Celebs Swear by the 'Tightrope Walk' for Looking Good in Photos

Watch any photocall, scroll through any gallery of red carpet photos or fashion week runways, and you’re bound to see everyone practically floating. They are the epitome of elegance, not one (stilettoed) foot out of place. They somehow make an everyday motion—walking—look, well, sexy. If you’ve ever wondered how models and actors do it, I’m here to spill the beans. Everyone’s doing the “tightrope walk,” and you can use it, too.

I used to be a portrait photographer, and something every client seemed to want was natural-looking action shots, wherein they would stroll some sidewalk or park looking like they were on the red carpet. More often than not, these images were the least natural of all the images I shot, with a minimum of two practice rounds before the shutter actually snapped. But after a bit of coaching on a technique I call the “tightrope walk,” the clients would always get what they wanted. Celebrities use this hack all the time, the best example shown by Zendaya when she appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

The actress demonstrated the “Coleman Trudge” for the audience, showing her everyday walk. As expected, stars…they walk just like us. Then Zendaya turned on her red-carpet walk, aka the tightrope walk, and it was like a Cinderella transformation.

It’s as easy as this: Pretend you’re walking on a tightrope. Models and actors tend to walk quickly, but the way I always coached people was to tightrope walk through molasses. This gives your photographer time to capture more angles, and you can also focus on other motions like playing with your hair or clothes to add variety to the shots.