Lessons

Lesson Info

Posing Basics

Before we start I would like to give a little mommy tip this was quite the chatter on facebook yesterday what I am drinking so I would like to share a little tip with everybody you have a cough from bronchitis if you put cough drops in water it helps soothe throat and helped the cough so I am drinking sort of cough drop t water no it's not white wine for all of you that asked was there not that I thought it was pretty cool everyone was invested in my drink but I just thought I clarify that all right? So we're gonna talk about posing today and, uh we're gonna have a fearless day which I think is interesting after a little nervous with this after the lingerie segment yesterday uh because now we're talking about giving women direction and working with them and showing them how to flatter their body and sometimes demonstrating it to them. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. So why study posing right should be kind of easy. You think ok, a girl knows how to move or I know how to...

put her in a nice pose but the camera really sees things differently than we do with our own eyes, so we need to make sure we study posing the reason why is because it's the easiest and quickest way to improve your photos on your client satisfaction I'm not saying that knowing how to use your camera's not important not having the right light is not important all of that is important, but if you have all of that and you don't have the right pose, it doesn't really matter your client's not gonna look good anyway, so it doesn't matter how beautiful your subject is, how gorgeous your location is, what designer your client is wearing or how much he worked out or even if you're a good photographer. If she's in a bad pose and it doesn't flatter her, none of that matters everything we spoke about yesterday putting her in the laundry and having, you know, having her workout and getting ready for your session doesn't matter. You need to know how to police. So what makes a successful foods a successful polish flatters your subject, so we want to make our clients look as good as they are in person or better, I never want to make somebody look worse that they do it in real life, right? Everyone's always paranoid, but the camera adds ten pounds way want to make sure it doesn't. We want to make sure we get our point across that. What are you trying to show? What kind of mood are you looking for? Sometimes I see poses don't really match the mood um and increase interest in your image so we're talking about composition negative space as shape we wanted to make the image more interesting we want to make the person look good not supposing does so one time somebody said to me you know jon you're such a composer you can even make mrs potato head look good so I tried I think she looks pretty good if I even in her cool prop construction hat because her husband works construction obviously way could make her look good. We can make anybody look good, right? Uh, okay. So thanks to john, he brought in one of these dolls for me. I'm not even sure what they're called, but, um these dolls why did he call him armature doll or something? I don't really remember. What is it? Yeah, I'm not sure what it is, but we used to have these, like when I studied drawing we used to have these in the room and I guess it's like tto learn how the body moved. But what I found really interesting about these is that these dolls basically have eight points on the body where it has joints. Now we have a lot of other joints, right? We have fingers and toes and other places that move but he's eight points on this doll are really the eight points that we need to consider when we're posing so I kind of used this is inspiration for every single person and these poses I'm going to show you our booed war poses, but they apply to any different type of photography because you always want to really make women look good. So even if she's a bride or if she's a mom or whatnot applies to everybody but these are the eight points opposing, so we're going to discuss that from the top down, we're gonna start at the neck and I also called the head and the chin because obviously one join our area of your body might cover other places it affects other things, so we want to make sure that the chin is always out and down we separate it from the shoulder and there's a difference between turn its health chin out and down. It is very simple, I know suit covers it, so I'm not going to, you know, go into quite a bit, but basically most clients first of all, they want to cut their little scared of the camera so they're always kind of pull away a little bit creates a lot of mess in here, so we always want to make sure they're out and down it creates a much nicer line, opens our eyes a little bit and you have to be really careful because women are told their entire life makes you turned up right don't I haven't even told that make sure it ends up people take pictures like this, they love to do pictures like this and then you just get a ton of neck and it's not very attractive. The other thing women tend to do is like something like this right now I have no neck, so we want to make sure that, you know, we're separating and we're gonna get in stella, but but the shoulder but there were stuff we're leaving some separation um, so they do it here too, sometimes, like they're so ten cedo in this kind of like, uh, turning tilt so you have you ever told a client to turn their head and they go like this or to tell their head and they go like this, so we want to make sure that we really explained to them turning is like this until things like that, the best thing to do is just kind of show them, like, sometimes even went on behind the camera and I'm shooting and I go like this, then they go like this it's like, you don't even have to say anything, they just kind of know what you want them to do if you're just kind