The Awkward Art of Posing People

Posing people.

The part of photography where your client suddenly forgets how to ‘human’.

They were walking, talking, laughing just fine a minute ago — but the moment you lift your camera? Boom. Instant malfunction.

Arms become spaghetti, smiles freeze like a hostage video, and everyone looks like they’ve just been told to “act natural” in a police lineup.

Or, if you are like an Aunt of mine, had perfected a smile for photographic purposes only, and the second the camera was trained on her, would organise her (false) teeth into a grimace rivalled only by my lurcher who would ‘shmize’ at me whenever she badly wanted something.

Every single photograph taken of my Aunt had the same beam of beatific glee pointedly anointing my camera’s visual field from the quirky depths of family gatherings, not matter the occasion.

I have to say she was responsible for putting the FUN into FUNerals.

So what is it about posing people that makes it so much more difficult than posing the family pooch?

Pose #1: The "What Do I Do With My Hands?"

Ah yes, the classic.

You say, “Just relax!” and their hands immediately go on a quest for meaning.

They hover.

They fidget.

They land in pockets, then pop back out like startled rabbits.

Sometimes they do finger guns. Sometimes… jazz hands.

I just stand there thinking, “Okay… we’re not conducting the NZ symphony orchestra here”

So I give them something to hold.

Anything will do...

Weirdly, the moment people have something (or someone) they can hold, they usually – though not always, somewhat miraculously it seems, suddenly remember how arms, with hands, work.

That’s not to say that people can’t unexpectedly and abruptly discover how to hold their object in ways never before seen or tried.

Couple Posing: A Masterclass in Unnatural Affection

That beautiful art of capturing “love” between two people who, five seconds after you lift the camera, look like they’ve never met before in their lives.

I ask them to, “Move in close together,” and they immediately decide “close” means standing six feet apart, like they’re at a high school dance and Jesus himself is watching.

“Okay, look in to each other’s eyes,” and they freeze like they’ve been caught committing tax fraud.

I try again:

“Closer.”

A shuffle.

“Closer!”

Another shuffle.

“You are allowed to pretend you actually like each other!”

Finally, they collide awkwardly, faces mashing together like two confused sea lions. This would be one reason why I much prefer photographing people with their pets.

Family Posing: A Circus of Chaos

Families are a special kind of photo session.

You’ve got one kid eating grass, while another whacks him with a pool noodle and yet another is intent on picking his nose and examining the contents; and there are the parents smiling through the stress in an “isn’t this fun!” kind of way while I try to organise them into some sort of group, but Grandma keeps wandering off and Dad’s blinking in every single frame.

It all boils down functioning chaos. If everyone’s facing vaguely the same direction and no one’s smashing anyone with anything harder than a pool noodle, that’s a win.

The “Model Pose” Attempt

There’s always one person who thinks they’re in a Vogue spread. Hip popped. Chin up. Shmize activated.

Meanwhile, everyone else in the photo looks like they’re wondering why this person suddenly transformed into Tyra Banks.

I find these people – along with children who have been ordered to ‘smile for the camera’ since birth are the hardest to work with.

I once swapped roles with a brilliant commercial photographer who had only ever photographed models.

He was still trying to get his people to "just fecking imagine you’re in Hawaii or something" when I caught up with him a couple of hours later.

Meanwhile I’d given up trying to chat to my models, who were both about as vacuous as a liminal space; and decided to photograph them the same way I often find works with cats. Just let them move about doing their thing and try to catch something, anything, as long as they are not licking their butts.

Their photoshoot was over and done in about 2 minutes.

*Cats are much more fun and interesting...

When cats shmize, it works...

The “Natural Look” Request

People love to say, “I just want it to look natural.”

This is code for, “I want to look effortlessly amazing while pretending I don’t know you’re taking my picture.”

What they actually do is freeze in existential terror while trying to “look candid.”

I always find that by the time I have fecked around with my gear, fired off some ‘test shots’ and cartwheeled head first over my artfully placed camera bag; said subject is looking ‘naturally’ amazed (and often amused) enough to photograph.

The End Result

Despite all the chaos, I somehow end up with a few perfect shots — the ones that make people say, “Wow, I actually look good!” and I’m thinking, “Yes, because I aged 10 years trying to make that happen.”

But hey, that’s the magic of my portrait photography; I’m all about transforming human awkwardness into pure art...