Varying the Pose

I spent a bit of time on this exercise.  First looking at ideas in magazines and newspapers.  Then based on previous exercises I had to consider where I would take the pictures.  My place has too many distractions, the weather has not been great to consider doing a shoot outside.
I came up with the idea of photographing this model doing her training. The downside was I had to fit in with training times.  This meant getting up 6 am to go to the gym!
In previous exercises I had found that most people don't know what to do with their arms or hands, or which way to stand.  I'm also not great in giving directions as I'm still trying to work out what works.  However I have noticed that if the model has something to occupy their hands like holding a book for example then i can get natural poses faster.  Hence my rationale for photographing during a training session.
I was confined by the space in the gym and where equipment was placed.  However I tried to make that an advantage and get angles that I might now of otherwise have considered.  The lighting meant I had to use a high ISO as I didn't have the flexibility in shutter speed and aperture to work with. My shutter speed had to be high enough for my camera to be hand held. I was also trying to not let the apeture get wider than 5.6 as I didn't want to end up with important features overly soft. Or a nose in focus and eyes out of focus.

Overall though I was happy I got a good range of positions and expressions.  I did find I had to be very careful to not distort her too much with the wide angled shots. The second picture in the top row  has too much forearm, looking at it now I think it would be better if I moved slightly to the right.  I was trying to not do too many from a higher position.  Maybe a longer lens and a little further back would have improved this.

The second group were taken as she prepared to leave for a bike ride.  I wanted to try and get the whole body standing in this group.  I find this the hardest pose to get right. I find I generally end up with all the poses looking awkward.  What I did here was use a stairwell, and got her to hold her helmet.  This meant neither of us was obsessing about hands and feet.
I did a few with her putting her helmet on and off. I have quite a bit of hand movement in the image, (middle, third row) which I liked. 

Sitting on the stairs is the most relaxed and natural pose of all the pictures.  Sitting with something in the hands I find the easiest to get natural.