of like going to give me a little bit of this, so keep in mind that the neck as a as there are other points of the body is not just back and forth in this way, it's like a three hundred sixty degree type situation, so we need to keep that in mind. And I know this sounds really obvious, but I promise is we go down, you're going to say, wait a second, I never really thought of that because, you know, women just do strange things with their head when they're nervous and in front of the camera going down from their shoulder. So again, relax your shoulders. This is always, like the first three minutes of my sessions always look good, um, to force them back so shoulders really open up the chest so often times like, if you say to him in okay, like, give me a little flirtation that kind of do this kind of thing, but it's really closing them away from the camera, it's closing them off to the camera so just sort of push the shoulders back, I'm gonna show you some samples and it opens up the chest and I'll show you what I'm talking about. My girl, amanda gorgeousness. So this picture is beautiful, right? And now this is a friend of mine this is a girl I know, and I say, hey, man, to go step in front of the camera do this through this this and this is what she gave me by all means you would look at this picture and say it's a beautiful picture but if you really look closely at it her shoulders blocking me from her she's giving me body language kind of like stay away from me now I know her but I still know she was a little bit nervous so imagine a client that super nervous that doesn't know you but if you said to her you know when I said to her hey man, do me a favor just push that shoulder back against the wall then you get that and it's sought a huge difference and it's just a tiny little change her body language is completely different now it's come and get me right like I'm opening myself up to you and also noticed her chest sorry amanda I have to do is get noticed her chest if you go back I'm not seeing any cleavage here again she looks good she's got some great we calm cupcake she's got some great cupcakes but here now it's giving her much different profile she looks a lot better in this picture, right? So again, anybody would look at this photo and say, oh it's a beautiful photo she's making great expression she looks sexy but when you see the small change we'll do great makes a big difference and all it is is just saying, hey, can you pop your shoulder back? Thanks okay, the elbows I'm going to consider them arms were going about arms so a lot of times clients kind of walk down we kind of let them and what's happening is we're they reading bulk to their body since I'm wearing clothes it's kind of hard to tell, but imagine well don't imagine I wasn't but if I were and my arms are the same color is my body and I have my arms next my body I'm just adding inches of thickness to my body on either side we don't just want to kind of keep the arms away from the body generally speaking, uh if it's not done right and I'll show you how you could do it right uh, arms could definitely be the hardest suppose I I definitely I have problems with the arms sometimes like you'll get a woman into a beautiful pose, you just don't know where to put the arms to make it look good and I see that a lot when I look at pictures online that arms always seem to be sort of the most challenging, but they can create interest they can create framing and negative space and leading lines if it's done properly and we're going to show that also and just careful not to amputate sometimes it's okay sometimes it's not we'll go through and take a look like here way these some of these pictures are literally straight out of camera I'm kidding living doing that but it was sort of so last minute and I wanted to show you like I'm not playing with these women were posing is no editing done on a lot of these you know to prove to you that the posing actually works as you can see by her little thing hanging out of her dress but anyway this is a great picture she's beautiful she's got a great dress on she's got a great expression but I don't like that it's amputating her arm I mean it literally looks like she doesn't have an arm just a little instruction totally different picture same idea but now she doesn't look amputated she'll look at this and say oh I look awesome I love it but for me in my eyes is just not right so we wanted to something more like this um this picture is an exact example of how it could lead to some thickness not just sickness in the body but a sickness in the arm look at how big her try set looks and it's not necessary but when she's pushing it up against her body like that it's kind of too much mate I was she doesn't really look like that so if I asked you to just raise her arm up look how much thinner harm looks and look at how much more interest there is in the photo first will now it's showing a curve on the back of her body and it's giving me a triangle on some negative space it's much more interesting, this is amanda again using her arms to frame her face what's great about the other hand underneath is we're kind of blocking that try step from looking big kind of covering it. This is her profile picture right now I think she likes us and I think she looks awesome, you know, it's, just creating some interest, you know, cem shape it's making me jury is drawing me right into her her face. It wouldn't be as interesting if she was just standing there. It's another example of leading lines kind of bringing us through the picture using her arms and it's still it's like, you know she's kind of still following the shape of her body so it's not adding depth to her world where I'm thickness to her because it's following the shape of her body here's a photo where this is jess and she so she has her armor has happened that's like kind of you know what I'm saying don't put your arm right