face overlaps my neck a little bit you can't tell what's happening we call that for shortening we're shortening the length of a body part in this case the neck looks a little bit weird so we just relax it a little bit down and it looks awesome so remember for a guy especially wearing a suit just give him something to do no matter what the occasion for guys they like this idea so put the hands in the pockets bring the shoulders up bury your chin underneath the jacket for example chin down a little bit there you go and then turn like this how cool does he look just there let's come back here a little bit so don't forget if you're actually photographing a plus-sized guy you're actually getting to emphasize the pose that we did before so for example if we turn our body towards a light source like we did before put our feet together but by the way remember we never want to get what we call pigeon toes i don't know if we call that in the same thing in america you guys call that the same thing yeah okay you don't want pigeon toe that just looks weird okay basically draw an imaginary line between each toe and we never want the imaginary line to ever cross over so at the very least we put them parallel i personally like one foot just a slight bit of an angle so for example i just get people to shake it out put the feet together and then slightly bend that front knee okay of course with women you will over emphasize it and do it a different way which we'll cover in a different episode but for now let's just relax again bring the shoulders there hands to the pockets just for the sake of the argument and then turn the shoulders towards the actual camera and now we are looking at a v now how much you lean forward or as i say glorified slouch it depends on the person so for example if we had a plus size guy where we didn't have much of a neck we didn't have a narrowing point you would need to sort of stretch that face as far as possible so bring the shoulders back and then bring that chin forward now that looks weird from this perspective but what happens is depending on your angle you can shorten the length of that neck by simply going up a little bit higher no different than let's say for me for example if i point my my hand towards the camera here then all my hand and my arm are actually covered in a circle but in fact it's actually that long so with posing and with compression and whenever you're photographing people you do not want to foreshorten any kind of body part within reason based upon the shot that you're looking for but that can also help so deliberate for shortening can actually really really help so let's do it again so we're doing like this and then chin forward now he doesn't need it he's got a sharp jawline young dude no problem me i've got to sort of do that turtle thing a little bit too if this looks awkward you're going to bring the camera angle a little bit higher and then make sure that sometimes in fact i often get my guys to lean forward like this it might look great three-quarter or close-up but it's gonna look really awkward full length and that's where i simply don't shoot full length in that capacity so remember all these posing tips are great but it really depends on the person that you're actually photographing as to how far you go or not now that we've established some posing tips for the mail form let's put into practice and take some shots so now jacob's looking very uncomfortable his hands over his crotch he's got a part between his legs he's just waiting for some direction pretty much how most guys will be in front of your camera so yes we have to disarm them with charm and fun and humor and all that kind of stuff but for now we're specifically talking about the nuances of what will bring out the best in the male form so we said that we want to turn the body towards the light source in this case the garage door is open so we're going to turn his body towards the garage door great so now we'll put your hands in your pockets just to give you something to do guys feel really cool when they when you've got your hands in the pockets remember we do not want the thumbs coming out so in fact let's try let's try a few bad versions of what we're doing so straighten up this way again hands over the crotch and just looking over here great what i want you to do now is just simply put your hands in your pockets and with your thumbs it's like so like that perfect so looking at me just normal passive face great now do this okay we do not want those shots okay let's look at them again hands over the crotch no thumbs out no and then thumbs in the pocket and all the four fingers out no we don't want that so now we are going to turn the body towards a light source make him look bigger and broader so let's turn your body towards the light so stop there too much just come back a little bit good now if ever sometimes what happens is when you're asking a guy to turn his body towards a light source he'll do this and keep his feet planted so often what i'll do is i'll say to my subjects pretend like you're on a turn table and i'm rotating you this way that way basically your feet your legs every part of your body and your person is moving towards a light source so in this case he did it right so now put your hands in your pockets and if your legs are feeling a little bit stiff i always ask my subjects to shake their legs out a little bit great okay feet close together and now simply just bend that front knee good hang the body forward glorified slouch it's a misnomer that posing um and that a guy should be perfectly straight like this we said at the introduction of this video that we get double chins and get a bit of a gut so if we now have a concave version of our upper bodies then we're going to get the the gut further away from the camera and the chest and shoulders towards the camera in this case you can see very clearly what's happening now his feet are there you can see how there is a a valley in his legs which makes it more of a v but we're going to actually get him to turn his body more towards the the camera perfect and then tilt face this way and turn do me a favor just bring your elbow out a little bit on this side too much just come back a little bit good a bit more and then bring this arm out a little bit too so more back so just lift up the elbow a little bit now why we're doing that is that i actually want to see a gap between his arms and his body not always in this case i find that if you were photographing a mere mortal like me now i wouldn't call myself skinny i wouldn't call myself sort of ridiculously overweight i've got normal chubby issues at 47. what i want to do is i want to have gaps between body parts that give me a silhouette and also if i bring his arms out apart from seeing a gap as we can see here between his arms and his body we actually broaden him still so if we now bring this elbow out a little bit good and then turn your face this way turn good and eyes back at me and now we're looking cool and if ever you feel that your subjects feel a little bit stiff in the shot because you've posed it a little bit too much per se i might say to this jacob just let the air out of that shot perfect so now it's looking really good turn your face perfect so again let's look at the difference so now we've got peaks and valleys the chest is quite wide we're going right down to the v of his legs and he's looking bigger and broader and it's a bit more refined for photographing a guy look at the difference between that shot for example and then posing the way we did it looks nowhere near as good so watch what happens now that if we turn his body away from the light as i would suggest the female form which we'll discuss in a future episode it actually makes him look a little bit feminine and maybe a little bit too thin and not as not as big and broad as we'd like to see the masculine form so now if we just get him to bring his chin to his outer shoulder and then his eyes back at me you can see how that just looks a little bit feminine and even if he leans towards the camera let's do that again that is a very very feminine pose we do not want that so if you over pose a guy you can tend to make him look a bit feminine and if that's your that's your prerogative that's totally fine it depends on what you're trying to basically say so remember posing starts from the feet we always want to relax the feet we usually want to bend the leg that's closest to the camera and all the weight is on the back leg we want to hang the body nice and relaxed turn the body towards the light source relax the chin bring it out a little bit turn the turn the face so this eye just hits the light as we can basically see now in this particular photograph we hang his body we relax him a little bit if we want to we can bring that those elbows out a little bit to broaden him a little bit even this one good too much come back okay just there and nice and relaxed we're not worried about expression too much just a nice passive look looking towards that camera turn your face towards me and we have a nice finessed shot guys hope you enjoyed that we'll see you soon thank you so much for watching hope you liked the video and if so please give me a thumbs up don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell to get notifications for future videos please leave a comment so we can connect and i can answer any of your questions see you in the next episode and don't forget you don't have to be the best you simply have to be better than last week we'll see you soon

Channel: Jerry Ghionis

Views: 205,673

Rating: 4.9472265 out of 5

Keywords: posing, tips, tricks, male poses, better posing, photography, portraits, portraiture, improve, tutorial, better photos, nikon, jerry ghionis, wedding photography tip, portrait tip, portrait posing, how to pos, best poses, men, males, guy, posing guys, how to, best poses for men

Id: g7fIhkFY_jo

Length: 18min 40sec (1120 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 05 2021