How to sit for a portrait
The guide the studio sends every sitter before they arrive. What to wear, where the light falls, how the hour runs, and what to do with your hands.
Everything we tell a sitter, written down.
Nadia Ferrant leads the camera at Lumen and Marguerite Lind finishes every frame that leaves the studio. The guide is the conversation the two of them have with each sitter, set on paper so you can read it before the day.
It reads in one sitting and holds up whether you sit for us, for someone else, or for a friend with a borrowed camera.
What is inside
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01
Reading the light in your own rooms
How to find the window that flatters, what time of day it turns, and why a bare wall is often the best backdrop in the house.
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02
What to wear, and what to leave
Fabrics that hold their shape under light, colours that sit well next to skin, and the pieces that pull the eye away from a face.
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03
The hour, from arrival to last frame
How a sitting is paced, when we stop to look at the screen, and why the frames near the end tend to be the ones you keep.
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04
Choosing, licensing and printing the set
How to edit down without regret, which paper suits which frame, and how a file is prepared for print rather than for a screen.
Frames reproduced in the guide
