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Useful Photography Tip

Useful Photography Tip #131: How to Make Clothing Fit Better on a Portrait Subject

Chris Gampat
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02/14/2015
1 Min read

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Samsung 85mm f1.4 review images (1 of 3)ISO 1001-125 sec at f - 4.0

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When photographing a portrait subject, we can’t always expect everyone to have the best fitting clothing for them or always have the best fashion sense. But we as creatives and photographers can help them with just a couple of slight modifications.

Firstly, we recommend that you bring safety pins, hair ties, and gaffers tape with you to your shoot. Generally when you’re shooting portraits, you’re photographing the front of the person. So let’s say that their button down shirt doesn’t fit them in such a way that makes their body look the best.

Now you’ve got a couple of ways to approach this but it all has to do with working with what’s behind the subject.

– You can go behind the subject, pull the shirt in tighter on them, and tie it in the back to hold it in place.

– Pull the shirt in a lot in the back and tuck it in.

– Pull the shirt in and use safety pins to hold it in place.

– Pull the shirt in and tape it into place

All of this doesn’t affect the front, only the back. You can do the same with pants, blouses, dresses, etc. Just work with the back of the subject and you’ll be all fine.

Give it a shot at your next portrait session.

clothing photograph portrait portrait session safety pin
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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