posed

UK/pəʊzd/US/poʊzd/

adjectiveB2Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,668 of 15,258leans written

Posed means arranged deliberately before the picture is taken. A posed photograph, posed for the camera, obviously posed.

It is set against candid, which catches people unaware, and the difference is visible — a posed group looks arranged because it is. In portraiture posing is the skill; in documentary it is a fault. Note posed as a past tense of pose in every sense, including posed a question and posed as somebody, which are separate uses.

Definitions of posed

1adjectiveposedArranged deliberately before the picture is taken.B2
“The wedding photos were all posed, so nobody looks natural.”

posed is a state of arrangement.

Practised in Photography & Film

Practise this word

posed in the wild

Problems that are not well-posed in the sense above are termed ill-posed.
Well-posed problem
The original problem was posed as the Problem of the topology of algebraic curves and surfaces.
Hilbert's sixteenth problem
During his term, Bowen offered explicit warnings about the threats posed by the disease.
Otis Bowen
Candid photography, also called spontaneous photography or snap shooting, is photography captured without creating a posed appearance.
Candid photography
Candid photography captures natural expressions and moments that might not be possible to reproduce in a studio or posed photo shoot.
Candid photography

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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