next your body, but if you have it, follow the shape of the body it accentuates the curves instead of knocking them out teacher how many times I see a pose with a gorgeous curve and they just lay there arm right on and that's it the curve is gone so this accentuates the curves I'm going kind of fast so any questions so far from your eyes now okay see, I knew it was gonna quiet today we need to do more jumping jacks okay risks could be totally weird totally weird it's the one area I think like nobody ever looks at her like wrists and feet like hands and feet they're so weird I call them like the cherry on the sundae because you have tio they're like, you know, the little thing that nobody really looks at but if you have it they're like oh yummy terry all right but you wouldn't miss it if it wasn't there all right? Only my screen uh depending on the way that bullet shouldn't be there but depending on the way the wrist is facing it could change the look of the body I don't I'm going to show you that in another slide because it correlates with another part of the body that I want to show you. So when I get to that side I'll show you what I'm talking about but basically, you know, risk their weird like sometimes you have somebody lay their hands on their collar bone and they're like I don't know what to do with my wrist it's like a shelf, you know, like this is really, you know, people are just very strange with their wrist it's very it could be very awkward spot on the body we need to make sure we really pay attention to that the waste the waist is the other area of your body that basically moves three hundred sixty degrees, the waste the hips, right? So I often have my client's moving their hips back and forth like this. We're moving their waist or turning, or we're going to skip tips were going stayed away, so moving their way so movements of the waste can make or break a photo, pushing the hips back from the way. So ok, most people don't know that, like basically their bodies cut in half by their waist, and you can either move just the top or just the bottom. I'm not even kidding when I tell my clients, like just moved the top of your body this way, they're like I don't I don't understand what you're talking about. They kind of think it's like from the legs, but the waste divides your body and concertante lee, so with a girl that might have a little more thickness in the waste it's better to kind of turn her a little tiny bit, for example, but a girl that's really skinny if you keep her like this she's gonna look like a sliver of paper in the middle it's not gonna be attractive there's a lot of different things you could do the waste the waist is usually usually the smallest part of a woman's body, so we want to make sure we accentuate that don't want to lose that tiny nous right there. Uh, the waste puts the curves in all the right places and again, I said moves old over way so for example, when I do two shots, I always have them kind of pushed their push out from the waist and they don't understand what that means. I tend to do like the bend over which I call like the fart post because that's what it looks like they're doing so instead you need to kind of stand up straight and just push it out from the waist but it's totally different than leaning over it's still rounding out the touch but it's not attractive to the rest of the body, so a lot of my turkish poses start with the waste, not necessarily with the legs, okay, yeah, yes microphone so how would you like talking about how the waste is the smallest part how then would you pose a woman who maybe has like, a little bit more around her waist? It like, not all over but I guess love handles I don't like the muffin top yes, I muffin top that's taking care about good laundry yeah, so it's strictly the lingerie that would take care of that family I mean, if you see something happening could certainly put hands there. Yeah, but we pretty much wanna accentuate the smallest part of the body, so I would really be careful with the laundry. Okay. All right. So let's, take a look at a couple of pictures. This's lisa, I just want to make a little note in fairness lease it was four months pregnant when I took these pictures of her and she was all paranoid about her little belly and I was like, seriously, I looked like that after I eat a hamburger so might even talk about that. But when you ask your clients to just kind of stand there, do me a favor, put your hands on your waist they just do this. Okay, this is sort of a weird thing, so I'm old enough to remember when jeans were on your waist like they came up to here but now genes come teo here there are basically on your hips so people think this is their waste because like this is where their pants go to but we want to remind them that their waist is up here so if I say at least I know do me a favor raise your hands up excuse me a little bit more to the smaller part of your waist she does something like this it's still not there it's better it's not totally there no lisa do me a favor just come up a little tiny bit higher I know it feels like you're on your ribs but it's okay don't worry about it I know it feels a little awkward there you go if you look at the first picture to the last picture she's like the tiniest little thing I could put in my pocket but look at how much smaller she is in the last photo than she is in the first photo you don't want to take a girl that's ninety pounds at five foot tall I make her look like she's one hundred thirty path you know it's just it's there's no reason for it so here she looks like what I see her us tiny little thing how can you say bye bye okay this's marine but remember I told you to stay she's my favorite client she left me the sweetest note on my facebook page because she knew I was doing so I was like oh, I love you um again remember I mentioned she was bottom heavy she has amazing curves but I had to figure