Photo by Valerie Elash on Unsplash
Camera shy? No need with these 5 easy posing tips for the perfect photo every time
Do you know how to look your best in photographs? Are you prepared to practice in front of the mirror to perfect your photo face so that you know how to look fabulous in every picture? Or are you resigned to the fact that you’re just not photogenic because you hate the way you look in photos?
Well, here’s a newsflash: there’s no such thing as looking bad. Learning to strike an attractive pose is something that can – and should – be learned. Don’t think of it as vanity; look at it as a simple life skill that, once acquired, can make your life in today’s visual, media-driven world a whole lot more successful.
Smizing
American model Tyra Banks first coined the term ‘smizing’ – smiling with your eyes – back in 2009 when she was trying to explain the look to contestants on America’s Next Top Model. Start with a relaxed facial expression and happy thoughts, then open your eyes wide and focus an intense gaze on the camera. Next, crack a tiny bit of a smile, lifting the corners of your mouth without opening the lips.
If you’re not sure how this works in practice, here’s a short lesson from the lady herself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaE__NAtrJA
Finally, don’t forget about complement your smize by properly positioning your upper body. Pull your shoulders down to elongate your neck, by imagining that your neck is pulled up by a string.
Squinching
The squinch is one of the most recent strategic techniques used to get the perfect picture. Its popularity has been credited to portrait photographer Peter Hurley who believes that squinching is the easiest and most effective way to overcome fear and uncertainty, which shows on the face as eyes wide open. Squinching is all about narrowing your eyes, giving you a look confidence and adding definition to the face.
Squinching is not the same as squinting – there’s a fine but important difference. When you squint, your top and bottom eyelids come together, which is not a confident look. Squinching may take a bit of practice but it’s not hard to do. Narrow the difference between your lower eyelid and your pupil by tightening the palpebral ligament that runs along the bottom of the eye by lifting and tightening the lower eyelid, then bring your top eyelid down a fraction.
Here’s a short video to show you how it’s done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qclifm8fwMo
Pruning
Source: BuzzFeed
Celebrity sisters Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen – the famous Olsen twins – are the undisputed perfectors of the photo pout. What’s their secret? Well, it’s now pretty widely known (and copied the world over) that instead of saying ‘cheese’ the sisters silently blow the word ‘prune’ when the camera clicks.
The ‘pr’ sound purses the lips just the right amount while the ‘oon’ sound relaxes the muscles around the mouth, helping to project a sultry and almost serious look.
Teeging
Also known as Lily Allen’s favorite pose, teeging is smiling with your tongue between your teeth. It’s a technique that starts with a wide toothy smile. Open your mouth slightly and press your tongue up against them so that it is ever so slightly on show.
Source: Boggio Studios
This smile is more about your mouth than your eyes, although of course, both feature in the final look, particularly if smize or squinch with your eyes at the same time.
Teeging will make you look playful and cute. For best effect, take a leaf out of Lily’s book and take the picture from the side instead of head-on.
LOLing
Laugh-out-loud moments can create the most beautiful natural images able to capture happy and unguarded moments. But can you create moments like these on demand to get the perfect carefree picture?
The answer is yes – you can fool the camera. Simply let loose, giggle, chuckle, in fact, force yourself to ROFL – and then freeze as you take the picture in mid-laugh. It may feel odd at first to fake a spontaneous moment, but the results will be a happy smiley picture that you’ll be proud to share.
