Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Maternity

My simple beautiful portrait shot for me is when I just take that gorgeous like portrait so tiff come and she's wearing pink so for those of you who follow me and my cause obviously you know my gorgeous being tiffany antilles from ella and tiffany's worked with me on creative life workshops in hearing her husband doing an incredible keynote for photo week which we're all doing photo weekend september and they have an incredible business model I cannot wait for them to share it and not many people know over tiffany's pregnant and issue follow on face book yeah yeah and say she's having a little girl and we all thought it was a boy except with the wedding ring yeah the wedding ring you it was a girl and then she went for a scan and she's having a little girl yeah all right come here you can take this one and just push it back the idea I just don't want to push it over the black background then if I see it in the background you can cover it ok come and sit down tiff it's it um what I'm go...

ing to do here to make me no different than a glamour shape this is pretty much exactly how I am with all of my sitting now I want to cover that black big round honey just here just in case it pops up in the bed can save me retouching it so I really feel like I'm no different tiffany six months pregnant but she's tiny at the moment so she just has teeth tiny and so we just have to push your belly out a little bit more and make it because she's not gonna look pregnant if I don't put here in this position if I don't put your hands on your belly so when her hand's gone her belly I could treat their any differently she's gotta wait on your back shoulder here looks good. She looks gorgeous. Chin comes down a little bit lower and I would normally photograph this here so push your elbow better hey ago so normally I would photograph her hand on her if I say do that first they go and I would photograph chin around to me this way this is my normal sharp so this is my standard from my posing manual beautiful shot just soften those eyes for me just a tickle to the ego lips together tiny little smirk severely is the s it's not about the belly it's simple that forty five degree angle her body's forty five degrees to the wall and that's where I would be nice beautiful little easy standing portrait okay, so for the belly, all I have to do is scratch back, give me some space and her hand comes around in circles underneath yeah, we're going to start here. All right, so I want your chin to come forward a little bit and down tine in a wee smile in your mouth lips together no teeth good girl. All right? And then I could get a here but that front time's not doing anything for me so I want to sit here up a little taller, bring your bum forward and if you bring your bum for your belly comes forward circle both hands setting the ago that's perfect now see what's happened in the front. The sooner she bought a hands forward, I squish your front and as soon as I squish your front and we got two choices instead of leaning forward I can push it against the wall in the intact the album and so I literally tuck it in, so when I say tuck it in tuck the ama and I literally ticketed like I go up and I put it in there so from the other arms against the wall and I'm shaping, I'm pulling back so a ll the same poses apply chin down tiny little smile lips to get out good girl just look together to get paid. All right? So now I'm photographing her belly that way so all she did was scratched her bum ford ling back on her shoulders boarded chin around and I'm here okay and that's gorgeous I start here now this is where I did the rotation so I set the girl down the white tank top and I actually moved around here but in this pose here I took the dress of the tank top off and sitting in there fiction I wrapped her in the same pink chul that she was standing in and I did this shot a little bit more arty into the backlight in my studio you seen on the video it looks really beautiful and I just changed her out so there it's limited posing but it's a limited shoot it's a smaller shoot in there are lots of options on their way so we could do the d me we can do the portrait we could do the standing portrait we can do the draping week into the lying then our other options are we're going to do that black background we're gonna do a silla wit okay, you want to do a silhouette? We can't really cut down the light but I can show you how it works all right let's do it when I still await the studio all I do is this I opened my black the flat and I cap down as much light as I can okay so I would shut every blind in the studio in turn off all the artificial lights if I could I would draw dark curtains across so block out curtains I've always had blackout curtains in my studio then what happens is when you go into that space tiff the further away she is from the light the list light is hitting here and it's directional can you see that? Okay, so you have a look at this these who like their and kelly you show this will show everybody have this week because most people don't know how to silhouette with natural light so give me some reflected to her face I'm just going to show you right here what's happening with her face light okay, so I'm about to start over when I'm shooting and that too much lights heading here so she's on a black background which sucks a lot of light away from her face black background she's using a reflected back to her face so she's let ups okay she's nice and bright and it doesn't look that bright on my camera say let me just go adjust for the screen because the screen is obviously quite right right now I'm right on my exposure in fact, on one stuff and uh I'm one stop pounding because I'm photographing on in the leg background as well and the black backgrounds going to say, oh it's too back to write anymore like it's too dark anymore, okay, now take away the reflector and take away the light a little bit more to hear and see see what happens now when you take away like from a woman's face, it doesn't flatter them that's why we don't do it so the silhouette has certain rules and the silhouette means that when we take light away from the face, we have to be in shape the face for the silhouette we're just looking at like, right, not posing there just looking at your face now turned her face away from