Education Field Instructional

Essential Beginner’s Tips for Photographing Portrait Subjects Laying Down

Chris Gampat
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03/13/2017
2 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Sony a99 II review photos Friday Saturday Models 30mm, f2.8, ISO 1600, 1-80s,30,SONYILCA-99M2, Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 24-70 mm F2.8 ZA SSM (SAL2470Z)

Last Updated on 03/14/2017 by Chris Gampat

If you’re into more sensual portraiture,  you most likely know that every photographer tends to use shapes, lines, and colors to appeal to someone’s eyes. You probably see this kind of work amongst lots of #instafamous photographers–but there are ways to make it look less tacky and more about balancing the beauty of your subjects and the artistic features in photography. These can be done with any body shape and are really popular with boudoir photography.

Work With the Natural Shape

Model: Natalie Margiotta
The portrait subjects who are typically photographed laying down these days are women. One of the biggest and best ways to start with working with women has to do with looking at their specific shape. Artistic photography is honestly all about working with shapes and finding a way to photograph a feeling rather than just an excellent subject. When photographing women, one of the best things you can do is find a way to accentuate their natural shape. Before you even start, also ensure that their clothing works well for something like this.

Artistically speaking, think of it also as working with a bodyscape by playing with the ideas of lines, slopes, hills, etc. Sounds crazy? Photographers have been doing it for years with very happy clients.

If you’re photographing in a less well lit scenario, then I really recommend finding a way to play with the tones and colors in addition the shapes we were just talking about. One of the best ways to do this is to start with black and white against a fairly neutral/non-clashing background of some sort.

Pro tip: ALWAYS ASK IF A SUBJECT IS COMFORTABLE DOING SOMETHING! DON’T ORDER ANYONE AROUND! YOU’RE NOT THEIR BOSS!

Here’s another example of how you can do that. See how the only major tones are white, black and some shades of grays?

Have Them Arch in Specific Ways to Create a Flattering Contour

Notice how we’ve been talking about shapes and tones a lot? Let’s add to that:

  • Notice how the images of the more flatter lying women were shot from above to work with their shapes?
  • And notice how the women shot at eye level are slightly turned in one way or another?

Well that’s the point here. No matter what, you want to keep and create interesting shapes for the eyes to move around the scene with.

The best thing: these tricks work with every single body type!

Shoot From Way Above or on Eye Level

Lastly, we’re talking about angles. Notice how, when you shoot from a above, you find a way to change the shapes. If I were shooting from eye level, the image probably wouldn’t be as flattering, so I’d need to turn my portrait subject to make it so.

Go ahead and try these out!

floor laying down portrait shapes subject
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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.