Lessons

Lesson Info

Prepping Senior Guys

The biggest thing that's that I want it enforced with talking about senior guys is like the small talk is so important, it's so important because I find it harder to just naturally connect with a senior guy, then I do to connect with a high school senior girl like a lot of times, they aren't as the current line was, she was excited to be here, and I haven't met this guy think what's his name? Do we know? Colton? I haven't met colton, but I'm sure he's like I'm tracing the coalition. We excited to be here because it's like a little modeling job that's excited he's not a real models, so this is kind of like the big peak of his days he's probably going to be pretty easy to get along with, but remember that a lot of high school guys are dreading this coming in, they can leave loving it and that you can change that quickly, but a lot of that starts with just a small talk, so things that things that you got to remember don't remind them of their parents don't remind him of the parents make h...

im feel like they have control over their session and don't do anything creepy, so it's those air kind of universal things and I really like but I wantto drive that home those that still ask, hey colton I think we're going to do this background what do you think don't hell at least asked for input give people options I had one session I shot it was so funny was actually high school senior girl and that the like shot the session and I thought it went great and I edited the images and I loved him and I don't know if I'm the only guy that does this but like if I do a session that I'm super super proud of and the clients come in I was gonna go on and be like what do you think yeah yeah here's the bag you won't give me a path but I do I like it I really crush it if I'm like man I murdered that session they're goingto love me at one go over I want teo it's nice to hear nice things about your work so I went over and I said oh my gosh mom do you love them aren't they amazing and she's flipping through the proof book and she goes heather good is it good I think these are amazing like wow look at this one looking out great this looks were beautiful lighting outside we have the flowerbeds were the waterfall we had this in the detective teo and I rather love all this stuff and I said I love this session and then she does know all the pictures you gave me are great I just really wish we'd taken some with the blue couch downstairs. Honey, I got a blue couch. I could have done ten thousand pictures on a blue couch. I just need you to speak up. I need a dementia that I gave her that option at the end of the session, and apparently I didn't. So I will always tell my clients when we're leaving, talking about giving them a little bit of control over their session. If we're leaving the outdoor session or we're leaving the indoor session out, we say, is there anything else he wanted in here? And they almost always going no, no, no, I'm good, and then I say, this is your speak now or forever hold your peace moment. You miss some speak up right now because I'll get for you. If I missed something, I'll take care of you, and I always will do that, and maybe they'll say, like, I really wanted that background, and then I'll just adjust may the images that we pick, and I'll add it to them to be good customer service, to provide our clients with a good experience, but still make sure that they have they feel like they have some control in their session um, and when we were talking about small talk, I'm going to give you guys the biggest hint ever on how to deal with high school senior guys okay so these are the things that I talk about with all seniors guys and girls doesn't matter it starts with this oh hey what's up where do you go to school okay yeah awesome yeah we did jos pictures from there oh my god I know joe we've been on the cross since we were thirteen yeah he's so cool it's crazy and and then I'm like okay my check joe's pictures make sure that I'm not doing same backgrounds I gotta make sure that I'm doing unique poses I'm giving them something cool and then yeah man so you play lacrosse and then I'll see if he wants to talk about lacrosse maybe he's like just in lacrosse because that's just something that is his parents made him do after school activities squeeze it maybe doesn't want talk sports so then I'll say hey where do you work to get a job and if they're like oh I work at this restaurant and crazy I worked at a restaurant let's see we'll talk about work you don't talk about work and it's like all right some kind of are digging deep what's the last movie you went and saw watch netflix alright cool awesome do watch walking dead new um all right so this is where I get him though and this works on almost every single high school senior boy you game ready play video games yep all right now man do you play do play on the computer you got count council game I got a p s for get out dude, I gotta pee es for what game are you playing right now? Now I really don't play video games that much I don't and chances are I've never even seen the game that they're going to tell me that they're playing world of warcraft stuff it must be fun maybe got ten trillion subscribers but I'm not one of them and so I said and I opened up the conversation and I said, what are you playing right now? And I'll tell you one time I had this kid coming I said, what are you playing right now and he's like it was some zombie game and I had never heard of it I've never played it was like so like what is it? And he goes, aw man, you're on this like island at a resort and like zombies take over and I'm like, oh, that sounds crazy put the shirt on and then he's like he's like and I'm like that when he comes out and he's dressed he's ready for the session and like, yeah, I do like that game sounded cool tell me more about it with their zombies but there's not just one kind of zombie you see there's these big ones that she got to get your buddies in the game to help take down because if you go on your own they kill you and then you just ask stupid questions like if you die can you come back like yeah, but it sends you back to this point stupid stop I don't care about the zombie game I'm never going to buy it I don't play it but what I am doing is I'm letting this kid tell me about something he likes a lot and I'm showing interest in it whether I really do have it or not and this is important if you don't care about it you can never ever ever ever let it get out that you don't care about it because then the relationship is shot forever so every time that kid because they give yo zombie crushing time what's uh they you have to maintain that but that gets him to talk let's talk about zombies let's talk about talk about grand theft auto whatever I don't care I just want you to talk most of the time I'm just going to smile, huh? Sounds crazy turn your head this way uh put your hands in your pockets awesome radical but that's that's my secret if