Picture Perfect Posing: Practicing the Art of Posing for Photographers and Models (Voices That Matter)

"Picture Perfect Posing" is the most practically useful photography book I have ever read. So many books of this type are so non-specific, speaking in generalities so that very little actionable information is given to the reader. This book is very, very specific, pointing out posing problems and presenting the reader with a defined system for fixing them. The author uses his own photos as both good and bad examples of posing, which is very encouraging since it shows the reader that it is possible to get significantly better at posing subjects through practice. While reading about the bad examples, I could directly relate to the author and how he dealt with posing when he started out, which was trying to memorize thousands of poses, then forgetting all of them during a shoot and just shouting out random posing commands, hoping for something that works. I have been there. If you come to photography from an engineering background or you just have a logical mind, Picture Perfect Posing will be a very helpful tool because it is a specific system that addresses common posing problems you will likely encounter, with specific solutions for fixing them. This is so helpful because it can be very difficult to look at a pose and figure out exactly why it doesn't work without this sort of information. For example, the author covers finger positioning, where and how hands should be placed, how noses should be pointed... all very helpful to give photographers a base to work from instead of just trying to create awesomeness from nothing. The author even touches on facial expression, although that isn't the primary focus of the book. I found this interesting because the method suggested to get good performances is similar to a famous actor direction technique: Give the person a task to concentrate on, like counting fenceposts or trying to spot exactly when the camera's shutter closes behind the lens, etc. This can make it easier for the subject to produce an engaged expression that takes the photo to the next level of professionalism, I would love to see a whole book about direction for still photography. One nitpick for future editions: On page 168 the text refers to a blue line indicating the "overlap point" of two bodies in a couple's pose. It looks like the publisher changed the blue line to a red circle without updating the text, since I do not see a blue line in the example photos. I highly recommend "Picture Perfect Posing" to photographers who need a strong base to build poses from, especially for wedding and engagement photography.

Let me start my review by saying that I have never written a review on any book or on any product before. But this book is the best photography book I've ever read together with his first book, Picture Perfect Practice, and I couldn't help but have to write a review. Do you struggle with posing? I did. Something about the pose tells me it's not working but I didn't know what was wrong and how I could correct that. Does it sound familiar to you? If it does, think no further and get this book. And thank me later :) Roberto have broken down the art of posing into it's fundamentals in this book. You will clearly understand how each part of the body affect a pose and how to structure your pose depending on what you are trying to convey from it. Gone will be the days where you didn't know where to start with a pose or posing by remembering few poses you have seen before and forcing your clients to pose in exact same way without knowing what's the pose for. If you have read his first book Picture Perfect Practice, you already know that he is a great teacher. And this book is also very well written and it's an easy read. I am currently reading through the book second time but this time I'm doing it slowly and after reading each chapter, I go through all of his example photos as well as my own photos and consider about ways how it could be improved based on what is wrong about the pose. Perhaps I was eager to read through the entire book in a short time, I feel I didn't learn much about posing the eyes and creating expressions from my first read. I hope when I read through chapter 15 again after slowly going through all previous chapters, I will pick up some points I've missed in my first read. I understand that each of us have our unique way of directing people and bringing out their expressions. Now, posing the body seems a lot easier for me but I'll need a lot of deliberate practice, experience and experimenting to master posing the eyes and having the expressions. In a nutshell, this book is all you need for learning what works in a pose and what doesn't. But to master and become second nature at it, you will need deliberate practice and experience. I will also strongly recommend to read his first book to get the idea of how to practice to become better at photography.

Habe dieses Buch gekauft, nachdem ich schon das erste Werk von Roberto Valenzuela (Picture Perfect Practise) gelesen hatte. Hier geht es explizit um das Posen von Menschen vor der Kamera in verschiedenen Situationen (Einzelpersonen, Paare, Gruppen...). Nachdem ich das Buch durchgearbeitet habe, konnte ich einige gute Tipps und Regeln mitnehmen, auch wenn es nicht ganz an die Qualität des Erstlingswerkes heran kommt. Gerade bei den gestellten Personenaufnahmen gibt es halt eine große Differenz zwischen der amerikanischen und der europäischen Kultur, die das Buch an einigen Stellen zu gekünstelt wirken lässt für einen Europäer. Zudem hatte ich einige Male das Gefühl, dass einige der Bilder nicht explizit für den jeweiligen Abschnitt im Buch erstellt wurden, sondern im Nachhinein "passend" gemacht wurden. Der Autor schreibt zwar, dass er viele Bilder mehrfach verwendet hat um Dinge zu verdeutlichen, aber manchmal wirkt es auf mich etwas lieblos. Das war im ersten Buch ganz anders.

Creo que este libro ahorra muchos quebraderos de cabeza a los que quieren aprender a retratar. Es un libro muy didáctico, lleno de ejemplos donde el autor va mostrando los fundamentos para conseguir poses correctas. Lo recomiendo mucho, muestra muchos detalles que hay que ir integrando en el proceso de aprendizaje, pero cuenta los secretos y los cuenta al alcance de todos. Ojalá lo hubiera conocido antes!

Fabulous Book. Started reading few days back and completed few chapters till now. Mr.Roberto has very well explained about posing and practical approach required for portrait photography. He is one of the best portrait photographer which can be understood with photos & summary in his book. All Portrait Photographer should read this book for unleashing real skills.

Me parece un excelente libro, bien redactado, sencillo y una guía muy bien detallada paso a paso de las poses y la razón de ser de cada una de ellas. Lo recomiendo ampliamente!!!!

Un vero e proprio condensato di riflessioni utili e pratiche per migliorare la propria tecnica e per elevare la propria visione e attenzione ai dettagli