Blogger Hand Positions

Most of us base our swatches on another blogger that we love. We all know the iconic hand positions of Scrangie, Chalkboard Nails, Fashion Polish, and many others.  I want to preface this by saying that there is no right or wrong way to take nail polish swatches! Everyone has to find out what works for them and their nails. Finding a position that compliments your hands can really improve your blog photos.

This is how I usually photograph my nails. I line up the bottom edge of my nail on the bottom and hold my fingers together making an arch over my palm. I just like how the light highlights the nails and not my hands.

Here's a line to help illustrate how I line up the bottom edge of my nails.

If I instead line up the bottom of my fingers it looks a bit weird, less uniform. You see, my nails aren't perfectly uniform so I compensate by positioning my hand differently for swatches.

Now the question of what to do with that pesky thumb. It's painted all pretty so it seems a shame to hide it, but I always feel awkward with my thumb showing.

Aah, that's better. I always crop out my thumb or zoom in on just my fingers for photographs.

There are a lot of other ways to hold your hands too, some look prettier because they are more relaxed. This one is what I call the hand squish (in my head). I just cant pull it off. If I try to put my fingers on my palm for photographs they just look uncomfortable.

Here's another alternative hand position, here rather than arching your fingers you just let them fall naturally on your palm like they would when you are making a fist. This is also a pretty complimentary position in my opinion.

Then there's the floating hand. I can't master this one for the life of me, it's supposed to look relaxed but my hand cramps every time!

Here's one I see frequently with ladies with longer nails. They arch their fingers but keep them parallel and separate rather than squishing them together like I do. I feel like this one always makes it really obvious when nails are different shapes (and since mine are permanently different I avoid it!)

This is fondly referred to as the claw! I can't get my hand to look pretty like this no matter what I do, but it's the best way to show off nail art on your thumb.

Adding in a bottle complicates things, many girls hold the bottle like they normally would hold a small bottle filled with liquid that stains everything, tightly. Unfortunately with odd shaped bottles holding a bottle tightly just looks strange. I did this a lot when I started blogging because I just couldn't figure out any other way to hold it.

This is how I hold a bottle, I arch my fingers like normal then gently set the bottle in my hand. With odd shaped bottles I'm barely holding the bottle, in this photo it's lightly held between my middle finger and my palm, and my other fingers are barely touching the bottle. This gives the relaxed look and allows me to line up my nails how I prefer.




How do you hold your hand when you photograph your nails? Was there any particular blogger that inspired this photography style?

[polishes pictured - nails: piCture pOlish Focus; bottle: OPI Smitten With Mittens]