Photographing obese people- de-emphasizing weight

[AnthonyAllen]

Greetings. I have photo session coming up in which my subjects are very obese and would like portraits done. I haven't gotten many severely obese folks in my studio and would like get some tips on lighting and posing them. In the sessions coming up both subjects are women, one is not that severely overweight and I think I have some good ideas on how to light and pose her that would make her look more attractive. Other woman is much heavier and I'm drawing a blank on how to make her look good in the portrait.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,
Anthony

[David_Buzzard]

Make them turn 30 degrees to camera, with their shoulder towards the lens. This will make them seem less wide, and when they turn their faces to camera, it stretches the neck a little to get rid of the double chin. Make sure they don't wear patterned, striped, or bright clothing. If they're in dark clothing, with a dark background that helps. Just a hair of separation between subject and background works great. Orson Wells was once photographed in a black turtle neck, against a black background, and looked great. If your subjects are together, get the larger one to go behind the thinner one, and have her look over the thinner subjects shoulder.

David Buzzard

[AnthonyAllen]

David,

This is good info. Thanks for the reply. Any other ideas? I would like to come up with several poses of each.

Thanks again!
Anthony

[David_Willoughby]

Yea thanks dave, I always an trying to say that I am having creative problems and am unable to get "into" the shoot when posed with the problem of very unphotogenic people.

[RalphTomaccio]

Also try lighting more from the side than front. The shadowing will make the face appear thinner.

Shooting from a slightly higher angle also helps. Remember how big things looked when you were little and had to look up at people? Looking down has the reverse effect and makes them smaller. I'm not talking an extreme height here. Just a little height goes a long way.

Not so much for groups, but for one or two people, have them lean forward slightly from the waist. Combined with a slightly high camera angle, this makes their body appear smaller. It also draws out any baggy skin in the chin area. Makes those with muliple chins stretch and makes the folds less noticable.

All things things should help somewhat.

[DanielBrewster]

ahhh... there's always the Cmd T / transform command in photoshop and compressing the horizontal aspect of the image. Don't laugh - it works. Obviously it won't help in huge cases, but can be useful.

I completely agree with Ralph's method. Lean forward and a higher camera angle works wonders. If you use this, combined with dark clothing, and a dark background, your subject will love you. Also, you could try to light only the center of the portrait keeping both edges darker using a strip light. This will help to "narrow" the face (although this will only work if the subject is alone). Another cheater method I use is the liquify feature in Photoshop. If you use the pucker tool, you really can minimize that extra width. My last suggestion for posing (which only works well for a head shot) is to have the subject softly rest her chin on her shoulder (she should lift her shoulder so her head is only pointed slightly down) and have her eyes look up to the camera. I myself am heavy and I look for every trick I can. Good Luck!

Here is one example