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1950s Alley Shoot: Posing for Couples

The next thing that I want to touch on is posing, um, posing for couples I find to be slightly more challenging. You got to do with two people, right? And you want to make them look comfortable, unnatural with each other. So I used a variety of different things for inspiration, but I do definitely do this. I print out a piece of the paper eight and a half by eleven. That fits what I think I want the shoot to be like for the woman, for the man and for how I want them to interact. So I did a couple poses here. Um, and so I'll pick something and I put them together. I don't think you can tell the camera, right? Some things aren't my pictures. These are other pictures. Esso I find a different right in different poses. The I've had to should be. Okay, um, so I'm going to show you a pose that I want you to d'oh. Okay, can you do something like this? So what she has, as she has her left leg turned in her it's kind of this hand on the hip, another hand on her neck. Okay, excellent. Okay, refer...

ence that I would have told you over just a second. Hey, good. And so we're gonna kind of tilt that me in just a little more perfect s oh, I could just look at it and say okay, all right, what I needed to dio I have ever told her leg in good. All right, so I'll do that and that's the pose that I had I don't have a guy in the shot, so I tried to build him around it, so I look at the pose and say, ok, what would fit? So I'm gonna bring you in a little bit more, so I don't have that pole coming out of the back uh, going to step you back straight there, keep going and just move straight over to your right just keep going, just keep moving to the right keep going, yeah came to the right perfect same pose good. And so what you're going to do is you're gonna come up and lean your shoulders or your chest kind of against your shoulder this little bit, not too much for guys. A lot of times we'll turn the girl that she's away from the camera so it makes her look smaller. But I'll keep the guy facing towards the camera so he looks larger, eh? So you are just going to do just what you're doing, turn away from the camera, put your foot in and you're gonna keep your shoulders square cup that about just a little bit okay, good and put your hand on a have good and can you pop your elbow up just a little bit towards the camera a little bit more that alba good bye scooting closer I know you don't know each other, you know no, I mean to each other like like like act like you're not afraid of your father as much as you look right now just relax, okay? Now both of you shrug your shoulders shrug your shoulders okay, relax okay, shake it out good. Okay, now stand up straight good just like that and you're gonna kind of leaning towards her just a little bit good. All right, so see how their proposed right now do that exact pose a foot back and don't fall? Okay, good. Let me shoot a shot of that just like that. Perfect sit up real straight you look a little hunch e perfect, right? So this is for me you're looking really cute see? Kind of playful. Okay, good. And so this is kind of you kind of nineteen fifty fish. Good. Alright, look like you're happy to look down at her good and kind of look over like you're trying to see her face a little bit so kindly in just a little bit and I looked back at him so I'm trying to look for some type of interaction something like that they're looking at each other all right, so let me take a look at how cute you look um one thing to be aware of too when I'm shooting that is when she looks back at him we'll see the whites of the eyes again so you don't actually want to look back at him turn your head back towards him and then look your eyes uh kind of the corner of the wall can down a little lower good perfect and I'll lean in towards her just a tiny bit good and now both be serious good and I'll be really happy okay really helped me and now you can you put your hand on her arm kind of reach up yes yet just fine and just blew us off just kind of hold on he's like good for me for couples if I could have multiple points of contact that shows that they like each other even though they don't like each other I'm working on it working on it here okay, good and so it just kind of hold on his real soft and put your heads together okay but you know I'm gonna have you in the back spread your legs so you get shorter good so now I get how you can bring their heads closer together I'm not going to get their feet I told you that so heads together lean back good good yeah and just look down both of you kind of look down the side good have you dropped your hand sorry robbie dropper hand you put your hand up good and both we look down to the sign good perfect so in this shot kind of the focus is on her he is out of focus in the background so it makes him like he's kind of like a thought or a dream you dropped that hand from the from the pearls good just like that all right and now what I'm gonna have you do is you were going to lean forward and you're gonna look down this way and you're going to kind of look across so same shot just kind of lean out more just like that perfect okay good robbie look at me good and so now he is the one focus and she's out of focus alright so yeah so I'm still shooting