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.

Well, I have read this book cover to cover and I am not done with it yet. It is so detailed that as I read it I highlighted certain things (amounting to about half or two thirds of the total text). It is so informative that I will say that if you are serious about model photography you certainly need to purchase this. Other than the passage of time , I can not imagine the author needs to write another book on modeling techniques or that the buyer needs to buy another one. This to me was a difficult study. No - I do not mean that it's hard to understand the book. What I mean is that it's so detailed that to fully appreciate it and get the most out of it you should study every detail he describes of a specific pose (for "every pose" illustrated in the book - one by one). If you take the time to do this and apply everything he suggest before shooting your next model - your will look very professional. There are few authors who cover so many things as this author has. I can't imagine how anyone can read this book cover to cover in a few days and expect to remember even a small fraction of it. This author has written the "Crown Jewel" of books on how to pose models. His descriptions go way beyond "standard cliches". Buy it, read slowly, highlite the descriptions of the poses you are interested in (for me that was just about everything), then go back later and formulate your next shoot - based on all the knowledge you have gained from the book - and don't worry if you have made so many notes that you can not possibly trade it in for a discount on your next purchase - because if you have taken the time to study these poses in detail you surely won't have any desire to trade it in. Finally - for your information - studying this book is not about ( what so many critics think is) imitation. It's about learning techniques and avoiding common (and and not so common) mistakes - then using this knowledge to formulate your own ideas. - Robert Pear

Roberto, what I would like to say, is "thank you for writing such a wonderful book". I absolutely love this book. Well written, and well illustrated, Roberto really brings out the art of posing in an extremely systematic manner. What I like, is that he has chosen good and bad examples from his own work, and this is rare in a photographer. The clear breakdown of the various parts of the body, synthesising everything together, and illustrating dynamics makes the book a joy to read and easy to follow. This is a great reference book as well. Bravo indeed!

I really enjoyed Roberto’s care describing the the skill of posing. His instructions are comprehensive yet succinct. The book will be like my guidebook that I will reference well into the future. There are a ton of tips I never thought of that I can immediately employ. If I were to make a couple criticisms: 1) His creation and use of abbreviations (e.g., “P3S”). It seems a bit forced and it doesn’t make the lessons easier to remember. I think using plain English in this case would have been a better option. That said, I think, like posing, his abbreviations can be learned and remembered if the book is to be used as a reference guide. 2) At the end of each chapter, he provides sample images without any captions for the reader to review on his/her own. While I understood the rationale behind this (to test the reader’s knowledge), some of the examples were a little hard to figure out exactly what was happening. He proves in the book that posing is about the details and without him explaining some of the nuanced details, it left me wondering more than understanding. I think giving an explanation of what’s happening in the each of the “test” photos would have been more helpful. Besides those small nits, this book is easily one of the best photography books I’ve read. I plan to read his other books. He really speaks to you in a genuine and passionate manner, never condescending or reminding the reader he is superior. In fact, he uses his past mistakes as one of the backbones of the book, which I really appreciated. He’s honest and inspiring.

It's been a bit since I've written a review, but felt this book would bring me out of "review retirement." Having just this past year really started to focus on photography, one of the things I struggled with was how to get natural looking images and having my models or families posed correctly. Roberto Valenzuela does an excellent job breaking down the technical aspects of posing without it being dry and boring. The images provided show both what to do and what not to do, and use callouts to highlight the good, the bad, and the downright wrong. You can tell from the images in the book that the author is an accomplished photographer and applies his own techniques. He is also quick to tell the reader that sometimes you have to sacrifice an element of posing due to just a great expression on the face(s) of the people in the photo. Having struggled with posing my models and clients, I bought this book. After reading just half of it, I had to put it down for a model shoot. The concepts were so well described that I was immediately able to apply his teachings. I felt much more confident posing my model during her shoot and there was a definite and visible improvement over a shoot from just the week prior. I wish I had found this book sooner. Whether you are a photographer or a model, you will benefit by reading this book.

This book is very well written with quality professional pictures and diagrams. The book is very thick and offers many suggestions that are useful and a good resource for photography. It is a great help to show less experienced models and photographers various posing techniques. Makes a great coffee table book in the green room.

Have you ever came across a portrait and something about it grabs your attention? Have you ever came across what you thought was a great picture, but somehow something was just off... but you can't put your finger on it? Once you've read this book, then you WILL KNOW why you like / dislike something. You will finally understand poses. Now Robert himself will tell you that practice is where you need to perfect it and make it second nature, but this is a great start to that. I've owned Picture Perfect Practice, and it's one of the few photography book that I've gone back and reread multiple times. So when Roberto Valenzuela came out with this book, I knew that I just HAD to get it. Sure enough, my expectations was not just met, but exceeded. Roberto is an excellent teacher, and he gets you not to memorize poses, but to UNDERSTAND the whys behind the PRINCIPLES. He gets you into the whys and hows, not just the whats (where most books often leave you). If you decide to break those principles, at least you will be doing it consciously, knowing what effect it has on the images you are creating. If you have any inclination of photographing people, you MUST MUST MUST buy this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.