Posing Techniques For Models’ Arms

Models’ arms can do one of two things: they can add to or detract from a picture! Legs may carry the weight of the model, but the arms carry the responsibility for balance, artistry and supporting expression.

Arms require more attention in posing because arms attract more attention in the finished picture.

Posing arms requires care for they can wander in many directions, while the camera limits them to relatively few usable positions.

Sound difficult? Tricky, yes, but not as involved as it may seem if you can begin to think of arms in three segments: upper arm, forearm and hand.

In your mind’s eye, flatten the shape of the upper arm and forearm so that they appear to be cut out of cardboard and can be joined by pins at the elbow and shoulder joints. Can you visualize how each of these two sections can revolve in a circle, like the blades of a windmill, around its pin-axis … without rising from the page?

If arms actually moved in such a manner, they would never be a problem either to you or the camera.

Arm movement camera-wise cannot precisely duplicate the flat conception of our schematic cardboard and pin figure, but the essential movement is correctly represented by its windmill-like motion sidewise, rather than toward or away from the camera.

The camera’s viewpoint must be considered whenever the model’s arms are moved. If an arm moves toward the camera, a part may be foreshortened or enlarged. If directed too far away, a part may lose its identity or be grotesquely dwarfed. The closer the camera approaches the subject the more bizarre the distortion becomes.

The one-eyed cyclops establishes laws, restricts movement …all must conform! Although modern pictures are allowed more creative leeway with distortion and perspective than formerly, smart directors and models start compressing the pose into boundaries before it reaches the lens.

Posing boundaries take the form of two large panes of glass, parallel to each other and perpendicular to an imaginary line extending from the direct center of the lens (lens axis). These two pieces of glass sandwich the model and restrict the movement of her arms. Even so, her arms can swing freely to either side, meet overhead, or cross her body in the narrow zone between it and the glass.

Thus we begin to see that these restrictions are not absolute. Each arm actually has great freedom within its limitations. Even though the movement of the forearm or upper arm is limited so far as depth is concerned, we discover many interesting positions still available to each arm.

UPPER ARM positions can be noted or directed by locating the elbow. When the body faces front, the elbow may move, within its restricted area, out (away from the body), up, in (toward the center of the body), and down again.

This circuit establishes four basic stops or positions for the elbow with many intermediate positions.

In its normal position the upper arm hangs down from the shoulder and therefore the most used sector for the upper arm is out and down.

FOREARM positions are established by noting the position of the wrist in relation to the elbow. Since the elbow is the pivot point, the position of the forearm is determined after the upper arm is set.

In its normal position the forearm also hangs down and its four basic positions are designated by the same terms as the upper arm; up, out, in or down or by indicating intermediate positions as in and down, up and out, in and up and out and down.

Good positioning of the photographic model’s arms will make for a more beautiful photo.

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