really really wide open so that would be kind of like okay that one shots on her the other shots in him I'll do that and switch the focus all right so you guys you're good relax for a second okay? You have to really relax its ok I know you don't know each other it's totally fine so the next thing that I want to dio is kin can you grab my lens where tools please lila there all the way down there all the way down there okay, cool. Um I'm going to grab this again all right? So I'm gonna open up my posing references and I'll show you what I'm gonna do some poses might like poses I always dio what's that not today all right, so I made in the pose is that I always always do over and over again for couples all right? So the first thing that I will do is I look through this I will put images directly on my ipad or on a piece of paper so that I can reference them and show people how to pose I can kind of direct it so I think the first shot that I'm going to dio we'll be like this okay, so what you guys were gonna dio is you are going teo put your foreheads together and I'm looking at you okay, not him we're not doing anything sensual story not theirs no kissing so really cool. All right, so you're just gonna look like you're looking at her and you're gonna look over at me so you guys if you want to see the pot's gonna pass this to you guys you can take a look a kind of that field and so I bring in so I can show them like, okay, you look down at her, you look up at me okay now here's the deal here's the deal I'm shooting like this so you can shoot like this and you're gonna put your hand up here like this so I am looking at you that's perfect just how it needs to be that's exactly the shot that I need okay good and bring it down just a little bit if I have for elbow up too much I have hundreds of bright highlight of an album okay, good I have my focus point so it's going to go on her I I don't want him to be totally out of focus so I'm gonna put my aperture at two point eight focus on her good take a look um I need a little bit of a reflector because I look in this and she had shadows in her eyes so I look at this can you put right kind of right underneath good um I think I need silver so can you grab a silver reflector um what I did there is when I put the white underneath it wasn't feeling enough so I'm going to put good right there perfect good to get a little half smile again it's really cute perfect okay, good and can you turn your head or I'll be just a little bit still left aren't might even turn to the right so for me I kind of saw a little bit of his nose sticking out but not the rest his profile so thought it looked a little awkward so I turned him a little bit that way get a little bit more um short good good and that's a good smiles everyone more left and now do one serious looking down and kind of look your eyes down even lower good now close your eyes and now big smile does a married lady out here have a ring I can borrow thanks married ladies okay yes please okay so a shot that I always do for engagement sessions I'm gonna have you put this on your ring finger I don't know what sons if okay perfect do the same shot put your hand back up there again I always get a shot in this pose where I'm at maybe two point oh where I focus on the ring and then she is just a blur in the background um so make sure you can see the ring make sure this ring looks beautiful rotate towards the camera just a little bit good close your eyes and this is going to be one of those things I shoot a bunch because it's such narrow depth of field I have to make sure actually get something and focus take a look that's very good okay so you can take a look at that brides always love that shot because it's their engagement ring and that's the first time they've had their engagement ring kind of showcased in a photograph first, on the wedding day you get those photos was the first time they can put it up online. It's a good quality photograph because usually get the kind of cell phone pictures of the hand, and this is the first one to have questions. Yeah, I'd like to ask you a question. Um, travel bug would like to know, how do you get a shy couple to be romantic in front of the camera? Um, well, it's try to get them laughing. Um or I mean, usually okay, so it's genuine talking about the, um, the rubbing the certain yesterday, I try to do things to get them to laugh for. I'll be like, wow, you look like you're stressing her out. What can you do to make you relax? I make them kind of hug and just turn to break the ice like, okay, no camera hug, no really hug. I'm not taking pictures just hug like I would do something like that so that they're like, okay, so we've touched we hugged in in front of a camera, something like that. Um, my challenge here is they actually don't know each other so it's not like they even hug in private. So that's like the whole the tool twist on the thing so um yeah I just try to make them laugh and then make them make contact when they're not getting their picture taken so that when there is a camera like okay they've already seen us hug okay? And uh non photo would like to know how about when they're going too far has that ever happened? So four kids pictures what tends to happen with people for their kiss pictures is that going for kids and it's just big smushed