Including arms in a shot can be a problem, so some people just give the advise to not include them… well that’s too easy.
Let’s look at some tips that I often share during the workshops.

Images are shot with a Beautydish with grid and the Lensbaby 80mm tilt lens.

In my opinion you always should try to include both arms.
In this shot I only included one, and although I like the shot… well there’s something missing.
Also her elbow is on the absolute limit of what I find acceptable, if she would have moved it a bit more towards the left (image left) you would not see the upper arm and that gives a “weird” effect for me. Now I also have to add that all these rules are great, but if you “hit” that perfect image and the arm is a bit…. or the face is a bit ….. well in the end it’s all about the emotion a picture gives you, I have several images in my portfolio that are far from perfect (the perfect image actually doesn’t exist I think) but just gave me the emotion I wanted. So just take these tips as guidelines, to know the rules is also to know when breaking them (or better accepting a technical “error” for emotional perfection)

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Creating new ideas and looks is always a challenge.
When you start out often you will shoot following the rules, meaning a certain lens, a certain light setup etc.

Today a very simple light setup with some cool results, this series was shot during the workshops I taught at Studio76 in Eersel last weekend with Nadine. But most of all I post this series to trigger you to not over think your light, often the most simple light setup works best, but also add some small props which gives you a lot of options for expressions and posing, and finally…. think about shooting with a wide angle from different angles for a unique look. Having an expressive model helps a lot of course.

Point is that styling and the proper use of props/story telling will make a shot much more interesting than just placing a model with jeans and tank-top in the same scene.

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