out how to show them off because I want to make sure that she looks amazing right? So we started with a pose like this it's not good on her she looks much wider than she needs to bay and so we'll take the picture to go okay great let's try a different pose hey, do me a favor come stand over here can you just put your hands on your waist? I mean she in comparison to her bottom half she the tiniest waste we want to show that off and that's what we get with that completely different picture than that? Especially because she's wearing black and it's kind of just flat it's just adding both to her we want to make sure we break up that black a little bit. This is what I see when I look at her not this I don't want to make her look like this if she doesn't look like that yeah here's some more photos of her so you can see I know I showed some of these yesterday but you can see how posing really works to get her curves in the right place her waist looks awesome in these okay hips, hips or super super important here's the interesting thing about hips they are where a woman is curvy but you don't want them to look too curvy, they don't want to look too curvy and you don't want to diminish them too much because then they're just gonna look kind of straight, so they're very touchy subject tips um, you want to make sure that when you're shooting head on, so I learned this from some sort of celebrity somewhere that celebrities actually could train to stand on the red carpet on one of the things that they do. What you notice all the time is they might stand with their legs crossed and they pop their hips away from the camera because when you pop your hips away from the camera, it's further away remember everything further away from the camera looks smaller, so most people just kind of stand like this. I'm hoping you could see this with my body with the often I'm worried, but if I just kind of stand like this and I pushed my hips forward a little bit, you see how it's like very square and then look what happens when I pulled him back totally different, right? Even if I'm not crossing my legs no, courtney okay, ukraine is gonna walk around like this, but they do it also sends out your thighs and they do it also with swimsuit modeling, they kind of just pushed their tush back it also lengthens the torso so if you have a client with a shorter tour so it's kind of a good idea to just kind of push the hips back at lengthened them this way same thing sideways so I often will tell my clients like pretend like you have a string I hurt my back really hurts oh that's the other thing I always tell my clients if it doesn't hurt it doesn't look good so that's just too bad you're going to be sore tomorrow thank god um you pretend like there's a string attached to the hip and let's say it's like pulling this way because most clients just kind of so no pretending there's a string and it's pulling you this way so I'm short I have I don't have very much linked to me but look what happens if I kind of stand here like this versus standing there like this look much longer in the body right? So we want to make sure we're exaggerating we're pushing the hips I mean I almost feel like my leg is going to pop out of my sock it and that's when you know it's right? Yeah don't be afraid to push them they might hate you a little I'll probably say that a few times today on the same note is pulling the hips away from the camera often we push our hips toward the camera when we're posing right? So give me a little flirtation okay, why would I give you all of this it's just understand why why we do that but that's kind of what it looks like here, right and again these they're so tiny but look what happens when we pull her hips away from the camera totally different that cute little baby but leo first totally different look and I'm not saying that this is never right. This is awesome for a tough shot but generally speaking away from the camera oh is we're gonna talk about risk to sew again here she is pulling your hips away from the camera and it's a great picture and by all means her body looks awesome we have plenty of negative space and arms and triangles and everything but I hate that hands it could how gigantic or hand looks like a little nothing you probably don't realize it but when I pointed out you're like, oh yeah her hand looks like it's half the size of her body because she's so small if you have a move her hand to make the curve of her body now you're not seeing the ugly hand and this is what I'm talking about with wrists right it's just a little movement of the wrist could change the entire post it's just from here to here she still looks tiny and now it's mimicking the curve of her back yes how do you get clients to relax their hands like often I get clients where I told himto just play with your strap when I get like oh, I guess we get this defib ross trapped that's is my food yeah, I don't feel like it smells um so how do you get the night really about communication? And we'll see a lot of that in the next segment and when we're working with the client, I like to really make jokes, tell stories, get them into a character if you have to like someone who can't be themselves, you just have to give them permission to be somebody else for the moment, you know something about what you'll see that when we talk about communication, so again we're gonna go back to the first picture where she thinks she's giving me a dirty look here, but she she is pushing her hit toward the camera with service that way and then we go to the last picture it's a big difference kayla more curves in that last photo same here. So look at this first picture amanda if you're looking at it where her hips are facing the camera there's nothing wrong with that picture her hips are narrow, she looks great, but look what happens when she pushes her hips away, you get a lot more curved and look at her back her back and