The easiest way to make a model look more natural - Canted Head

If you’re ever photographing someone and you know something’s wrong, and you just can’t put your finger on what it is, try looking at the subject’s head.  Is it strait up and down? If so, that’s probably your culprit.  In everyday life, people rarely keep their head in a strait line with their body.  They usually let it flop (slightly) to one side or another.  It’s perfectly natural and it looks natural too.  It makes them appear “less stiff”.  If you don’t believe me, make a trip to the mall and sit you butt down and do some watching.  Watch someone shopping for a dress.  Flop!  Their head cants over just like a dog listening to a dog whistle.  Or watch a person working with a tool.  They’ll cant their head over to gat a better view of what their doing.  It ends up being something we just subconsciously notice as natural and it makes people look less stiff, also. 

So it things aren’t looking right with your model, or if you are the model and the photographer just doesn’t seem happy with what you’re doing, try flopping you head to one side or another.  Don’t get all carried away either…  Just a slight angle will usually do the trick.  Which way should the head cant?  I don’t know, try both and pick which way feels more natural.

Even for portraits, this works.  I should say that especially for portraits, this works.  For tight shots like this, I think that it has less to do with making the client look more natural, but making the composition of the photo more interesting.  Either way, it works.

When people are alone and working on something technical, their heads are almost always tilted a little or a lot.  It’s the same thing when people concentrate. For some reason, it’s just something people do.  Sort of like how people tend to stick out their tongue when they cut paper with scissors, of how they open their mouth when they feed babies with a spoon.  People are weird.  Current company excluded, of course.  :+)