The Photographer's Guide to Posing: Techniques to Flatter Everyone

I've been on Amazon.com for 18 years and this is my first book review. Yes, it was that good and yes it is important that everyone knows it. After reading Lindsay's book on Posing a second time, I wholeheartedly recommend this gem to anyone that photographs people. The book is comprehensive, well written, cleverly designed with training skills and a plethora of examples of what works, what doesn't and why. As you read, you will find yourself getting better at finding posing issues and how to correct them. Simply put, you will understand posing better and produce higher quality work because of it. I truly believe Lindsay is one of the top photography instructors out there today. Her method of teaching relates to everyday photographers and advanced pros as well. If you happen to follow her Instagram or Website, you'll notice she regularly updates her strong portfolio of images. Somehow, she still manages to produce yet more impressive work as the years pass by. An impressive accomplishment that has led to many photography awards and strong industry recognition and accolades. Buying this book is a given. It is a 'must own' and perhaps the new Bible on posing. I would highly recommend you check out Lindsay's other material and books out there. I personally have learned a tremendous amount from her via her books, seminars and videos. She is constantly travelling and teaching. Topics including lighting - both standard and high impact creative, posing for all scenarios and body types, shooting in poor conditions, processing, quick and advanced retouching techniques, business essentials and the list goes on. I am a big fan of her work, work ethic and charming personality. Her book delivers and you'll be glad you bought it!

So far, so good! I just got the book today and read Chapter 1, "Posing and How Your Camera Sees." I've been shooting photography as an enthusiast for at least five years, though I’m not formally trained. This first chapter covered so many important concepts—things I’d never explicitly thought about before—but they were presented in a way that was clear, practical, and empowering. Even from just this chapter, I can already see how my photography will improve. I’m excited to keep reading and practicing what I learn from the rest of the book.

This is an excellent book on posing. There are many out there but I decided on this particular book because I followed Lindsey on Instagram and was familiar with her Photography. I figured even if it wasn’t the best writing that at least the pictures would be great. I was pleasantly surprised that the writing and posing theory is as well done as her photography. I don’t personally own another posing book to compare, but I can’t imagine another book being “better” but only maybe different. The info in the book is top notch and easy to understand. She covers posing women and men, even couples and families. Perhaps my favorite part of the book is a section at the end of each chapter called “train your eye”, which shows you a pose with numerous problems and asks you to indentify them. She then will describe the specific problems and discuss ways in which she fixed the issues, giving you a way to visualize how to fix problem poses. Overall I can’t recommend this book enough, as it’s been incredibly helpful to me in my portrait photography.

It's a great book on posing. It starts with a description of how the camera interacts with the subject -- meaning how you can use crop, focal length, posing -- to emphasize or deemphasize your subject. It then goes through a number of specific topics applicable to all posing before delving into specific posing for certain types of individuals -- women, men, couples. In each section there are plenty of excellent examples illustrating the points being made, and even some "test" images that allow you to decide how to improve an image before explaining how the author would do it. What it is not is a list of a thousand "great" poses. It's more focused on illustrating how you can use one base pose and turn it into many different shots by changing the camera angle or the subject's hands or the crop. Overall it's an excellent learning tool. Someone mentioned the author's videos on Creative Live. Those would be complementary to this book, covering the same ground with much the same message but with different poses and a different method of explanation.

This book was my first introduction to posing, and on the whole I really enjoyed it. Pro: The material is great. Lindsay Adler is an amazing photographer, and she has a real knack for both explaining things clearly and visually illustrating what she's talking about with do/don't images, pull-back shots when necessary, and an occasional bit of diagramming on top of an image. The key to this book vs. the kind of static guides to different poses I've tried looking at before is that she's not giving you a list of positions to contort people into, she's laying out a set of basic principles you can use to (a) figure out how you want someone to look, and then (b) arrange them into a position that fulfills that look you're going for. And then at the end of the chapter she'll give you a small list of positions you can contort people into, just in case you lack the imagination to get started on your own ;) Neither pro nor con: While this book is pretty substantial size-wise, it's still not nearly comprehensive, which you come to realize pretty quickly it simply couldn't be without being a whole lot bigger. However, given the amount of material, I found some of the content choices suboptimal, personally. Including an entire chapter on boudoir posing seemed like an unusual choice while what I would expect to be some more common scenarios--especially working with children and posing non-family groups--were left out. Of course, if you shoot a lot of boudoir that's great for you, so ymmv. By the end of the book I kind of came out with the feeling that this was less a comprehensive posing guide and more of an introduction and long form advertisement for the copious amount of instructional video material she has online. Which I have to admit I fell for; I've since bought three of her CreativeLive courses. Con: The editing in this book is very sloppy, which is what kept this from being a five star review. There are several places in the book where the figure numbers she refers to don't actually match the images she's talking about. e.g. she'll say "The problem with image 3.19 was [x] and I fixed it in image 3.20 by doing [y]," but the two images she's talking about will actually be 3.17 and 3.18. Presumably in this case an image was added removed and the references in the text not updated. Worse yet, at times the text will refer to an image that's not actually present under any numbering, or an image will have the wrong caption directly underneath it. These may seem like minor issues, but it can be very confusing for a beginner to read something, look at the referenced image, see that the two don't match up, and then take quite a bit of time to try to figure out if the book is wrong or if you're just badly misunderstanding what it is you're supposed to be looking at. There's also an entire section of chapter 3 (on problematic expressions) that's alluded to, but then the chapter just abruptly ends without the promised section. I assume this is because an editor axed that part of the chapter but forgot to remove the intro text for it.

