MANILA, Philippines – Noted fashion photographer and former America’s Next Top Model judge Nigel Barker visited Manila to promote his newest book Models Of Influence, and has also given his take on looking your best in photos. 

“The best thing you can do for yourself to ever look good in a picture is to feel confident. Confidence is key in a photograph. A model that is confident immediately has strength, has power, is attractive, is charismatic,” he said at a recent press conference.

“You can take the most successful celebrity, most successful athlete whomever it might be even a beautiful model physically beautiful. But if they are nervous, they don’t believe in themselves 100%, the photograph will have no power at all. And it’s my job always as a photographer to make them feel secure, build them up.”

In an older interview for ABC news, Nigel gave some practical tips about how to look better in photos, including relaxing before snapping, and the classic hand-on-the-hip move. 

It seems that with nerves and tension come a stiffness that’s likely to show in photographs. 

“If you look at a camera and you go, ‘I don’t like pictures of myself,’ right, that fear, that look, that’s what the camera picks up,” he said.

Inner beauty also goes a long way, he says. 

“What I always recommended is having compassion for yourself, but also go out there do something good in the world. If you do something good in the world, you help someone else out, you have the right to feel good, you have a right to stand up straight, you have the right to say I’m a good person. And that’s a power itself. 

“The power of giving back is the most powerful thing you can do and I say it with all honesty. You may wanna hear some body position, hold your neck and all that. It’s not. It comes from within. If your eyes don’t say it, forget it,” Nigel said.

Photography today

With all the changes in the world of photography and all the new tools and apps that can help you take powerful photos with just a smartphone, Nigel says he’s totally embracing all the changes happening in his field. 

“If a child is given a paintbrush, it doesn’t make them an artist. But it does allow them to have an appreciation of writing and understanding your part. And I find it fascinating, and I love the fact now everyone is interested in photography,” he said.

“And on a daily basis, people come up to me and wants to know how do I do this, how do I do that? Yes there are now many people who want my job, come and get is what I say.”

Nigel is in the country to promote his book Models of Influence, a compilation of 50 of the most influential models in the world. According to Nigel, doing the book was very exciting for him, to show the world who the models are before they became famous in their time. It was also a way of paying tribute to his mom, who was also a former model.

“My mother is Sri Lankan. I know how it must have tough for her certainly looking back now for a model of ethnicity…this book is a tribute to her and the models in my life,” he said.

The book, divided into 8 chapters, features models such as Twiggy, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, and some of today’s prominent names, including Coco Rocha, Alek Wek, and Kate Upton. – Rappler.com