the light and down and you're turning him into the light all right, tune her face this way and down and you're turning her away from the light now the light sources only hitting this side of her face okay, so the darker I make the room in the more direction the heart of the light gets on her face, so if you are going to silhouette that if you're just going to make that really dak, then what you need to do is cut the light right down so it's a sliver and what I do is we have another polystyrene board there macy, can we have that palestine board because I'll be out to give me a good demon and I'm going to show you exactly what I would do if you don't hit block out kittens, then I suggest you get another the flat or another polly board because what's gonna happen is a soon as I put this up here I'm going to leave a gap of light in that gap of light is just enough to cilla wait here a case of it all I would leave in the whole room would be dark but that light then I would get her to step towards the only space that was there and go back a little bit and watch the light a case you try this at home it's a fabulous looks amazing dark room slither of light not flattering on the face if they've got lines of the older but that's why you do this so once you get the light that you want steep away there it is ford it's right there casey just get them to move into the light like that and then you bring her chin always to the light because it's going to flood of her face and then your hands prep on your belly so you do swap over give me that one and that one that's it so once you prepare her body and just take your weight on your back foot if you go then its silhouette dark and then shoot it a little bit under so when you look up in the camera do not expose for her highlights so if you if you shoot for her I you you gonna I have to focus on her eye but then exposed for the midterm so watch the beck your camera you don't want it to look that good you want to shut it right down but you don't want it to be underexposed okay? So it's not working because we don't have enough silhouette light but subtly here you can see what we're doing right? You can see that we're just in the sliver of light everything else is dark and you need to pose her towards this leather of light all right then you'll get the light on her belly with the light on the tip of her thigh you'll get the light on her breast line and if she's nude or draped in fabric or wrapped and say intellectual that see through it's going to look incredible, very silly waited it's just gonna look better if her chin is down in towards that light, right? Any questions? So we've got the lying down we've got the sitting tilted which weaken move around in ninety degrees hundred eighty degrees we've got backlight standing, we've got demon we've got the traditional poses the four very easy poses to work from there's something behind the body language the mouth because I noticed that you've been asking all the women teo keep their mouth closed, whereas in other workshop sometimes they have it a little bit open, so is that like a body language things really interesting if you line up three up I find this is such a personal thing so I looked at my client's mouth and how they move look what on hell katy held all of your teaching and hill it's okay michelle hold their eyebrows up so from a shell that was drop your brows and she would go there for katie it was relax your lips as you go like that um for tiff she when she relaxes him ask you alexis her bottom lip down write that and I always tell her to bring her bottom lip out because it makes her lips look perfect so I watched the face because of us three girls stand and face you and don't look at each other and you tell us to just relax your mouth lips together we'll all go like this joining this month and then if you say now election mouth open we'll get this you look at who looks good with your mouth open and who doesn't now some people when they got the mouth open look like this they do fish face in. Some people do this you know when they like and it's like I'm not gonna feed you so some people just look good with their lips together but the mouth relaxed and they can smoke but you don't want them to do this so they can go at this but you don't want them to be here okay not push forward so it's always look for the mouth and you know I say this to photographers all the time it's really intriguing look to the mouth look to the mouth for the tension because attention is not in the eyes the eyes are holding the tension is above the eyes in the brow so when you're frowning and angry the brows down when you are interested or up or pensive that up and the tension is not in the eyes teaching is above them or below them and I look at people all the time you also when you smile at someone you smile with your mouth but people don't look at your mouth when that when you smile people look at your eyes so you can't smile with your mouth and not your eyes so always watch the expression and also look in your own mirror mirror I always say americans say mayor like nightmare on and I'm like mira que se mira look in the mirror and I want you to look in the mirror and I want teo teo first of all push your chin forward and see what your face looks the best in terms of how open your eyes are and held small your chin gets that's the angle you should be on every time a camera comes towards you then I want you to have a love does it look better if you completely relax your mouth and go like this or like this or do a little half open smile or do this or do this or do that everybody has different within math looks good but your eyes always the same eyes are always twinkling your browser always relaxed and there's no tension in your mouth when you do those posters provided you're removing that tension you'll be fine I love seeing the three of you standing taylor you guys were like perfect stairs top I always thought tiffany was tall too until she stood next kelly that's true that's a little hell alright question be the studio sue um would you recommend doing the line pose with curvy women? I with curvy women record doing the line pose the lineup yet works because look again we trim the back line which from the skyline and the arm is easy to slim the only problem is is sometimes if you get really could be girls they can still have a top belly roll um over