This book is awesome. Its easy to understand and every page has photos to help me understand how to do the poses. I've gone thru 150 pages in no time. I hope to Put all this into practice w my own business soon

This is an awesome guide to learning how to pose women, men, couples, groups and more. Previously I relied on memorizing poses but that's a limited way of thinking. This book gives simple yet effective and efficient principles to go by. There are also some "go to poses" given by Ms Adler that wouldn't be hard to memorize should you choose to do so. There's nothing wrong with remembering poses, it's just that the same pose doesn't work for everyone because of size or limited mobility for example. One minor drawback is that many times when the author refers to a pose, the pose isn't on the same page as the reference to it. So you may need to turn the page to see the pose then go back a page. That's the only not so great thing I have to say. The book is just over 400 pages but well worth your time. It's long because it covers so much varied material. Even if you've been shooting for years, I think a look at this from another persons eyes can be helpful. And if you're new or at an intermediate level, this is definitely a book I recommend for you. It's an investment that pays off immediately.

An excellent resource for photographers.

"I can't comment on the content yet—obviously, I haven't had the time to go through it in such a short period, I've only had a chance to skim through it. But of course, Amazon already asks for my opinion on my purchase before it even arrives. I know, I should come back to review it later—but by then, I'll likely be buried under a pile of photos waiting to be edited, and I'm sure I'll forget. So, about the book: it explains everything wonderfully clearly, and it's very easy to read. I highly recommend it to non-native English-speaking photographers as well; it's a breeze to follow. It contains a wealth of useful information on posing, typical mistakes, which are also illustrated with sample images (both the wrong and the correct examples). However, I wasn't satisfied with the shipping—it was incredibly slow, though I should have expected that, as it did arrive within the given timeframe in the end. One thing I didn't like is that there was a small dog-eared corner on the front cover, which must have happened either during shipping or at the store, but that's how I found it. I'm not happy about this because I'm the type of person who takes great care of my books."

O conteúdo do livro é imprescindível para aqueles que, assim como eu, estão se iniciando no mundo da fotografia de pessoas (modelos e não-modelos). Infelizmente o produto veio um pouco danificado, creio que pelo modo como foi embalado, visto que não veio nem com a película plástica que normalmente vem (e que inclusive vieram os outros livros que comprei junto). Mas quanto ao livro em si, excelente! Recomendo

The Photographer’s Guide to Posing by Lindsay Adler is an absolute gem for both beginners and seasoned photographers. This book breaks down posing techniques in a clear and approachable manner, making it easy to understand how to flatter every subject, regardless of their body type or confidence level. What I particularly love is the variety of poses included, accompanied by helpful tips on how to direct subjects effectively. Lindsay’s insights into the psychology of posing really helped me connect with my clients, resulting in more natural and beautiful images. The visual examples are also fantastic, providing a clear reference for each technique. Whether you’re shooting portraits, weddings, or family sessions, this guide is a must-have in your photography toolkit. I’ve already noticed a significant improvement in my work, and I can’t recommend it highly enough!

Exactly what I was looking for. This book is so well written, illustrated and presented. Portraiture has always been a genre of photography that I have shied away from, purely because I had no idea how to pose my sitters. Not now, I’m raring to go. Her approach to teaching this subject is perfectly conceived and executed. Everything is explained in detail, with lots of examples - including right and wrong. I read it cover to cover in one sitting, and know that I will revisit it many times. I was hoping that Lindsay Adler also had a book on lighting for portraiture, but I haven’t found one. Pity, as I would buy it immediately.

This book is simply AMAZING! It shows what to focus on when posing and taking pictures, what are the common mistakes, what to pay attention to, how to guide your subject to get the best and most natural pictures. On the other hand, as a subject, you can learn how to pose to look your best self even if your amateur "photographer" (AKA husband, wife, friend) doesn't know how to guide you. I would say this book is a MUST for everyone, doesn't matter if you are a professional or amateur photographer/model. It happened to be that my wedding photographer didn't know how to deal with the height difference between my husband and I and this book gives you exact tips on how to tackle it. I can ONLY recommend it to EVERYONE! :)