Tips for posing hands

One of the hardest things about posing is deciding what the heck to do with the hands.  On some shots, the answer is obvious.  What you do with the model’s hands will somehow pertain to what the model is doing in the shot.  If it’s a shot of a worker, then the worker should be working somehow.  The tough part comes when the model is not really doing anything specific.  Maybe they’re just looking at something.  When you come across cases like this, it’s sometimes challenging to come up with something for the model to do that really looks natural.  Again, this is where grocery store observation comes in to play.

I’ve found that people do many things with their hands when they’re just standing around doing nothing:

• Hands in pockets
• Hands on hips
• Hands in back pockets
• Hands resting on purse
• Hands holding something
• Hands gesturing / pointing
• Hands scratching / rubbing / holding some body part
• Hands leaning on some surface

• Hands hanging to their sides
• Hands dangling
• Hands clenched in fist
• Arms folded
• Hands adjusting clothing / Jewelry
• Hands are hidden
• Hands clasped
• Pointing

The key is to select something to do with the hands that make sense in context to the rest of the shot, help the person look natural and aid in the overall composition of the photograph.  That’s a lot to be done with just a couple of hands.  If you’re a model and can make your hands look natural in every situation, you’ll be welcome at any photo shoot you show up at.

Some of the best poses that I’ve seen models come up with are the ones that look like they’re in between poses, something very random.  Where one hand is up, the arm is bent and you really don’t know what it’s doing…  Sometimes it’s just balancing the model.  But it has to be something you almost don’t notice.

Pointing is one of those hard things to do as a model.  Pointing tends to make the whole shot look very posed. I like it when the model sort of gestures in the direction of the target and hold the hand in sort of a half open form.   I hate it when the models sticks out one finger and actually points.  It always looks soooo staged.

So, as a model you need to practice with your hands as much as you practice with your expressions.  You need to know how to hold something gracefully but firmly.  You need to be able to hold you hands naturally in a variety of positions.

I could be one kick-ass hand model.  Over the years, I’ve seen so many models do it wrong, that I‘ve become pretty much an expert.  The key in hand modeling is grace, and flow.  The fingers normally have to taper closed from the pointer down to the pinky.

More soon…