photography tutorial roundup: how to pose families & groups

Whether you’re interested in becoming a professional photographer or just want better pictures of your own family, it’s important to know how to pose your subjects. Being able to direct people on how and where to stand or sit makes them feel more comfortable and leads to better photos. Posing families can be complicated since you’re dealing with an entire group of people, so I’ve collected the very best tutorials and inspiration posts about posing families for you to use as a resource. These posts are all worth a look even if you won’t be the one taking the photos – you can get a good idea of what poses you like best for the next time you have pictures taken of your own family.

***Please remember, as with all roundup posts, if you would like to pin an individual photo from this post please click through to the original source. Feel free to pin the collage photo above to remember where to find all these posts in one place!***

1. This group posing guide from Digital Photography School contains 21 different poses, including illustrations and tips for each one. The post gives ideas for posing groups of adults (coworkers, teams, etc.) as well as great ideas for families.

2. This HUGE post from Harvard Homemaker starts out with tips on everything from prepping for the family photo shoot to printing out your photos, then continues with 125 inspiration photos from 18 different photographers (used with permission). Photos are grouped by posing tip and there’s lot to learn from this big pile of inspiration. Plus you’ll get fantastic ideas for how to dress for family photos.

3. Another large compilation post, this one from The Dating Divas includes 101 tips for family pictures, including ideas for location, posing, props, clothes and more. There are plenty of example photos for each idea, making this a must-read if you’re taking photos for someone else or getting your own family pictures taken.

4. This post at SLR Lounge discusses the 6 most common mistakes photographers make when posing families and then tells how to fix them, along with some example photos of getting it right.

5. This post by It’s Overflowing has quite a few good general tips about family photography, especially if you’re planning to swap taking pictures with a friend. It’s not posing specific, but there are quite a few photos that work as great pose examples.

6. Photography Concentrate has a stress-free posing series which includes a post on posing families. She includes tons of great tips and pays special attention to what to do with young kids who can’t or won’t pose for a photographer, as well as plenty of example photographs.

7. This post from Photography Awesomesauce is a great reminder of lots of basic posing rules. There are no example photos, but the text is definitely worth a read, especially if you have any interest in becoming a pro photographer.

8. This roundup post by Antsmagazine includes 50 examples of fantastic family photography, giving you tons of posing ideas for families of various sizes. (Example photo shown here is by Ashlee Raubach.)

9. This next post from Digital Photography School is pretty cool – the author shares six different photo “set-ups” and then shows three example photos for each set-up so you can see how these ideas translate to different situations.

10.  I wrote a post on photos that celebrate relationships that contains a number of great posing tips for families and siblings, including before/after shots that demonstrate some of the ideas shared (like the one you see below).

11. Finally, this video by Bernie Raffe is extremely helpful – you get to watch him in action as he takes a family through various poses. It’s great because you not only see the finished pose, you see what it took to get there.

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