posing

[Espie]

Is there a site where I can find different poses for portraits, specifically- 8 people.

TIA-

[TeraGram93013]

Espie:

One of my favorite silly poses is to line the people up, shortest in front, tallest in back.

Front person seated, those behind kneeling, crouching or standing (on a box if necessary) to elevate them above the person in front just a touch.

Camera directly in front of first person, and the 2nd person in line leans left, the 3rd leans right, the 4th leans left and on down the line.

Obviously you need great light and excellent DOF to pull this one off.

Also this doesn't work with very small children (under 5ish). The set up takes longer than their attention span will allow.

(Voice of experience there. heh)

Who are these eight people? Family? There's poses that are appropriate only to family, such as Grandma in the middle, her children closest and grandchildren surrounding them. Stuff like that. (Boring, imnsho, but sometimes necessary.)

Whatever you do, make sure you get shots immediately before the pose is "set" and immediately after you tell them "ok we're done". Those are sometimes better than the perfectly posed shot.

One thing I've learned is that as the number of people increases in a shot, the odds of getting everyone's eyes open, facing camera, yadda yadda, increases exponentially. If one or more of those individuals is under 5, you'd better have the patience of a saint.

[stopbath]

You could line them up (one two or three rows).
You could seat them in a semi-circle (around a table, around a fire...)
You could scatter them in among some trees in a forest.
You could put them on a bus and have them lean out the windows.
You could put them all in tights and have them do the can-can.
You could, you could, you could... Pose anyhow you want.

Just ensure that all faces are visable at once (not that you can't shoot a picture when someone is hidden - it might have value other than as the ultimate group shot.)

The reason for the gathering may become the focal point of the photo. Such as a model train group may be photographed gathered around a model train set up, or even involved in building or running the set...

[nolanwb]

>Is there a site where I can find different poses for portraits, specifically- 8 people.

Try this site...it's good..

http://jzportraits.home.att.net/chapter-08.html

[Espie]

Thanks for the posts, my shoot went from "We'll be 8 to there are 16 of us."
Yeah for me~ :?