Words Used for Directing People- Photography, Posing and the Like

[muyongshi]

I do a lot of photography and one thing that I still find unnatural to do is use Chinese to direct people's movements. For the most part I don't like to but sometimes there is just people who don't know how to position or hold themselves.

Anyway, as I was thinking about this one day I thought there are definitely words I still don't know that would help and I'm sure some of the words I do know, others probably wouldn't mind seeing in a list. So here is my first attempt at what I could think of off the top of my head. Also note that there are multiple combinations and ways of saying things with even just one thing so let's try and list as many of those as possible too!

斜- this is one that I find to be most helpful; to tilt or slant

斜眼睛， 看某个东西- this one means basically DON'T move your head just your eyes, ie "look in that direction"; I've found that if you say 看那边- the whole head moves so 斜眼睛 is pretty helpful

把头斜到右边- tilt the head to the right

斜靠在某个地方- to lean on something

歪- In this case to tilt

歪头- Also used to tilt the head; my understanding of the difference is that this would be a large tilt where as 斜 would be just a minor movement, almost to the point you can't tell. I haven't noticed any differences other than that when I use these two but wouldn't mind some native speakers input on what the feel would be the difference. But on the other hand I have read some examples where some said 把头斜向下45角度 so I'm not sure...

抬- to lift up

把头抬起来

仰- also to lift up

仰头

低- lower

低头

靠- to lean

靠右边，靠后，

往....点- Move in a direction

再往后一点 {move backwards a bit}; 往右走几步 {move to the right a few steps}

挺胸- straighten one's shoulders

Then of course there are just the straightforward- look at me, look that way 看我，看那边

What I haven't included here that I will try and add later is the more emotional cues {give me sexy, now give me angry- haha}, not just the physical body movement ones. If you so choose to include the emotional ones, try and not make them sound too cheesy please!

Also, just cause this happens so much, let's not fight over the translation unless it really affects the meaning and expression. The general movement is plenty.

[trien27]

挺胸- straighten one's shoulders

Literally, it means "To straighten/lift the chest". It might mean "to pull back the shoulders, in order to straighten the chest". I can never really do this without ever not cracking my bones [by cracking my bones, I'm actually aligning the bones back into their correct position, especially by sitting straight, and not slouching].

Most Chinese parents would say to their children: 抬头挺胸, which means "Lift your head and straighten up your body".

Edited August 8, 2009 at 03:54 PM by trien27
additional information

[muyongshi]

Yeah, that definition I actually got from the dictionary otherwise I would have translated it the same as you. Either way it means to straighten up.

[trien27]

看我

看着我 = Look at me, not just 看我, where you might be asking the person to watch and follow what you'd be doing.