you are having trouble connecting with a high school guy ask me plays video games and act like you care basic editing with high school senior guys it's generally speaking if you're going tohave subjects that have bad complexion it's the guys over the girls generally speaking like I have guys that come in with were skin than girls so we have to do a little bit more editing in the spot removal tool that generally happens well being more aggressive with that but we don't want to smooth skin out too much so the editing changes a little bit and you got to make sure that you're prepared for that like you gotta know like when we did the under the eyes when we clone out the bags under the eyes, I clone it out at a lower rapacity with a guy that I was a girl it's okay for a guy gives him a little bit more of a distinguished look it looks a little bit more rugged and that's an ok thing for a male client it would not be for female and also like I don't do like soft, dreamy, creamy backgrounds like like my outdoor editing there's a lot of actions that I use on that ark great for it and it'll just like give you super like a like a glow like a diffuse look and never use that with a guy I use em bossed actions I use things that make it pop mohr as opposed to things that are going to make it this dreamy effect so direction of light still absolutely matters this is huge this is going to take your images from good to great remember nose to the light of its girl knows away from the light if it's a boy that's it remember that your lighting is gonna go up major okay now when I told you about girls what's close to the camera looks bigger with guys we actually do want to accentuate some things with girls you're you're looking for drama and the pose with guys you're looking for power symmetry can be power so it's not in general if a guy has my body you probably shouldn't shoot him head on but most seventeen year old guys are in better shape than me sad but true but it's okay it's maur acceptable to pose a guy like this that's okay and I'm bringing the shoulders forward I'm except I'm making them look bigger and that's that's unacceptable pose this would not be good for a girl it is gender specific stuff so when you go with symmetry like if you're if you're shooting a guy I understand that there are some of the things you have to do differently you don't want to go with this pose it's not gonna look good on a guy ever no one screen shot that please I should have used you to get out that display over ahead of tyler I'm afraid no one got that one it is never gonna look good it's never going to look good and so with guys you want more of you want more of a c you want him lean an end it's ok to put your weight towards the camera if your guy because it's okay to look big and you go with that see curve and the other thing that's absolutely critical is that if you tilt the head okay head tail always goes away from the camera to the shoulder away from the camera this way this looks creepy don't screen capture this adding this this looks creepy it's just the subtle things though that's going to make it soft that's going to make it feminine tilting the head to the shoulder that's closest to the camera will not make a guy look masculine and so these are things that when you see it in an image you're like yes I love that image and then maybe you go out and you try it and you're like it's not quite there what am I doing wrong it's just these little things it's these little tweaks that are going to improve your image is all right so again with guys with girls you always want a high angle okay? You always want to shoot high almost always with guys you can go out with a football player and I can't take that image down here and I can make him look big and he's gonna love it he's gonna love looking larger than life so that's using what would make an image bad for one client be great for another so if you're going to shoot a little perspective for a guy it's because you're trying to make him look large tough manly and it works all right like he says it's okay to post head on to the camera it's all right and most most guys I'm looking at you right now because you were just doing it if you look at guys like most guys most guy poses are leaning guys lean there leaning forward there duke like they're leaning russ is leaning right now on the desk it zips past here this's my natural listening so those guys lean that's natural for a lot of guys so if you know that that's a natural thing that's something we want to embrace in our posey okay things to watch for for guys hands okay, you just got to make sure that you don't do anything feminine with the hands okay, you got to make sure that if you're putting if you're crossing hands like don't go like this ok? And I like it when they go like that and they try to pull their biceps out that's an old wrestling trick you got what I look like every day but you want to make sure that the hands are placed appropriately okay like I typically I don't like hands like this okay, I'm gonna curl him under, make them smaller a woman like that. Okay, you wantto again? Um direction of lean don't make him girly make him manly where you tilt the head just went over that and harry look stupid so I'm not doing again I'm not giving you a warning this time the head till huge and last but not least making it look like they're moving that's not a good pose. Alright that's never going to sell it is lays teo doesn't does a bear poop in the woods? I don't know high school senior boys do I seem the post? Ah, so you got to be aware of it, okay? I'm wearing a different bell today so it actually flips behind, but a lot of guys will wear a belt and this will flip out and make sure that it did a couple other things that you need to look in the clothing but focus on the pose, get it right focus on these things things look for in their clothing guys don't care about their, they're less aware of their clothing. Okay, this is going to be a situation where collard shirts collar looks nice, okay and it's stupid as it sounds like guys come out and they don't even notice that there's their shirt is like button wrong because they just don't know care they're just getting ready so you want to make sure that you button but everything's right pockets aren't flipped out okay and then when I was made guys deal with this like I walk up first thing to say with this wrist bands with girls give me your phone from yourself when I want that big square in your pocket for all your pictures and I'm not going to photos tough it out give me your phone and then I blow up their snapchat when they're changing clothes eso no simple stuff and what I was going to talk about what the beltane is like not to sound rude but it can kind of look like a wiener make sure that they took their belt loops and the belts aren't hanging down because the hang and the location of it will not be flattering and mom will not like it and you're going to get complaints and then you're going to be sitting in