ugly lips so I hardly ever have lip locking pictures it's usually pictures where it's just before the kiss um or kind of a kiss on the cheek or kiss on the temple um it's not use anything bad I'm just used to like ok alright guys and I'm still here taking pictures and then we you know then I'll kind of pull it back and I'll show them the difference sometimes I say ok do that half kiss okay now go in for a real cats and I'll show them the difference okay one your nose is smushed that's a big one that knows its most right up against the other face where's the other looks really romantic hey and a question from jesse braxton in washington north carolina with the same principles of blocking the direct sun mei apply for full length shots so for fooling shots the problem that you run into is that you have to get something big enough to actually block all the sunlight for me so we don't have actually have it here doing way didn't find it okay okay uh so what you're using as your using something called typically called a scrim or diffuser um and a scram one company that makes a scrim um it's scrim jim and they have one that's very common that people use it's a six by six diffusion material and so if you take six by six foot and hold it up over a scene it diffuses a lot um the other one the one that I usually use is california sun bounce son swatter and it's on a pole and you could hold it up over a scene it's what four by six it's four by six so it diffuses a lot and it takes the light from being harsh and contrast and just makes it kind of even but it's a lot more challenging to block son on full length definitely okay well so as soon as something's windy you're kind of in trouble uh something's window you have to have somebody who can hold on the pole is nice but then that's one individual and it kind of flies away quickly but a scream is usually the solution okay one more question we had a question from flash one who was asking about flash how how often do you use flash in these situations okay, what percent I never use flash on location he has nothing and okay, let me let me say never doesn't mean never like okay when I shoot a wedding or something and you have to use flash at night or in low light situations and yes, okay use flash but I'm doing portrait because of my style I don't use flash that's purely stylistic has nothing to do with ok flash is better one way or another um for me, I like if you look at that last shot, you couldn't get that last shot if you're shooting flash and since I'm doing engagement sessions for me it feels much more natural and kind organic and soft when I can shoot wide open because then it has soft backgrounds and narrowed up the field and it feels romantic versus for me. Um and when suze I add a flash it feels kind of punchy um if you're going for a cool themed engagement session where maybe there standing in front of a really cool background like you know, graffiti wall you see that a lot then okay flash makes sense to me because it's not supposed to be soft and romantic well, for a couple of folks who might just be joining us who would like to know could you tell us a do you shoot using back button focus and be what lens are you shooting with okay the lens that I'm using for this shot was eighty five millimeter one point for um I believe that last shot I took was at like two point oh s so that I could have just the ring and focus and then have the suggestion of her smile in the background so I always always shoot that shot and engagement shot doesn't matter what the theme is because the girl loves that image um for me I do use back book and button focus it's not here because when I teach workshops and often passing off my camera and I want people to be able to quickly switch and and not have to teach back in focus cool. Thank you. Okay. All right, so I went to bring grabs that my ipad again for and look at another inspiration shot to show them and these are kind of my generic ones and then we're going to go over and shoot in and around the car okay? All right, guys ready for the next one. Okay, so for the next thing what I'm going to dio and I'm going to do you put your hand up on him you look at her, she looks at me okay? So that's you do what I do like this you see my interaction I go see that kind of look okay let's give them a general idea so I shoot a couple shots um this is going to be a little bit more full length because I did get them dressed up for a reason. So those last shots, it cuts out the clothing. So you're gonna put your hand up on his arm. Good. The key is to have a hand, maybe like here and has to move and kind of put two. Put your heads together just a little bit good. You look down at her good foreheads together. Perfect. And you look at me. Yes, perfect. I'm backing up because I have a longer lens. Put your hand on her head for me. So and so I'm looking for multiple points of contacts. They look like they know each other. And until you had a little bit answer, it's him. Good for that. It looks like the reason had to turn her head is one. Looks like I'm really care about the camera. The other looks like I care about him, but there's a camera looking at me that's. Kind of the different ways that I feel like the tilt of the camera. Uh, communicate something way big, smooth guy. See if I got a blink. Good. Cute.