The Natural Light Portrait Book

Keep Their Arms Away from Their Sides

There are any number of poses that can work against us and make our subject’s waist look thicker than it really is. I guess that’s why we have so many techniques to make sure it doesn’t look too thick in photos. When your subject’s arms are up against their sides, it tends to add mass to your subject’s body, making them look thicker. An old trick we use to reduce this mass is to put some space between their sides and their arms. Basically, we just have them bend their arms out and away from their waist (think of the ol’ hands-on-hips pose, which accomplishes this task rather nicely—say that last part with ...