photo shop for free retouching out belt on jeans because he didn't pay attention to it and it's a stupid thing to spend your time doing so if you take care of all of these things your images are going to come out better you're starting at a better place it's really went downhill with guys hae was like great with girls and like poses that looked like your movie that we're talking about belt zone sorry it's going to get better state hang with me so stay with it okay? And again we'll ask him what's you favorite outfit okay two favorite background ended guys tend to bring in mohr props like high school guys will bring in like footballs we'll bring in sports stuff uh don't have girls that asked me to shoot them with their cars but I do have guys and so it's just something that I want to make sure that I asked about right away because I don't wantto miss like I don't want to shoot the whole session and then be like all right cool see you later and then find out and I have the kid be lettin the say is there anything else you want? And I go yeah I brought my drum kit I wish you'd spoken up earlier but let's do that now so ask him if they brought anything and if they didn't like I have footballs and baseball bats I have all that stuff around my city or two so this is it I didn't bring a football, I wish I'd brought a football that sucks I got one, so offer it to them be prepared and make sure that you know that it's an option because if that's something that you asked the kid about and then he feels like he wasn't adequately prepared for the session, that could lead to a bad experience you can go home and say pictures are great, we should have a football, so make sure you ask and make sure you're ready to react to him during the shoot mental check checklist just like we did with the girls. I'm going to show you guys too some of the stuff that we do with, like our high school guys, I'm told colton is bringing in the football now if we have, like sports collages and we have special products that will offer, I will shoot images for a collage above and beyond the proofs okay, so I know that we have a very sort of like a restricted like, this is what we shoot for this in this in this, but if we're able to engage in conversations and know that we can pre sell collage or something, I absolutely will shoot knowing that I'm selling that work and like the sports stuff the sports collages they sell and they're super easy to show you how to make one assuming he brings this football because I don't have one, I'm going to show you how we do that stuff all right got to keep talking asked about zombies I gotta keep talking to him soon as their silence in a session becomes awkward, it feels weird to have somebody sit there and not talk to you and take your pictures if it feels awkward and weird that's going to come through in their body language which will come through in their images so don't stop talking if they stopped talking you better be filling in the gap and like we had someone write in earlier about playing music and that'll give you a buffer but you got it there has to be you have to engage your client you know it's I don't care how great your your photos are really don't care how great their if I walk in to your studio and you say stand over there and that's all you say you take the most amazing portrait of me and I leave I'm gonna feel so uncomfortable with that experience I'm not gonna like it I'm not gonna want to buy from you from it you know if they like they like the photographer they liked the photography if they like the photography they spend their money the easiest way to get people to like you is to have a conversation with them now may or may not be something you care about it might be having a conversation about zombies but engaged them have a conversation taken interest in what they're doing make sure that that comes across to them as they go through your experience keeping laughing you know this is stupid jokes whatever you got you needs any of the ones from this creative live go ahead and tell him do you know there's twelve cameras on the moon so yeah and make sure that you guys like don't get stuck on poses with guys don't get stuck on trying to do one thing do you know what I am going to kind of break script on this and tell you something because a lot of people have been getting questions that have been coming through and I see this um, underlying theme that because I'm so high volume that because we do so many sessions that there isn't creativity tow our work that I'm not a fun guy that I'm running a cattle call that's not it for high school guys last year and I actually never told anyone about this you guys can can laugh or tell me if you think it's the greatest idea in the world for my high school guys last year I gave myself a personal challenge and what I did was every single high school guy that came through I re created my favorite rap album cover and I didn't even tell him but I straight up did true story I was like weezy were going too easy with this kid and I would look at the photos and I look at images and I look at stuff and I see what I like and I would and I would recreate not exactly the same pose but I would re create the lighting and I would re create the mood and I did a different one for every guy and I did that because a it's fun and it's kind of funny to me because I get to laugh like I made you jay z ah you little way it's kind of fun but I do that and having the freedom to play and change your lighting up in all that stuff it's I want you to be able to shoot different lighting subs I want you to be able to explore the images that you like I want you to shoot that stuff but when I do that is when I've gone through my session and I've got the stuff I'm going to sell I'm covered there's no way they are not goingto like what I've done then it's okay to play and if you have the time and you have the ability going and do it play go do I don't know um go do whatever bands you listen teo try to recreate in bob cover I don't care what you do something and and I do try actively to improve my craft and I do try actively toe add new lighting schemes and new poses till what we do and you should be a cz well in going way, way, way, way, way back to day one segment one ask for constructive criticism from your clients if you try something new and you show it to him and they say I hate that image might not be a good one so sorry, that was like way off topic, but I wanted to share that because I wanted to kind of like it's, not it's, not pose a pose. Be post c posed d get out it's. Not that it's, not that we have fun. We have fun in your stuff, is different than his stuff is different than his stuff is different than her stuff. And, yes, there's, going to be some overlapping poses and that's gonna happen when you do hundreds of anything. Yes, quite frankly, there aren't seven hundred poses that look good, you know, like there's s. So there is some overlapping, but no, your session isn't the same as has never s.