The 3 Best Sitting Poses for Portraits (Jessica Whitaker Video)

What's the best way to pose someone who is sitting for portrait photos? Pro photographer Jessica Whitaker shares three great sitting posing tips in the below portrait photography tutorial.

"In this video I'm going to be showing you how to pose your subject for flattering sitting photos," Whitaker says.

Whitaker's sitting posing tutorial begins at about the 2-minute mark of the video below if you want to jump past the sponsored portion of the clip.

"We have three different spots that I'm going to be showing you for sitting," she says. "We're going to start with a hard chair and then we're going to do a squishier chair and then we're going to end by doing some photos on the ground."

#1 Chair Pose
"When you tell your client to just take a seat, they're going to go into a regular sitting position," Whitaker explains. "But in this case, it's giving absolutely nothing. The legs are not elongated. My tip for that is I want you to point your toes whenever possible. First scoot your butt, halfway off the chair. You're actually going to lift this leg up automatically."

#2 Sofa Pose
"When it comes to a squishy couch, make sure that your subject is going to sit halfway off. You might tell your client, okay, put your shoulders back and smile. But it's going to be key that they engage their core. This is what's going to really help them be able to balance on the edge of the couch."

#3 Floor Pose
"Sitting on the ground photos can be very cute, casual, lifestyle-esque but you want to be very careful of the positioning of the legs and you do not want to show a lot of the crotch. Instead of having our butt on the ground both ways, you want to come up and lift onto one hip so it would be the opposite of the arm that you have supporting it."

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