Posing for Portrait Photography: A Head-to-Toe Guide [Paperback]

Jeff Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2004

Photographers learn how to gauge the needs of their clients before placing them into a stale, preconceived “women’s,” “men’s,” or “children’s” pose that hardly fits the client’s personality or preferences. Provided with a two-pronged approach to fail-safe posing, photographers learn first to determine what the mood of the portrait should be and how to use an appropriate posing genre—traditional, casual, glamour, or journalistic. Photographers are then shown how that genre can be used as a basis to produce a pose that best suits the client, allowing them to create dynamic yet natural-looking pose that the subject—and the intended recipient—will love.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Includes 100 photos that illustrate various portrait styles and posing techniques that will surely enhance the quality of your work."  —Shutterbug

"Smith . . . focuses on posing each area of the body so that it looks good individually and as an element of the overall image." —www.BookNews.com (October 2011)

About the Author

Jeff Smith is the author of Corrective Lighting and Posing Techniques for Portrait Photographers, Outdoor and Location Portrait Photography, Professional Digital Portrait Photography, and Success in Portrait Photography. He lives in Fresno, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Amherst Media, Inc. (July 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584281340
• ISBN-13: 978-1584281344
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #446,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

165 of 176 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Do as I say, not as I do, September 10, 2005

By 

Jesse "tornredcarpet" (Irvine, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Posing for Portrait Photography: A Head-to-Toe Guide (Paperback)

I bought this book to see if I could use it as a textbook with which to teach my students. I found it mildly informative for beginners, but the pictures often were very poor and the models looked uncomfortable with their head cocked to awkward angles.

One of the greatest flaws in this book was the lack of cohesion. A lot of concepts were given, but very little application, examples, or delving into more advanced techniques (especially lighting, which goes hand in hand). One of my students read this and said she constantly didn't know what to do next.

Again, the pictures, although many, were mostly poor, and there were no pictures of a typical studio setup. The book only tells you the purpose of straight line-sets and curved line-sets, but that's about it. It very vaguely tells you to consider your studio setup with the modeling.

In short, I do not recommend this book for anyone because of its lack of depth and lack of good examples. It would start off a beginner on the wrong foot and bore intermediate to advanced photographers.

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Posing for high school seniors, October 13, 2006

By 

Peter Zink (Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Posing for Portrait Photography: A Head-to-Toe Guide (Paperback)

I bought this book to try to learn some useful poses for my subjects, and given most other people's ratings, I decided to give it a try. However, upon opening the book my first thought was, "these all look like high school yearbook photos", which is exacltly what they are. It seems that that's primarily what type of photography the author does and his book is geared almost exclusively to that market. His main concern, which he stresses throughout the book, is creating a "saleable picture", and he keeps emphasizing the importance of pleasing mom, since she's usually the one with final say over the pictures. A better title for this book would have been, "How To Take High School Senior Pictures".

Even then, most of the pictures are not very good, both in their original execution and in their print quality for this book. In addition, the poses are unnatural and awkward looking, and the book is filled with typos and grammatical errors.

To be fair, the author does suggest some useful basics of things to do and things not to do when posing a subject, but there is really very little useful information here.

So, if you're interested in learning how to take pictures that look like a Sears portrait, this may be the book for you. However, if you really want to learn some useful techniques for posing your subjects in a more natural or more artistic manner, I'd steer clear of this book.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable insights and good fundamentals, June 10, 2006

By 

Sam Kapoor (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Posing for Portrait Photography: A Head-to-Toe Guide (Paperback)

This book is full of nuggets of insights. Very first chapter; 'Six things you should never do' pays for the price of the book. I am not a professional photographer but insights in this book have helped me take better portraits.

I am surprised by a very negative review on this book. That reviewer must be confused about another book. There is no question posing is a difficult topic and it is wrong to expect one single book will make you master of portrait photography. Nonetheless, this book will help you avoid some basic mistakes. After reading this book, I looked at pictures I had taken before and I noticed several basic errors I made. Now I won't be making those errors anymore.

This book is well illustrated with excellent photographs and is presented in very logical order. Out of several books I bought on this topic, this is the one I keep referring to again and again and it never disappoints.

There are few drawbacks. There is limited information on lighting. Book focuses on mainly studio portraits and assumes you are a professional photographer with all the equipment; information on outdoor portraits is limited. Also this book focusses only on senior portraits.

Author Jeff Smith has other books on lighting and outdoor portraits.

Overall this is a good book on posing if you keep above limitations in mind.