Taking flattering photos of larger people

denneyphotography · Aug 4, 2011

I have shot heavier individuals for senior portraits, and know about blocking with props, shooting from slightly above, etc, but my dilemma is, I have a shoot coming up this weekend with a family that are all significantly overweight. There are 5 members, and we are going an outdoor shoot at a local nature park. I have some ideas, but if anyone has some more experience or example photos of this situation I would gladly appreciate any advice!

Big Mike · Aug 4, 2011

Welcome to the forum.

Yes, there are some of methods that can work to help people look slimmer in photos...many of which you have listed already. A very important one that you didn't list was to use short lighting, rather than broad lighting. In other words, when you have some sort of side lighting, have them turn toward the light so that you are lighitng their face and their far ear (away from the camera). That is short lighting.
The opposite is broad lighting, where they are turned away from the light and you are lighting their near ear and basically their whole head...thus making it look larger in the photo.

When taking a group photo, it can be much harder to establish nice portrait lighting on all the members of the group...so it may be very hard to achieve short lighting on all of them...but at least try to avoid an obvious broad lighting situation.

A basic technique is just making sure that you avoid posing the people with their shoulders square to the camera. This gives them the maximum area/girth in the photo, so turn their shoulders/bodies. Of course, watch for things that will hurt your cause...like big bellies showing up in profile or lines appearing on their necks as they look back from their turn.

As you may know from shooting senior portraits, the clothing & background choices will make a huge impact on the outcome of the photo. You usually want to key the clothing to the background, so that the faces are where the viewer's eye will be attracted. So if your subjects have large bodies, you can draw attention away from that by having their clothing blend into the background, rather than contrasting with it.

Lastly, it's very likely that large people know that they are large. If you go too far in trying to make them look thin, it may not capture the real them...and it may even make them feel self conscious, which can translate into bad photos. I think that it's much more important to make them feel comfortable and let their personalities show.

Rebekah5280 · Aug 4, 2011

Big Mike said:
....
Lastly, it's very likely that large people know that they are large. If you go too far in trying to make them look thin, it may not capture the real them...and it may even make them feel self conscious, which can translate into bad photos. I think that it's much more important to make them feel comfortable and let their personalities show.

I agree!

You can judge from each individual how they feel about the way they look. I go from there. If I am photographing a larger person, they will usually make a crack about making them look thinner, its up to me to determine if they are serious, or if its just a joke. If they are serious, I'll take that into consideration when I'm taking their pictures. Women, of course, are the most self-conscious, and are almost always serious when they joke about looking fat or having large arms, or having acne in a picture.

So you've just got to judge what is important to each person and then pose in order to translate it into a great family portrait.

Big Mike · Aug 4, 2011

I forgot to mention that along with picking the right outfits, it's important that the outfits either flatter them or at least don't make things worse. Going back to having the clothes keyed to the background, the reason is that we want the faces (skin) to stand out the most. But if say, a larger person is wearing a sleeveless top or short sleeves, then their arm may be a larger patch of skin than their face...and that will distract attention away from the faces in the photo.
One of the keys to portraiture (single or group) is that you want to draw the viewer's attention to the faces...and by extension, you want to de-emphasize thing that will distract attention away from the faces.

KBM1016 · Aug 4, 2011

I will never forget one of the tips an amazing photographer told me. Try to have them lean in a little to the photo (while shooting down). It will help thin them out.