Hey guys! Today I'm going to give you five tips
on corrective posing that will help you bring out the best
in someone with challenging features.
Hi! It's Jerry Ghionis, your favorite Australian.
I'm a portrait, fashion and wedding photographer,
and I've been photographing and teaching for almost 30 years.
In this video, I'll demonstrate what you need to do when you photograph normal people
just like you and me, with real problems and physical insecurities,
specifically facial features.
[music]
Tip one: how to minimize a large head or a large forehead.
Look at this guy! I suffer from that problem [laughs]
I have what they call a five head here in America.
What am I saying? Well, I have a big brain, so it needs housing.
But, if you want to de-emphasize this area,
there's a couple things that you can do.
Now, first of all, you can just simply crop it.
So... Now, if you crop into a head,
never crop here or here.
If you crop right here, it looks like my head goes on forever,
and it looks like I've got a bald head.
So, either you keep the complete head in,
cut into the hairline,
or, if you're cropping just into the head,
just above the brow with a bit of breathing space above the brow.
That's a really important one.
Or if you would actually point the head towards the camera,
anything you point towards the camera (and towards the light, for that matter)
is actually going to appear larger.
So, if you want to emphasize something, push it towards the camera and towards the light.
If you want to de-emphasize something,
push it away from the camera and away from the light.
Or you can simply do something like this.
if you bring my chin up it shortens the length of my forehead
Makes sense?
And also, chin up and tilt the head.
That's really important if you have someone with a balding head
or anything that you want to sort of get rid of in this area.
Chin up. Tilt the head away from the camera.
And that's going to be your best friend.
Now, apart from doing that, you can also lower the camera angle,
which has the same desired effect.
Or you can do a little bit of both.
So the next time you shoot someone like this guy,
you know what to do.
Tip two: how do you shorten a pronounced or long nose,
and how do you de-emphasize a crooked nose?
Well, first let's tackle the length. Okay...
So, if you have a long nose, and you want to de-emphasize it--
apart from doing this in Photoshop and Liquify--
you need to bring the chin up.
Now, of course, you don't want to shoot into the nostril,
so be careful of that and how far you go.
You can also lower the camera angle or a combination of both.
As long as it looks okay,
and, again, you can shorten some nose by half an inch.
Wouldn't that be cool?
So, chin up a little bit,
tilt your head away a little bit,
until it actually feels right.
Now that's one way.
Now let's say, for example, you have a crooked nose.
Okay so, the nose is actually crooked like this.
Now, if you have the main light in the direction
of where the nose is actually crooked,
that's going to emphasize the crooked nose even further.
That's a problem.
So what you have to do is this...
You have to determine your main light, your key light,
especially you guys and girls who actually work in a studio.
Don't always have your main light always on the righthand side and pointing that way.
Don't forget, in my humble opinion,
what you need to do is determine
which way your main light is going to be
based upon on the nose.
So, if your nose is crooked like this,
Then your main light has to actually be on the opposing side.
Think of it like a hammer snapping the nose back into place,
not the other way around. That's going to be a problem for you.
Also, if you're facing a person and they've got a crooked nose,
if you turn their face in the direction of where the nose is actually bent,
it's actually going to emphasize the crookedness even further.
So what you want to do is not go straight on
because you'll see the fact that it's crooked.
You usually just want to turn the face
in the opposing direction of where the nose is crooked,
and then you'll actually find that the nose is actually perfectly straight,
but the face is on a bit of an angle.
It's an optical illusion, and you don't really pay attention to it
until someone like me points it out,
but you can disguise those things actually really really well.
Also, the nose...
If ever you have a pronounced nose or long nose
or crooked nose or any...
anyone with an insecurity about their nose,
it's important that you do not actually cross the line of the lip,
of the cheeks and of the eye socket.
So think of it like...
Think of it like... It's like a joystick, right?
You can't move the nose,
so that it doesn't cross that lip, it doesn't cross that cheek,
it doesn't cross that eye socket.
Otherwise, it'll pop out of those little areas,
and make it become more pronounced.
So, now that you knows [laughs]
Don't do it again.
[music]
Tip three: how to minimize pronounced ears.
I feel like my ears are pretty big,
and, as I grew into my own body a little bit,
they pushed the ears back a little bit, and that helped me out a little bit.
But what could I do to minimize the size of ears?
Well, there's a few things.
Well, lens choice.
If you actually come nice and close to me,
with a wider angle lens, for example,
my nose might appear larger,
and my ears start disappearing.
But of course you've got to be careful of distortion, so.
Perhaps I wouldn't shoot maybe wider than 35mm
when it comes to actually shooting my face.
Now, that's one way,
but you might want a beautiful long, compression lens.
For example, something like an 85 or beyond.
So, right now, for example, we're shooting with an 85mm f/1.8 lens.
The aperture is actually at f/2.5.
And you can sort of see that even the fact that my eyes are sharp,
and my ears are not.
