Senior Portrait Posing Made Easy | Photography Mentoring | Business Mentor | Tips For Photographers | Traveling Senior Portrait Photographer
Senior Portrait Posing Made Easy
When I was first starting out in photography, the idea of doing senior sessions TERRIFIED me honestly. As someone who hates speaking in front of people and being the center of attention, I just knew I would completely blank on any poses as soon as I had a senior in front of me. After tons of practice, I started falling into the same "system" of posing during each session, and it has let me confidently pose seniors and get tons of posing variety in my images. Photographing senior portraits can be so intimidating for new photographers, but with this system of posing you'll start to truly LOVE posing and even start to challenge yourself to see how much variety you can get in a single spot!
So what's my secret? Memorizing a few key base poses and building off them with small adjustments.
Base Pose #1: Sitting
The sitting pose is my personal favorite because it's so easy to get a TON of variation without ever moving your senior! The image to the left is usually how I start, with their legs crossed. You can have their hands in their lap, or reaching up into their hair like Allyson. Without moving anything else, right here you can get different shots by asking her to look at you with a serious face then a smile, then look off to the left or right with a serious face and smile, then look towards the ground to her left or right, then get a laugh out of her. Every single pose you do, you should be doing variations of where she is looking and her expression without changing anything else.
Variations:
If you have access to stairs or something for your senior to lean up against, you can do even more types of sitting poses:
Base Pose #2: Standing
I could make this entire blog post about standing pose variations, but I'll try to keep it to my favorites! My standing base pose is the classic straight on, hand on the hip with either the legs crossed at the ankles or one leg bent and pointed in. Same as the sitting pose, from here you can get a ton of variety just by having her look in different directions, doing different hand positions and changing her expression.
Variations:
Base Pose #3: Leaning
It doesn't happen that often for my locations, but when there's a building, fence, or railing to lean on, this base pose is my go-to starting point. While looking super relaxed, this pose lengthens any body to create a super flattering shape.
Variations:
So that's it, my secret to posing is memorizing 3 base poses and using slight adjustments to create tons of variety in my images! You can create your own base poses based on your posing preferences, but you should always have at least one pose for every "type" (sitting, standing, etc) up your sleeve for each session. Some final general tips:
If you feel like you run out of poses super fast during sessions and don't have enough variety in your images, you are probably forgetting one of these aspects that can be easily changed for every pose: expression, where they are looking, hand placements, head tilts, and leg positions.
One of the best ways to get relaxed poses is to add movement or actions! Have her walk towards you and ask her to look off to the side, then at you, then down at the ground, while she's walking. Instead of telling her to put her hand on her hair, ask her to run her fingers down through her hair.
Get her to laugh! There's a ton of different ways to do it, but my go-to is to ask her to give me her best fake laugh, then when she does it I say "that was terrible!" and THAT gets a real laugh almost every time.
Last but not least: don't forget about her hands! I repeat: DON'T FORGET ABOUT HER HANDS! Okay, do you get how important her hands are now? If she doesn't know what to do with her hands, she WILL feel awkward, and that translates to her looking awkward in photos. Always make sure every hand has a job, even if you just tell her to relax them at her sides.
The most important thing to do at a senior session is just relax! Don't get in your head too much worrying about trying to remember that one pose you memorized. Just look at the senior in front of you and focus on how you can move each part of her body at a time. You don't have to go from one specific pose to a completely different one. Concentrate on making small adjustments and you will end u with more variety in your images than you could've ever gotten before.
If you want to a complete education on senior portrait posing and to learn 150 unique poses and how to flow through them during senior sessions, be sure to check out the complete Senior Portrait Posing Guide that photographers are raving about!
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Becca Mathews
Traveling Portrait Photographer, Private Photo Editor, and Business Mentor