like hurt everything just looks longer look how much longer her torso looks. You know everything just looks totally more relaxed and just different when she's pushing it away and it creates a lot more interest she just looks mighty fine again. Nothing wrong with that picture it's a good picture but we went a great picture what do you talk clients that they want to tan before no standing and none of that spray tan orange stuff that they put on it just it just bad and I understand it might give them a little bit more confidence I just blame it on the camera the camera hates that. Okay, yeah it's a good doesn't like it do they generally ask you that or do you actually specify do tell them but often they do ask also but I do I kind of like a little she'd had a a pair for your session and it's kind of like please remember to polish her nails or take her now polish off no spray tanned fuse come with your hair drying clean and you know yeah no please okay even though we're talking about posing, what do you do you recommend for nails? Um I will recommend something to them and their mood board based on the look that they're going for, so if they're looking for something very vintage like black and vintage makeup, I might majestic or red now polish. Otherwise I usually suggest something fairly neutral. Ok, I remember a girl once said, like, oh, I'm obsessed with polka dots and I wanna polka dots on my now and I was like, you know, that's fine, I think that that's cool all about nail art, but these pictures are gonna be a little more classic. You want to look at them in eighty years and be like, I love them, so let's skip the polka dots, okay, awesome. Yeah. So we have a question from rose becae who said, do you shoot self portrait? And if you do, do you do you have any tips for posing yourself for so fortress before suits protect? I really don't know e I don't it's a good thought, but I don't I don't do it, you guys, any of you done it now? I think that would be a really good question actually to ask in the facebook group if she wants to join the facebook because I know that there was a few posts about that and I'm sure people have some tips and tricks, but I barely have time to shoot other people, right? All right, let's, talk about knees, neither can also sometimes be awkward, they're in the wrong place, you look like you have to pay but basically, you know, let song like the guy bone's connected to the whatever boat so the knees are basically connected tio what your hips are gonna look like so whatever you do with your knees as you could see when I move it changes the way your hips go right whatever you're gonna do so basically don't forget they're all connected typically I like to do something like this I call it sort of this's like the gens dance for the day I'll teach a client when they first come in they're going to stand up you're going to pretend like you have a string pulling your hip to one side and you see how automatically one knee bends excuse me in the other knee straight we're gonna take that benny and kind of just bring it all the way over some women have a very hard time doing this I'm not really sure why because I don't but I've had a lot of practice I feel like my joints are very loose because of it so crossing your legs doesn't trick tio but we want to create like this narrow type thing and I'm not saying it doesn't always work sometimes I compose like this is awesome or things like that, but I want you to think generally just to make sure that where you putting the knees affects the rest of the body to make sure you're aware of those so here's a perfect example they're both doing this kind of a thing it's just won his head on and one is from the side doing it creates a beautiful back arch and doing it from the side creates a really nice s shape same here see if she if her hips were facing is toward the camera that's what she would look cute she's so tiny but you see what I mean she would looks gigantic much at and you know very out of proportion the posing is also about keeping people in proportion making sure that everything looks the way it should bake the size it should be laying down poses are always interesting I'm constantly saying women and laying down poses with their legs apart or one leg up one leg down or even like crossed very awkward it just looks awkward to me um I'm not judging it I've been there I've done it and I've learned and this is what I came up with I'm gonna show you how to do it on the bed today we're gonna actually do it but basically it's a very distinct it's a very distinct movement that I'm telling them to do and where to put their legs we're going to show you that but here I just feel like it's look at how it's like narrowing and it looks long we don't even see all of her legs but we know they're long they just keep going yeah here's a situation where I did not have her move her knees this way at first and it still looks okay because she is the tiniest thing on the face of the earth she could use a little bit of thickness, right? So it looks okay on her but then I had her do it and it still looks good just looks good on everybody but she could get away with it the other way also because she liked what with eyes in my hiding none but you know, honestly I actually think even looking at this picture it even gives her a little bit more courage than she has in that photo you know? So if we're trying to do curves and kind of you know she had a very straight kind of a body so for trying to create curves this's great I love lisa look at how long her legs look here she's she's shorter than me she's totally shorted may maybe she's not a word not so much shorter than me. I mean, not many people are but you know, she is really short, but her legs look super long here they probably wouldn't have looked as long if I had her turn to me on the steps and done like one of these types things which is the typical going to pose