Posing clients and creating relaxed portraits. Part 3.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve blogged a few posts on how I start to created relaxed  portraits with clients – here & here.

So, you have now got a clear idea of how you want to pose your clients and you have your 5 poses locked down good and clear! You’ve been prepping the poses yourself so you know how they are going to feel and you are engaging with your couples making it totally not awkward  but fun for them. The next step is to take the actual images. Sounds easy right? And it is. But what we want to do is create a collection of images that tell a story and a little depth. What we don’t want is the same shot again and again, we want to explore the different approaches to each pose.

What can easily happen is that you get so excited that they are rocking it the way that you want, that you reel off 10/15 shots of them looking great, totally working it, but all in the same position. Believe me I’ve been there. I’ve done the shoot, got home, uploaded my cards to Lightroom and seen waaay too many of the same shot. We need to be giving our couples a diverse portfolio which creates something more interesting for both them and us. This is all spoken from experience. We are storytellers and the whole story most often will not just be their actual faces. When we engage with people,we take all of them in – but not at once. We observe their outfits and the details. How their hair is fixed, the way they hold hands, the way they walk, if they avoid eye contact, their nervousness, their confidence, their smile – we take all of them in piece by piece. We see the whole scene made up  through tiny components.

Play with your equipment. Change up your lenses. Challenge your depth of field. Even if you only have one lens you can move, look and see what is unfolding. Shoot the same pose close up, far away. Wide, tight landscape and portrait. Get variations that will diversify their portfolio of images and also yours. You can get create so many variations of one pose just by changing lenses and viewpoint. Get your couples how you want them and then totally work the pose.  Let your images set the scene and tell their story.

I really hope that these last few blog posts have given you a new way to approach your next couple shoot, or even just refreshed all the goodness you already knew. I’d love to hear how other people approach their shoots.

Happy Wednesday. xx