Why I Direct My Clients Instead of Posing Them.
If you’re like many of my clients, the idea of posing for hours on end on your wedding day may bring on more dread than excitement. Of course, there are those amazing unicorns that love the camera and are ready for their closeup-you know who you are and I love you for it— but for others, the idea of posing for the camera just feels a little uncomfortable.
If that’s you, I get it. You can only force a smile for so long until it feels inauthentic and stiff. And, I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want is photos that look inauthentic and stiff. So what’s the solution?
I think it starts with reconsidering how we talk about what you’re doing while I take the photos.
Nobody wants to be a poser
While the term “posing” is commonly used, It conjures up the idea of forcibly manipulating the person being photographed into stiff and potentially unnatural positions. Think 90s glam portraits. Glamor headshots have their place, don’t get me wrong, it’s just not my personal preference.
When I think about what the people I’m photographing are doing, I think more in terms of direction and prompts. Why? Well, I want to leave space for you to be, well you. If I tell you to place your hand right here, smile big, and hold still, you might get a fine photo or two. But you’ll quickly feel stiff because that’s not a very dynamic direction.
Dynamic Photography requires movement
And while there’s a time for very specific direction, I like to make sure a bulk of my direction consists of movement that allows you to get more and more relaxed as the photos progress, not more and more uncomfortable.
So what does that look like? Well, I like to start things off with really easy things you’re already used to doing. Are you used to putting on a big cheesy smile with a gigantic camera lens a foot away from your face? I doubt it. So we’ll start with something like walking. It’s natural, it’s easy.
I may ask you to do things like hug, dance, and whisper your favorite date into your partner’s ear. All things that you will clearly understand, but also interpret in a way that’s uniquely YOU.
And then of course, we’ll add in some of the more traditional “poses,” but if we were to do just formal posing for an hour, it wouldn’t be fun for anyone. So most of the time will be spent getting you interacting with each other (NOT with the camera) and giving you things to do, rather than prescriptive ways to be so you never get too stiff along the way.
Photo session or special date?
My clients usually say that this approach makes them feel like they’re just on a date rather than on a photo session and the end result is images that better reflect who you are and how your love looks, not trying to copy someone else’s idea of a perfect pose. In the end, you’ll get more authentic images that reflect who you are and because of that, will cherish them for a long time to come.