right? We're even one leg up one like down right she couldn't do that because her legs were short I want a length in them so I put her in this post I think her legs are long do you guys think yeah and there's nothing there's no perspective in this picture like she's not like she's against something else or near a bed she could be six feet tall or she could be four feet tall you would never know the difference but she looks long and that's what we're trying to accomplish ankle's okay ankles are weird teo um I think people forget suppose feed and it's sad e wonder forget supposed be so um we want to make sure so what happens is often like I'll tell of a client to turn and they'll keep their feet down and I will okay can you turn toward the window a little you know like I know your whole why they could go with you um there's always a lot of this right a lot of like looks sort of like birds becoming because they're not really sure what to dio so it kind of like instead of keeping their feet like this they like kind of turn them kind of in a really awkward looks like they have to go pee pee er I saw a beautiful picture that day somebody posted asking for constructive criticism and it was like a nice beautiful woman laying on the floor but the feet were just kind of like but if she had, like, posed them, like, kind of like on her tippy toes or something that would have been amazing, I mean, that's, why I wear my clothes, I put my client in heels because I feel like then it kind of forces them to do that stuff, but sometimes I don't have them where she is, and you have to remember, like, you know, pointed toes and give a little art in your feet and feet have curves too. So it's not something that you can like, polish somebody down to their ankles and just forget about their feet. I'll show you a good example. I have a block, by the way, it's called between the sheets with jen dot com it's more geared towards photographers. I hadn't really talked about that, but this is from that this's a perfect example of a lot of different posing tricks. So when I had her stand in the hallway and I said, okay, pull your hip like this, right? And, you know, I want you to put and it just mean, it looks good, but what was happening was I was sort of getting like, that skin, right roll kind of thing on the side of her body, and I hate editing, have I ever told you that? So I want to make sure that that doesn't happen so instead what I did was say okay, you know what now that you're pulled outside, can you push your hit back see that's what I mean we're talking about like it's out now and then we're gonna push it back so uncomfortable but she did that and you see what happened was it also changed away her leg's worse or her legs look a lot longer and look at what it did to her feet her feet are awkward there her ankles are a little awkward so here now it's much more delicate she looks much more feminine I see that awesome gorgeous hell that she has which most women spend a lot of money on such a little change and now I don't have to edit that side of her body any more even right? And now I could show her that picture in the back of the catamaran will look at how hot you look because I didn't really do much to this picture it all I mean this is what her body looks like, but that picture she probably would've been like oh what's what's going on there we have a few questions into a chat room and then and some of them are maybe some review question okay, we have some questions here but wear thinking it's we can just move into the next section still on posing ok yeah that's fine that works with you yeah that's totally assam question yeah so I just want it then let me just do this really fast yeah think you're so we always want to make sure every single time we post somebody these air the eight points that we're looking at every single time we pose somebody because if you pose their neck shoulders elbow waist hips knees ankles but you forgot the wrists you're going to get the photo uh such a killer photo but her arm looks weird we've all done that right I still do it now I mean I'm not saying I'm perfect but this is such a great photo I just wish your hip was pushed this way so we want to make sure when we go through the posing and the communicating that we're looking at every single one of these point every single time and I know it sounds a little bit daunting that it's a lot of things but when you train yourself to do it it won't be as hard and I would love your quest um this maybe this is an opposing question but how do you feel about like cropping at the joints and things like that? It depends on the joint and it depends on the photo it doesn't always bother me it's not gonna win any awards it's not going to be you know the most amazing photo the entire world but if it captures a moment an emotion and it's like the girl's moving and her arms a little bit out of the frame or her elbow peeks out of the frame it doesn't really bother me if it makes it look like she's amputated then I don't like it so it depends you know sort of with the perception of the photo is yeah um cause I get like your bet the wrist in them ankles are weird and one way but I have found like a lot that lots of times when I'm like well your risks you don't like let's adjust your wrist like I don't understand I'm like well, you know, you kind of look like sally from nightmare before christmas you know what? Everything is just kind of broken right? And once I've like explained that to them they usually get it so that's just one way that I found to kind of help women visualize what they're doing looks like definitely and sometimes I will show them what they look like and I'm not trying to make him feel bad but also because I want you to understand what I'm talking about so when I ask you to kind of gently lay your hand like this you're doing this so let's kind of what can I do to help you make your wrist relax? You