The Most Flattering Angles Of The Female Face: Posing For Portrait Photography

On this Adorama video, Photographer Doug Gordon talks and demonstrates the different angles of the face that most flatter a female subject for portrait photography.

Not all angles of our subjects look the same and in most cases there is indeed a good side to our subject and even more importantly a good angle. This might differ from one subject to the next but there are basic principles that need to be understood and can help you improve your portrait photography considerably.

There are three main angles of the human face:

A full face – full frontal shot (Gordon refers to it as a glorified mug shot).
2/3 view of the face – the subject is standing in about 45 degree angle and her head is turning about two thirds to the side.
Profile image – a front standing position with a 90 degree angle of the face.

In the next step Gordon talks about the different types of light and several other tips (such as keeping your subject lean forward for best results).

We have covered posing in Photography quite extensively in the past including a previous video by Gordon entitled “Understanding the Importance of Camera Height“, photographer’s Frank Dispensa excellent video on Classical Posing & Portrait Lighting, Bambi Cantrell workshop on Portrait & Posing and r Jasmine Star’s short video on Posing a Bride for a Photoshoot.

You can find many more helpful photography tips on our Photography tips section here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.