How to make a good fashion photo (part V)

Find the right Pose

Now we come to the poses. Go into a shop, buy one, there are so many of it, put it in your pose stand, jump on it and take the snapshot. Or better… take one of the freebie poses almost everyone has. It’s cheaper. BUT… NOOooo …. don’t do it this way. Please chose your pose carefully. It should bring out the outfit to it’s best, make everything clearly visible while telling a story and giving the picture a specific overall message.

• Poses for full body shots

As you can see in the picture below a slightly funny pose will work good for a girly like outfit. But it won’t do for a fashionate woman.

You can bring out the power you feel in the sexy black dress with the right pose. But the same pose is a mess for a nice cocktail dress. Just look at the legs, that’s not elegant.

We can find a far more beautiful pose for the cocktail dress. And yes, it might work for the jeans as well. But the jeans picture doesn’t tell a story.

Let’s see this pose… isn’t there a sexy story behind? Yeah! But please don’t take it for a ballgown.

The beautiful gown could look just so much more fantastic if we do it the right way.

These are only some examples. You have to develop a feeling for what looks good and what not. For what is just boring and what can bring out a story.

• Poses for close ups

In most cases you will need close ups for showing jewellery.  But even a simple head shot needs a good pose behind.

When it comes to bracelets or nails it really gets difficult to find a good pose. The poses below are quite nice, but actually not perfect. However, these flaws can be corrected in the next step.

• And all the problems with poses

In the next picture series I show what happens if you take the wrong pose.

First of all be careful with system skirts. When the legs are to spread the textures are stretched in a way that makes it look just awfully. Next be aware of your shoe’s alpha prims. If one shoes covers part of your leg you will have holes. This can be corrected with some photo editing, but it will be a lot of work.

Now, have a look at the nails. The hand has a different pose as in general so the nails don’t fit anymore. And since the pose is very extreme, there is a problem with the rendering of the avatar. It’s not so bad that we cannot correct this afterwards, but we would have an almost impossible job with the nails. In the second picture the hand position is fine, but still we have a lot of bad avatar rendering.

In the next two pictures have a closer look at the middle part of the body. On the left side we even have a break in the outline, but also in the middle section. So forget about this pose for a skin photo. And if you wear a Shirt or a Dress with detailed textures it also will destroy them totally. On the right side the middle part is better. But the “S”-line of the vertical middle line can also lead to problems for shirt and dress textures. Keep an eye on it.

A lot of poses may look good, but cannot be used for every outfit. Check if a part or your arm or hand goes through any attachment you wear. It looks terrible and definitely not realistic if it does.

And finally the worst case of all. A nice, thoughtful pose. But check the outline of the avatar. Especially shoulders, elbows and knees are rendered awfully when bent heavily. No higher graphics setting in sl will help you there, this just depends on the grid that describes the avatar. If the poses are extreme in angles for legs or arms you will have these problems.