Hands that paint, create music or work. Hands that write, greet, extend or protect, hands that speak, protest or keep silent, hands that hug or repel you? A hand portrait can tell you more about a person than a full body image. The hands with their wrinkles, their scars, their poses, their ornaments are a whole world with an explosive charge of information and emotions. The person may be silent, but their hands will tell us how they feel, what they need, and even how much they have suffered. One hand can make a mute person speak, listen to a deaf person or silence an entire class with a simple gesture, invite us to come closer or “send us far away”. After the face, I dare to say that this part of the body is the most communicative and the most striking in photography, both for its beauty and for its symbolism and expressiveness.
If you agree with everything I just told you and are interested in this topic, read on, this article is for you.
- Hands have a strong symbolism in many religions.
- Currents or pagan beliefs.
- But the most widespread is their meaning in nonverbal language and also what we may be most interested in in this article.
- Here are some of the best known meanings:.
Next I will give you some tips to photograph not only the hands, but what they want to tell us. Also, I bring you many inspiring examples and photographs of this part of the body that we love so much.
There are two main effects you can achieve by simply controlling the light. On the one hand, if the hands are the part of the photo on which the light strikes, you will enhance its prominence and awaken even more the interest of the viewer. On the other hand, you can use soft light or hard light depending on what you want to transmit. Will soft light help you communicate sweeter moods, tenderness, innocence, love?while a hard light will add more drama.
Work with a large diaphragm aperture so that when you blur the background, you eliminate other distractions and focus only on what the hands want to tell us or the effect you want to create.
Portraits gain in strength and communicate much more if the hands appear, can they convey reflection, shyness, boredom, shame, sadness, joy? The same facial expression, with a gesture of the hands, will say much more.
Look at these two examples. In the first image you can barely see the face of the man, however his hands transmit everything he feels in a much more original portrait.
In this second photograph, the hand that hides part of the girl’s face only emphasizes her look and expression. Without this hand, the portrait would surely have been a bit bland.
Try to tell a story with a wave of the hand, create a plot. Look at this image, don’t you wonder what he’s looking at? What’s on the other side of the window? How does the owner of this curious hand feel now?
We have already said that we can transmit feelings, but did you think that you could also transmit feelings? The feel of soft skin, something rough or fluffy, the feeling of lightness or heaviness?
It’s not the same as you want to relate the experience of hands working in the field, to their typical hardness and dirt of work, whether you photograph the hand of a mother (or a father) stroking that of their baby, or certain hands that you offer. flowers or just make a gesture, or even if it is a professional order in which they ask you for beautiful hands, in these cases make sure that the hands, and their nails, are neat, clean and hydrated, otherwise they can spoil a beautiful image.
Finally, I give you some ideas so that you take it as a game, these are small challenges that will help you practice hand photography and thus learn that, of course, this is our main objective? . In each of the challenges I give you an example so that you finish inspiring yourself and remember that, in all cases, the represented hands must express and communicate something.
1. Photography of different age hands: You can take a series of male hands and another pair of female hands, from a baby to an old man.
2. Creative hands: in this case I propose a series of creative hands, i. e. draw, paint, play an instrument, sculpt, work with clay.
3. Cook hands: in the middle of cooking, kneading, cutting . . . any action you find eye-catching. Here you can play a lot with light or colors.
4. Portraits with hands: We have already mentioned that hands in a portrait provide information and strength. Practice this trick with a loved one.
5. Hands in contact: two lovers, a mother and a son, two brothers and children? Hands that show affection, trust or other feelings in contact.
6. Photograph hands that talk about the subject’s personality or culture.
7. Use your imagination and create your own challenges. Try photographing your hands from different angles and in different poses to get the most eye-catching pose and remember that normally your back is usually more attractive than your palms.
Here are some mixed examples
Hey, before you go to photograph the hands that are placed in front of you, what I’m sure is what you want right now, love or share, will others thank you? Thank you!