What you do with your arms and hands in photos is possibly the biggest challenge for modelling successfully.
A basic guideline for posing arms and hands is to remain natural and relaxed.
A common example of this is when crossing your arms; when a person is nervous and crossing their arms, they tend to tightly hold them close to their body. This makes a person look either afraid, cold or tense.
Similarly, be aware of having your arms tightly against your body, this can deform the arms and body which can be unflattering; to fix this, give your arms “space to breathe”.
Loosening up your arms and hands, making them relaxed from your shoulders down to your finger tips will normally give a more pleasing appearance.
Similarly, be aware of having your arms tightly against your body, this can deform the arms and body which can be unflattering; to fix this, give your arms “space to breathe”.
Loosening up your arms and hands, making them relaxed from your shoulders down to your finger tips will normally give a more pleasing appearance.
Tightly Crossed Arms
Relaxed Crossed Arms
You can also try posing your arms in an asymmetric way. This gives a more natural feel than when there is symmetry between your arms.
Symmetric Arm Pose
Asymmetric Arm Pose
If you find yourself not knowing what to do with your hands, you can try to incorporate movement into your poses or through using a prop to give yourself a reason for moving your hands in a certain way.
When adding movement into your hands, you should aim for slow flowing moves to allow the photographer to catch the moment. Move to quickly and you may end up having to repeat the movements several times for the photographer to be able to capture the perfect moment. There are times when a fast movement is essential though.
When adding movement into your hands, you should aim for slow flowing moves to allow the photographer to catch the moment. Move to quickly and you may end up having to repeat the movements several times for the photographer to be able to capture the perfect moment. There are times when a fast movement is essential though.
When adding props to a pose, remember to keep hand and arms relaxed, such as holding a rose delicately, rather than gripping a rose tightly and showing tension in your hands, you could also end up crushing the poor rose. There are times when maybe you want to show tension, frustration, so you will need to be aware of what is required in each situation.
There are certain things to avoid in the majority of poses related to your hands (unless the image specifically calls for them).
When positioning hands, avoid “the claw”, this is normally created in the desire to give a sensuality to the image, but gives the impression of a horror film. To correct this, you will want to relax your hand into a more natural form.
Also, when positioning hands whilst when touching your face, head, or other part of your body. Putting your hand flat on your head gives the impression of having a headache; similarly, on your face, it can give the impression of toothache or an injury.
When positioning hands, avoid “the claw”, this is normally created in the desire to give a sensuality to the image, but gives the impression of a horror film. To correct this, you will want to relax your hand into a more natural form.
Also, when positioning hands whilst when touching your face, head, or other part of your body. Putting your hand flat on your head gives the impression of having a headache; similarly, on your face, it can give the impression of toothache or an injury.
Just using your fingertips to lightly move across the surface or lightly play with your hair, gives a more natural impression.
Tense Hand Pose 1
Relaxed Hand Pose 1
Tense Hand Pose 2
Relaxed Hand Pose 2
There is a lot of information to cover when learning about posing your hands and arms, and without wanting to make the blog overly long, I recommend researching for additional guidance on, and examples of posing with hands and arms to help fill in areas I will have missed.
In the next modelling advice blog, we will look at overall body posing.