Simply having my ears out of focus
is certainly going to help as well.
Now, here's the other thing.
So, if you have ears that literally are coming out,
almost like a coffee mug handle,
well, you want to be careful of that. So, what do we want to do?
First of all, we want to turn the face on a bit of an angle.
So, I'm going to look at my camera angle here.
Do you see how, in this case, my left ear has just disappeared?
If I bring it to a point where it's just popping out,
then it might be a little bit of an issue.
Certainly, it looks a little bit thinner,
but what you have to decide, what is a lesser of the evils?
Seeing this a little bit thinner and a little slice of this.
I actually don't like it when a face is turned
and you see a little sliver of the ear coming out.
As I turn my face this way,
this ear appears larger, but it actually is enveloped in my head.
So, it's either you want one one big ear and get rid of the other one,
or turn slightly,
and then you can shorten it.
So what I try to do is just turn my face until
I just get rid of this ear.
If I go too much, then it's actually being photographed front on.
Okay, that's an important one.
Also, if you're photographing someone,
let's say on a profile shot like this
and lights coming from this direction,
and you're shooting on the short side the shadow side of my face.
Therefore, my ear is in shadow.
Make sure that you don't have something bright and light
actually giving it a contrast,
almost silhouetting the ear and pronouncing it.
So, you basically want the ear within shadow
in your background,
and that's going to be of extreme help.
So, again if you're photographing someone
with very, very pronounced ears and coming right out.
Turn a bit of an angle
until you just get rid of this ear,
and, as soon as that happens,
stay there.
That's gonna be your dance, space so to speak.
Okay, do that. Remember the ear that is visible,
hopefully in shadow, is not contrasted with something else.
So now, that you know, be careful,
and it'll be your best friend.
Tip four: how do you minimize one eye being larger than the other?
Now, [chuckles]
what you're probably doing right now is running for a mirror
and realizing that perhaps one of your eyes is larger than the other.
It's actually very common.
So, this is an important thing:
if it's a huge difference,
like you'll find that one eye is really big and one eye is really small,
then you have to fix that.
Now yes, you can use the pucker tool in Photoshop.
You can do all those different things, but how do you do it in camera?
Well, there's a couple of ways.
Well, first of all, if you're facing the camera perfectly
and one eye is very obviously larger than the other.
And if you decide to just turn the face on a bit of an angle
and the bigger eye is close to the camera
and the smaller eye is further away,
well now you've emphasized the problem.
So, what you want to do is,
arguably, never have your subject perfectly to the camera.
The small eye should be closer to the camera,
and that way you'll just balance up the scales a little bit.
Also, here's the other thing.
Now, for years, I've been saying, in the beginning of my career,
I'll often ask my clients to give me a little bit of a hint of a squint.
Now, what you can do, if you do it on both eyes,
sometimes it evens up the playing field.
So you go from passive
to just soften like this.
Or sometimes you can isolate it,
which is very difficult, which very few people can do.
So I guess the the common denominator here is
turn the face
to a point where the smallest eye is close to the camera,
and that will be an easy way to do it.
Tip five: how do you add mystique in the eyes?
We've all had the same problem.
You're there photographing someone.
You're getting your camera settings right,
your exposure, your lens...
camera ready, all that stuff.
And they're sitting waiting to be photographed.
And then all of a sudden, you get that blank stare.
How do you add mystique in the eyes on demand?
Well, I've been saying this for 27 years in my career,
Give me a little hint of a squint.
A proper squint is like this.
It's almost like, you know, you're getting a bit older,
and you can hardly see, which of course is where I am today.
But what you want to do is a hint of one.
Just get that little tension underneath the eyelids.
So you go from passive to this.
It adds that mystique.
Also, you can combine it with something like this.
I often say to my subjects, "I want you to breathe in fully."
It's very hard to look bored once you breathe in.
See, it's like this.
There's just a spirit and a soul that happens
and comes over the person's body,
and there's just such a beautiful feeling that happens.
So, breathe in.
and then you can even do the actual little hint of a squint
at the peak of that as well.
Another little bonus tip for you as well.
If you want eyes to appear larger,
let's say for example you have someone with small eyes.
If you bring the chin forward and down,
what will happen is
the whites of the eye, the sclera
will actually envelop the actual iris,
and it will appear larger.
Now, yes, you can do a couple of things.
You can raise your camera angle and/or bring the chin forward and down to do that.
You got to be careful because, when you do it with a guy,
he can look like a serial killer,
and, if you do it with a girl, it can have that "come hither" look.
So, it depends on what you're going for,
but remember all those things.
It can make a huge difference in the emotion of your subject, therefore the emotional content.
Thank you so much for watching.
To learn more from me,
click on the link below to get access to my photography tips and tricks tutorial for free.
It's two hours long.
Be sure to follow me on social media
@JerryGhionis
And visit www.jerryghionis.info
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