Pose Prompt: The H*cking Sun Is In My Face

Taking photos is not the same as photography, and here’s how I know:

On this blog, I am a photographer, one with years of experience working with national companies to capture graduations; with universities to capture season from practice to senior night; and with the elusive Instagram gods to build and market a business from scratch. But behind the camera, I’m a Taoist Christian, an immigrant, an Asian-American adoptee, and a queer woman. To take a photo is to capture a moment, but to be a photographer is to blend science and personhood to create art.

In this post, I’m teaching you how to do one of my favorite poses and a few of its variations, but also showing you how the tiniest changes in poses can influence the whole story of a photograph.

Historically, photography (especially portrait photography) has been a male-dominated industry. Although photography is an incredible tool and artform, it’s also been used to objectify and dehumanize women in the fashion industry especially. The tiniest changes in posture can suggest submission and promiscuity or power and masculinity. As photographers, we’ve separated these aesthetics into feminine and masculine poses as a reflection of the power dynamics that exist within even the most “creative” and “liberating” art forms.

But this can also be a tool. Once we understand why photos give the energy they give, we open the door to subverting those tropes. We become able to not just take photos, but create art that reflects who we are as people.

The base of this pose starts with angling your body about 45 degrees away from the camera, think turning your toes to the corner of the room. From there, turn your shoulders and torso toward the camera without moving your hips and feet. This brings your face and shoulders closer to the camera, which is going to do two things. First, the twist will create the illusion of a thinner waist. Second, we’re creating a focal point on your face and shoulders by splitting the photo into layers of things close and far from the lens.

Finally, sit back on your hips and lean your shoulders back just the tiniest bit, then stretch out the arm furthest away from the camera as if you were blocking the sun. Put a bend in the elbow of your free arm, and take a pic!

On its own,  this pose creates both a longer line of the body and a soft curve, which conveys a sense of elegance and femininity. To me, this pose makes sense in a girly dress out on a picnic.

But for a little more contrast, these are a few of my favorite variations.

Editorial

The Vibe: Clean, avante-garde

The Background: Simple, monochrome, used light from a window to frame my photo

The Colors: The brightest color in this is my skin. I played more with light and shadow to add depth to my photo. The light colors (me) are closer to the camera, and the more severe shadows are farther away.

The Pose: To create this really strong shadow on my face, I pulled my hand almost parallel to my nose, into the sun. I also chose to look away from the camera and keep a straighter face to put distance between the viewer and myself.

No-Face

The Vibe: This photo is much busier. We weren’t trying to highlight the face so much, but more the overall subject and her place in the environment.

The Background: We chose to put a car in this photo and obscure the models face because we wanted to give a little more context to the environment.

The Pose: Instead of standing at 45 degrees to the camera and turning towards it, my model actually leaned on the car and kept her hips and shoulders square, turning her head away from the camera. By flattening out the pose, we no longer have the strong planes of close and far to the camera, and the focus is no longer on the model’s face, but her entire body in relation to the car.

Power Pose

The Vibe: Fiery, Powerful, Step-on-me-mother

The Outfit: This was actually a photoshoot I booked for prom. She had the most gorgeous red dress, and for this photo we wanted to highlight the flame earrings and corset-back detailing.

The Angle: For this photo, I actually shot from behind and below the model, creating a point of view that literally looked up to her.The Pose: For the base of this pose, I had the model sit up tall rather than lean back into her hips, as well as tilt her chin up. By stacking the lines of the body, we created a really strong pose that matched the fiery energy of the dress.

The effect the lines of a body has on the overall energy of a photo is so cool, and playing around with this pose is one of my favorite ways to explore new ways to change the narrative of each photo. Who we are influences the art we chose to create, and everyone deserves to look at themselves and feel good. If you don’t like the sit and smile photo, if you don’t want to show your face, if you’d rather have a power-pose or a soft cottage-core vibe or a sexy boudoir photoshoot, you deserve that. To dive deeper into unconventional portrayals of women in photography, I recommend photographer Hannah Starkley, featured in the New York Times. For more pose inspiration and analysis of the photography industry, check out my Instagram, Pinterest, and Portfolio!