How to Pose for Photos Without Feeling Awkward

What a good photographer does with the first ten minutes

Shoots them. Not because those frames will be used — most will not — but because the shutter has to stop being an event. If someone stands there waiting for you to look ready before they start, you will never look ready.

The rest of what happens early, when it is being done well:

• The start is somewhere quiet, not the view. In Rome, ten minutes in the lanes of Monti before you go anywhere near a fountain. In Florence, the Oltrarno side of the river. In Venice, the back calli of Cannaregio while the bridges are still empty.
• You get tasks, not poses. "Walk to that green door and stop when the shadow reaches you" is a task. "Look natural" is an insult dressed as direction.
• Nobody shows you the back of the camera in the first half hour. The early photos are the stiff ones, and seeing them makes you self-conscious for everything that follows.
• There is talk. Ordinary questions, honestly answered, occupy the part of your brain that would otherwise be managing your jaw.

If you know you warm up slowly, that should change what you book. An hour at EUR 279 is plenty for someone comfortable in front of a lens; if you are not, a sixth of it goes to thawing out. Two hours at EUR 465 exists largely for this reason — the photos people end up printing usually come from the back half.

Movement beats posing

A pose is something you hold. Held things look held — you can see it in the neck and the fingers before you can name it. Movement gives your body a job that is not "be looked at".

Walking. Toward the camera, away, and back again, talking the whole time. Not a stride, not a march. Uneven ground helps: Rome's sampietrini, the sloping brick fan of the Campo in Siena, a white gravel farm track in the Val d'Orcia. You have to watch your feet, so you stop performing, and the small amused stumble is often the frame.

Turning. Look away from the lens, then come back on a count of three. The half-second after the turn, before the face has decided what to do, is the one worth having. Do it five times. The fifth is looser than the first.

Reaching. Fixing a collar. Pulling someone in by a belt loop. Passing a gelato across before it runs down a wrist. Any small physical errand gives the hands and shoulders somewhere to be.

Whatever you are asked to do, do it slower than feels right. Real speed reads as panic; half speed reads as calm.

Hands

Hands are where nerves show first. What photographers correct most is not smiles, it is fingers.

• Give them a landing place on your own body: thumb hooked in a pocket or a belt loop, hand at the back of your own neck, forearm resting on a wall.
• Or give them an object: a coffee cup, sunglasses, a jacket over one shoulder, a paper cone of cherries from a market stall.
• Keep the fingers slightly apart and soft. A flat plank of a hand and a clenched fist both photograph as tension.
• Touch lightly. Press a hand into someone's shoulder and the fingertips go white and the frame looks anxious.
• Avoid the fig leaf — both hands clasped in front at waist height. It is the default, and it makes people look like they are waiting to be told something.

Where to look

There are four options and they say four different things.

Do not stare into the lens waiting for the shutter. Look down or off to the side and come up on three. If eye contact with your partner makes you laugh, that is not a failure, that is the entire trick — keep doing it.

With the low sun in your face you will squint, and squinting reads as discomfort even when it is only physics. Close your eyes, let the photographer count, open on three. Two clean seconds are enough. In late July in Rome the last good window runs from about 19:45 until the sun goes just after 20:30; by mid-October the same window has slid back to roughly 17:45, with the light gone before 18:30. Those final twenty minutes are worth more than the two hours before them. At midday in August no technique saves you: work in the shade of the lanes, or wait.

Couples: the passport-photo problem

Two people side by side, shoulders square to the lens, evenly spaced, is two ID photos stapled together. Fixes, in order of how much they help:

• Stagger. One slightly ahead, one slightly behind, bodies angled about thirty degrees toward each other instead of at the camera.
• Break the height match. A step, a low wall, a bridge — in Venice you are never more than a couple of minutes from a flight of steps. Sitting one person down changes the whole geometry.
• Three points of contact beats one. A hand, a hip and a forehead reads as intimacy. A hand on a shoulder reads as a school photo.
• Give one person an action and the other a reaction. One whispers something true and slightly unfair; the other's face does the work. That is the photograph.

More on how these sessions actually run: couples shoots.

Children who will not cooperate

Asking a four-year-old to smile produces a grimace with teeth in it. Every time.

Chase them instead. The reliable ones:

• Count to three and run at them. Then do it again, because the anticipation on the second run is better than anything on the first.
• "Whatever you do, do not laugh." Works from about three to about nine.
• Let them lead. Hand them a route — down that lane, up those steps — and follow. A child in charge is a child who has forgotten the camera.
• Photograph the parents watching the children, not only the children. Half the good frames in a family session are on the adults' faces.

Timing matters more than technique. Shoot in the first hour of the day or the last two before dinner, never across a nap, and hold the gelato until you need it — bribe too early and you have spent the only currency you had. Three hours at EUR 649 with small children is not ambition, it is the difference between a session and a chase.

The two kinds of smile

There is the smile you were told to make and the smile something caused. They use different muscles, and everyone sees the difference even if they cannot explain it: the told smile widens the mouth and leaves the eyes alone.

You cannot fake your way into the other one. It has to be caused — by surprise, by physical effort, by being touched, by someone saying something ridiculous at the wrong moment.

If a photographer asks you to smile, that frame is already gone. The good ones make you laugh and then keep shooting for four more seconds, because the face settling after a laugh is usually the best one of the day.

On your own

Solo sessions are the hardest, because there is nobody to react to. Bring something to do: a coffee you actually drink, a scarf that moves, somewhere you are actually walking to. Give yourself an errand and let the camera document it.

Say it out loud, in the first message

"I hate being photographed" is the most useful thing you can tell a photographer before a session, and almost nobody says it. It changes the plan: a quieter start, more walking, fewer static setups, no photo review halfway through, and the crowded spot saved for the end, when you no longer care who is watching.

Nobody arrives good at this. People just get warm.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to stop feeling awkward in front of the camera?

The discomfort is a curve that drops off hard somewhere between minute eight and minute fifteen – what changes is not your face but that you stop watching it from the inside. A good photographer shoots those first minutes anyway so the shutter stops being an event, and does not show you the back of the camera in the first half hour.

What should you do with your hands in photos?

Give them a landing place on your own body – a thumb hooked in a pocket or belt loop, a hand at the back of your neck, a forearm on a wall – or an object such as a coffee cup, sunglasses or a jacket over one shoulder. Keep the fingers slightly apart and soft, and avoid the fig leaf with both hands clasped in front at waist height.

Should you book one or two hours if you hate being photographed?

Two: if you warm up slowly, a sixth of a single hour goes to thawing out, and the photos people end up printing usually come from the back half. An hour, from €279, is plenty for someone comfortable in front of a lens. Say "I hate being photographed" in your first message – it changes the plan to a quieter start, more walking and no photo review halfway through.