the pregnancy belly see do you have to shape it? But if somebody's really could be and they want to take their clothes off I want you to do that you don't have to hide your body because you've got teen extra pounds or twenty extra pounds ofit easter pounds you are what you are right now and if you want to document that naked then power to you you're my client my job is to make you feel beautiful and safe and you know what else my job is and I talk to my staff about this my job is when you leave my studio, my staff won't look at those photos and say this woman shouldn't have headed clothes off because we have respect for women with respect for everybody and if you want to come into my studio, you can be in late ics if you want this long if that's what you want and I'm gonna catch you and make you as beautiful as I can so very important so so we just have a few minutes left he'll break down and take a couple more questions you'll all right let's do that. Another question came in from crystal ship do you intentionally not photographed the feet or you do you just prefer the image and image focusing on the upper part of the model? Eugene katie, I like the upper path, but when I photograph women, I'm never photographed face michelle I never photographed they fake why would you come into all the pregnant ones? Stand on here I'm gonna answer questions and take a look. Can you shut the picture? The next question is from ma jo, who says I didn't quite get the three poses four scenarios could you explain a little bit further so far east of the pose is what you mean by that, for sure all right. I just gotta do a shot with the yes. Come together a little bit more. And the shelton this face for your side on that's it and you're here to get in that pose for me. Yeah. Ah, look at these beautiful women, chin's, ford and down the shelf or and down that's a good girl. Nicely done. Big smiles, lady. Hey, thank you so much. All right. Four poses. So when I come back to here, can I have the opposing manual back on the keynote, please, with the images are all right. I always look att my scenarios like this, guys I always see it is four base posers. We've got the demi pose. Okay, which means we're covering here, here, nude. We cover the bris clothes, we cover the belly and you, khun, switch the hands around. But it's the position that she is to me in that camera. Then I've got the siting pose so she can be cross legged or sitting. How tiffany was with your back against the wall and I can rotate around here do multiple changes, hands and changes of clothing as long as his chin and charlie follow me then I had the lying down nude pose so the lying down was one michelle did she didn't the black dress and it was about the form on this client you can see that in the life video that you download she's wearing a brown knickers and we just photoshopped it out and that's it there and then the fourth pose was the standing portrait so that was really when I just photographed no side on no leaning that's just a beautiful girl standing on a backdrop and she can just dan front on and do rotational poses or draping like what katie did. So these four poses four scenarios where the where the styles that we were talking about afterwards so when I look at the stiles off head of photograph them I tell them four base poses the partner these are the styles of portrait you can have an environmental portrait here's our different styles of portrait and this is based on what the client is like. Katie she I sent her an e mail and I said katia you a hips too kind of girl are you a glam mom? We're close kind of portrait are you knowed or are you draping fabric? She said that's definitely me there so that's what she wants that time going to photograph his style I could do all four posers but I've got to shoot that style that pretty illustrative draped in fabric style then aren't nude is when they were bra and knickers or no brow and they're quite happy niggers that when they want to be naked and you convict she's actually pregnant but she's new pregnant and she did studies off her pregnant which I think is fabulous um and that's when I dropped in the background the fake wood the paper crane as well right environmental is if they want to be on the beach if they want to be in the woods if they want to go outside, if they want to do something different like that so I think that's a really cool style this is shot by kelly I think it's a beautiful image I see a lot of environmental portrait's pregnancy that I don't like but you know and kelly stand it so beautifully her hands on a beautiful position I like that she's correct connected to the surroundings more than the camera or her belly even like she's just out walking in this year's in a silly way and I think it's gorgeous ah home study that would be when you go into somebody's home and you can shoot a siri's of them pregnant and they can be just however they want but I just think that's a really cool style and something you should advertise if it's something you want to do and that to me was what I called glen mom it was just a beautiful portrait than a woman wants when she's pregnant she doesn't have to be draped she doesn't have to be wearing a headdress you know maybe she's an older mom maybe she's just turned forty maybe she just wants an elegant shot in the beautiful type like twist like what michelle was wearing so beautiful so four base poses multiple styles then we have shooting scenarios okay I have a backdrop so you might have a seamless or colored wall and that's easily one scenario you're nick scenario would be to heaven they fled a black one or even a white one or colored one you know how I have the big polly boards and I paint them different colors every time you change cully have a different light scenario and then the other one would be the white walk that always shoot on a white wall I love the simplicity and then the final shot would be the back light so that's four poses multiple styles multiple scenarios in one corner give you lots of choices every woman looks different every woman moves differently every woman has different clothes so even if you repeated a hundred maternity sessions in one year in one corner of your house you might be a little bit bored but that tells me that you're making money and that you're taking beautiful portrait and then you're getting a hundred babies in its mouth