New to posing.

b08rsa

I have put a couple of threads in the People Forum in the past. Here is something that I have been working on. Is it just me, or is it missing the wow factor? Not sure if everyone likes this style or not. I also did not know if it should go in the finishing school forum as well. Whats your thoughts????

TGAllen

IMO, I would forget about the selective coloring in this photo. It doesn't serve a purpose. Also, the lighting is flat. You have a very cute model though!

Nikolai

"Good looking" poses vary by age, gender, complexity, even race/nationality sometimes. In any case, posing pre-teen kids is very different from posing adults. There is no silver bullet as in "one pose fits all".
In your case the pose looks, uhm... a bit posed. As in "unnatural". She's a kid, she has to do kids' stuff.
And +1 on selective coloring. Probably would be better without it.

reyvee61

I agree with Nik...the selective coloring does nothing for this portrait.
I have kids in my family including my own soon to be 11 year old and I can tell you that my best portraits of her are un-posed...simply because of what Nik said, posed kids look posed and not natural. Not to say that this is absolutely always the case...some kids are more natural at posing and I've seen some gorgeous work here from members in a studio environment with kids as subjects.

I don't entirely agree with TGAllen though as I think the lighting is a little more dynamic than flat and can probably be easily enhanced in post processing.

Of course your model is a little cutie!

zoomer

Ditto the pose problem. Take pictures of her playing around having fun. Lighting looks fine to me.
Background is very bad.
Choose your background first then put the subject into the photo.