know it's always about like what can I do to make it easier for you um and if it's just not working then you take the picture to go okay, thanks let's do something else can you put your hand here? This is a much more natural movement for somebody because this is something they're comfortable not everybody walks around with their hands, you know, like whatever they're doing, you know, whatever you're trying to get them to do is to do something a little bit more natural you think you could give them things to play with with their hands like you said the bra strap or could you just put your thumb and your undies and kind of pulled down a little bit, you know, take some fabric and kind of wrap it around you and play with it so if they have awkward hands or sometimes women have like their hands are a little more manly than what's going on with their body so you want to kind of just, you know, pull it away. One of the things you know we can do is kind of just like, pull the hand back here, you know, not make it so obvious. So yeah, if it's not working, just get that hand out of the picture somehow or less important or having her do something that's a little more comfortable for her that she's used to doing so we have a question driven either in studio questions sometimes women can't physically do things you're asking them to dio like, sometimes I'll ask him, do something and they're not doing it. I'm like, what is the problem? Let me try it. I'm like, oh, that's, not physically possible. Teo. Teo, be careful and try it yourself to demonstrate. Make sure it's not totally, but now I understand why not get it? So your question from the chatter? Well, um, nikki gene asked. She said, I get so nervous at times when I'm shooting that I rushed through posing, how do you get over that? I hate it and it's not with every client, but there's some. I just can't think and rush through it, okay? Yeah, so thinking is really important. When I first started, I would do this would be my ammo already because I would think if I stop shooting, people would think I didn't know what I was doing. But now I'll shoot and I stop and think and I look and I also know I think we'll talk about this a little bit in the next wing, but I'll ask a client, you know, can you do me a favor? Can you push your hip this way, can you push it that way? Yeah, I like it better the other way and the thing is if you're saying to them I'm just trying to make you look the best possible so I want to see which way it looks better don't they're all for that that's you know game on for them because they want to look amazing so it's just telling them what you're looking at or sometimes I'll have them stand there and I looked at them and I'm like I'm just trying to see how the lights flattering you not you know I want to see the lights coming from I want to see how beautiful you look in this light you know? You try to give them a compliment to make them feel comfortable um and don't be afraid to put down the camera and say ok, let me think and there's times I've said to clients you know what? Let me just think I'm just it's been a long week I just don't think about what I want to do with you you know and there's like sort of that silence and we talk and whatever and then okay, you know what? I have an idea let's try this there's nothing wrong just as long as you're communicating with them it makes you look more unprofessional if you're just shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting and not communicating so don't get nervous about communicating in honesty just being authentic yeah, totally back to that so question from pro photographer in california do you recommend using freestyle posing at any point in the session and maybe for pope for people who might not know what that is short, I'm assuming that he means like ian pose pose I think so yeah ok, I do some of that also and we will see that how could I still always make sure that a woman has a foundation opposing even when she's doing yeah priest house if I want her to play with her hair I'm not just going to say go play with your hair it will be sort of can you put your body like this? Can you move your arm this way and then give me like a little shake? But if I leave her to her own devices it's going to just kind of looked like this, you know? So I always foundation it with a pose and then let them do their thing like that. Yeah great and fashion tv asked from singapore um jen, how would you best pose your subjects with the wall? Um how is it different from if he posed them facing the wall instead of their back on the law? I guess it depends on the wall and where the light is coming from and exactly what you wanted to sew for me while poses are a little bit hard because I work in such a tight space and if I put somebody in the wall excuse me and I go to the side and take a picture of getting all sorts of other stuff stuff in the picture um with as faras facing the wall is concerned, my question is always why is she facing the wall? So I've seen a lot of pictures like pictures have to make sense to me sometimes and not always like complete sense maybe there's a story there I don't understand but there's plenty of pictures where a girl will just be kind of up against the wall and there's a pose and I'm like, why? Why is she like, who stands in their underwear against a wall like that? Nobody but then if she's kind of peeking back atyou, it's kind of playful and, you know, come and get me I'm hiding from you, it makes sense so I guess to think of a little bit of a story why she gets the wall what are you trying to portray? Because just, you know, using a wall is great because it's part of a foundation like also okay, anchor your tush against the wall and give me this or that, but it depends how you use the wall, okay? Does that answer the question? Yeah, I think so, jim, can we talk a little bit about facial expressions and posing and I