Foolproof Recipes For Model Portfolios

[Jeanette Garcia]

There are several things you, the model can do to help you work out
the best use of your hands and arms in your model portfolios. First,
collect forty or fifty full-length photographs of models from
magazines. Now, shuffle your pictures into examples of:
1) Bold hands
2) Tapered hands
Do you notice that tapered hands of women are used frequently? And
that bold hands rival the expression and importance of the face?
Can you detect any picture in which either hand is displayed poorly
but could have been improved by a simple movement of the wrist?
The second step is hand-stops, or where to let your hand rest.
Reshuffle and separate your illustrations into hand-stops.
Which pile has the most variations of hand positions? (Do not count
positions as different that are duplicates in reverse.)
Get in front of your mirror and see if you can originate at least five
different hand positions at each hand-stop for which you found an
example.
In your collection of pictures, have you noticed
... any display of the broad inner elbow that could have been made
more attractive by bending the elbow slightly and rotating it so that
the narrow side faces the camera?
... any display of unnecessary tension, sprung joints or distorted
flesh when the arm supports the weight of the body? (Double joints at
the elbow or on the fingers also appear to be sprung in a picture
unless arranged to look normal.)
... how the majority of arms and hands crossing the body are usually
in a contrasting tone or color so they do not appear as part of the
body?
... the casual, yet expert placement of hands and elbow to preserve
waistline profile?
... any picture of the arms crossing the body at the waistline? If so,
do they seem to cut the silhouette in half and make it appear heavier
than if they crossed above or below the waistline?
... that a hand extended toward the camera looks like a stub at first
glance?
... how much faster you can detect what a figure is doing when the
hands and arms are separated from the body with air spaces?
Taking direction...
is an important phase of your being useful before the camera -
particularly where arms are concerned. You, as a model, are composed
of many individual parts. However, you also must be composed when
given direction as to which part to move. Becoming flustered may
result in the loss of a perfectly wonderful picture which could have
been added to your model portfolio, should you change a whole arm when
all the director asked you to do was to break a wrist or twist a
forearm.
Therefore, complying with direction accurately is of utmost
importance. You must know how every part of you is capable of moving
camera-wise. When given a correction, of arm or hand placement, think
before you move, 'Does he want me to move my whole arm or just part of
it?' 'Should I twist it completely or just slightly?'
Then move that part naturally into position without looking at it. And
one other thing, so simple we hesitate to mention it, but it is also
so important, that we must ... do learn to tell your right from your
left. When the director says right he means your right. If he says
left, do not move your right!
A very worthwhile way of learning to take direction is to practise
giving direction. Pretend you are the director. Take your pile of
pictures, with a friend for a model, and one by one, see if you can
give directions for reproducing the arm positions of the subject to
the finest detail.
Take the time to practise using your arms and hands to the best of
your ability. This will result in more beautiful pictures for your
model portfolio.