How to Pose for a Photograph | Hacker News Reader

How to Pose for a Photograph

nytimes.com

207 pointsdevy32 comments

The photographer mentioned in the article has a few videos up that illustrate this much better than the text https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff7nltdBCHs (for the "squinch" one).

The photographer stresses slightly raising one's lower eyelids (what he calls "squinching" -- a slight form of squinting), but if you notice, most of the examples he gives show people also slightly smiling more when they do this.

Today I learned that humans can control their lower eyelids. Now, I wonder how to learn to do that...

Some work in front of the mirror. It is relatively easy.

There are muscles that are much harder to control, especially independently.

It's a bit hard to describe but you gotta look at yourself in the mirror and just try it for a while. After a few moments your brain will figure it out. Took me around 15 minutes to get my lower eyelids to move, but now after some days of practicing I can even do it with a single eyelid only!

My wife can't wink, or even close one eye independently. My eye muscles barely work together at all, so this is difficult for me to imagine!

To me this looks like the difference between "real" and "fake" smile (smiling with the eyes - or predator grin vs friendly smile). I have a friend who's a theathre actress - she smiles a lot wider than these models, but the eyes behave similarly.

Interesting video, thanks for sharing.

This is the jawline video where he demonstrates how to bring your head forward and down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe3oJnFtA_k

He's clearly following his own advice: he squints on each photo - just as he's asking his male clients to:

https://theportraitmasters.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Pe...

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS4iR2N...

https://actorintro.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Actor-Head...

https://yt3.ggpht.com/a-/ACSszfF_dYtV5gUyxDwWWp7vxJLVcy-Bv-T...

https://www.creativelive.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/09...

Lol, indeed.

He looks like he just woke up and hasn't had his coffee yet. Or like he's slightly amused, while still being constipated.

gasp Magnum!

no examples in this article.

Is it just me or are the HN comments link increasingly returning an nginx error page?

Sorry! See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17229444.

I wish the NY Times would get back to journalism and not try to boost their webviews with fluff pieces like this.

It must be easy to be an entertainment/light journo these days. Just recap a viral video from a few years ago in text form.

No kidding. Who the heck is upvoting these threads? 26 people found this content interesting or educational or thought-provoking? Are you kidding me?

How is it not educational?

Why is this on hacker news?

Because HN users found it interesting.

I clicked on it. I’m a regular visitor of HN. q.e.d.

And I want to look good on photos, 'cause I’m a good looking hacker in RL.

I found it interesting because recently I had to pose for an extended period for some company headshots with a professional photographer and I hated every minute of it. Worst of all, it was on the street in full view of half of east London. If the guy had given me some of this advice it might have helped.

It teaches you how to 'hack' photographs so you look better.

It would be nice if the body of the whole article was:

"Just be yourself."

That's called candid photography. You don't pose for that.

Experienced photographers (not me unfortunately) know lots of tricks to get people to look good. A popular one to hide double chins is to move your head forward by about a centimeter or two, but facing the camera so it can't see the angle of your neck.

In the military, it's common to lie down and have the photographer photograph you from above when you're older and have become a bit larger. It looks more natural than trying to suck-in your gut :)

Does this only work because everyone has short hair?

People are 3D. Photographs are 2D. If you want a photograph to convey what someone looks like in person, you can't ignore the dynamics.

Is it really conveying how someone looks in person when they make themselves look better than they really are through posing? After all, it's not really unheard of to meet someone in person and find out that their photographs are way too flattering...

Isn't that basically how a high proportion of online dating platforms continue to be so popular? Everyone looks lovely online, but in real life, it often becomes clear someone hired a pro to utilize some posing tricks and/or used a bit of Photoshop to "enhance" their beauty. Naturally there are exceptions to this, I just mean in general.

Yes, I'm not disputing that at all. I'm just saying, in response to the parent, this kind of photography isn't really portraying how you look in reality

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