don't know if this is in the next section wait'll I don't know either thing michigan marie who says how do you get your ladies to give you natural facial expressions? I find that when they relax they're still posing relax and it just looks odd sometimes they look really sad or angry not just a normal relaxed faith yeah, I have a very angry sexy face like I don't like mad when I make a sexy face sometimes so you have to get that um facial expression matching your pose and I do think we talk about this in the next payment but facial expression matching your pose is important do you have any times I've seen or even done in the beginning the very sexy gorgeous pose right and she's like it just doesn't match why you smiling? You want somebody to come and get you? You're not like yeah I had popcorn for dinner you know whatever you so what I like to do is I like to coach my clients with stories and moods and one of the things that I'll tell my client is um when they hire a wedding photographer for example I'll say didn't like why did you hire a wedding photographer? Well, they took these great candids and I just love that the moments that they caught and I'm like exactly you didn't hire this wedding photographer because of her portrait you hired them because of the candid moments between the portrait's and boudoir is very much the same way when I asked them to give me an expression I wanted to come from a candid, genuine place so daphne if I asked you to smile for a picture it's I say cheesy and smile but if I caught you laughing while you were talking with jolene it would be a much more genuine authentic beautiful smile sexy faces the same thing if I asked somebody to be sexy, chances are they're not going to be sexy but if they think about something sexy if they are recalling a sexy moment or a song that makes them feel sex, see or a book I often refer to like magic mike or fifty shades of grey or I'll say you know what? Who's your favorite celebrity pretend like you're sending them this picture is gonna be a contest and like I love adam levine I'm actually missing him in new york for you guys yeah anyway, um so I love adam levine so let's pretend like adam levine's having a contest right and you have to send him a picture and he's going to pick one woman to be with you can't say you can't say anything no letters, no video is nothing just one picture what do you want to tell him with that picture and girls will be like you know yeah so tell them a story have them think of something sexy and you will get the sexy out of them you can't ask them to just be sexy that that's bad no girl knows how to just be sexy like even when you go out right and you're single and you're looking to mingle and you find somebody interesting things just happen you don't go I'm gonna make a sexy face to this guy you know where this girl you just do it it's just natural and so you don't know how to do it because you don't do it on purpose so you have to get them in the mood and the mod teo to naturally be whatever sexy is for them okay? And we have a question from gala and bree cherry is there difference imposing if your client's taller than you there's not a difference imposing there's a difference and where you're shooting from and we are definitely going to cover that in the next segment great and most of my clients are taller than me, so I know I know so I think we're using the same different words for the same goal which is for me it's too let my client dropped the veil and read her public face the one that she puts on for everyone else but how do you get heard to drop that to sort of dissolve that for you again just telling her stories, making her laugh, having her think of something or somebody that's relevant to them. Um, just being silly, just making it fun. I mean, I always say boudoir is sexy, but there's really nothing sexy about doing it there really? Is it it's hard work? You know, we have to keep it light, we, you know, there's tons of laughter, and I'll sing to them, I'll make no, I mean, I will do ridiculous things to make a client comfortable. I understand I'm shameless. I will dance for my client. Yeah, totally. But you know what? Daphne, this is not something that starts the second that they're in the room. They might be nervous, but this has started from the beginning of the the whole deal when they first emailed you and you call them and you're laughing about silly things and you're connecting on a different level. The veil if you start doing all that hopefully won't be is thick, you know, if you started from the beginning, I want to do maybe one more question on and then we could move on. Definitely next section first. I just want to say that connie bien says I thought I knew everything about posing, but it turns out I knew nothing e natural it does not it's not and I think all of this will become very clear when we start shooting yes and you could see how it actually works on a person exactly. So the last question was about a hair yeah, what about posing hair? Obviously the hair stylist does the hair but the pose is change the way the hair is look so if the hair stylist isn't on set do you walk and move it or having my hair size hate me? I'll be like shell leaving like perfect hair thanks and I'm like ok, first thing you do is flip over and shake it out make it a mess that's what I want you there because hairdresser's just can't keep it messy they just can't do it s oh yeah with hair I'll either have an assistant or if I'm not shooting with assistant I'll have the move it or one of the best things like if they're hairs in their face you could be like you know what your hair is in your face little can you move it out of the way but do me a favor before you do it just think about doing it like in a sexy way and they kind of just be like boom click click click thank you stoop you know served two purposes you moved your hair and I've got a cool picture out of it