Lessons

Lesson Info

Boudoir and Glamour Posing Part 1

Today we've gone through learning posing from each of our instructors and posing different types of people different types of subjects different goals with the posing and so we're going to close out today with our final instructor lu freeman she has been shooting for quite a long time she's in veteran of the industry one of our favorites here she's been she's shoots boudoir fine art glamour she should have a special celebrity won awards for commercial for advertising for basically all the awards you khun yet she was only the second woman ever to shoot for playboy and shot there for many many years she is just someone who if you want to learn boudoir posing she is the person you go to so that's what she's going to teach today and we are very excited everybody help me bring her on thank you so sweet now sometimes I forget all the things I've accomplished I'm trying removing so quickly had trying to come up with something new I forget to look behind me what I've just done well there's so ...

many things I'm not surprised you can remember all right it's kind of I think I looked up and when I began I was always the youngest person at the photo shoot and I was the youngest person younger than most of the models in the beginning and now I can look back and say well you know I'm now looking at the models children they're models so what? What I'm hoping to do today is to help you guys get past some of the hurdles that were really difficult for me in the beginning when I the very first photo shoot I went teo I failed miserably and I'm failed miserably because I never opened my mouth to speak I was mortified of the light in the camera settings I was mortified of the boyfriend and the mother and everybody that was there that had some sort of input I felt mistrust from everyone you know, all the things we all feel when you're getting used to something including running the bicycle you're scared you're not sure if you're doing it all right? So as I've been under pressure to produce like high amounts of shots and a day, I have really honed my skills directing and I found that if I direct and that's exactly what I want tonight, my pictures are improving I ca n't take fifteen twenty pictures and get a great one and every a group of shots if you randomly take pictures or press down the shutter button and just let it fly, I think that's kind of I call it accidental tourist photo you're not really tent making a great photo you're just taking something a happy accident kind of photo, so if you want to be responsible to your image making, you have to be participating and not just on the close, not just on the styling or the idea that concept, all of the lighting things that we've seen this week plus photo jobs can let you know that you're really an infinite artistic opportunity. Being on top of her was in it for me. When I started talking to the models, my photography went from being six or seven on up there, I watched my comfort level, relax, you know, fear go away, it's the lighting improved, but the photographs didn't get better until the models started looking amazing. So I'm going to talk to you about I've got about twenty five, thirty shots here I want to show you and I'm just going to talk to you a little bit about posing if it's too much for you, I have opposing god and there's a pdf available to that has hundreds of poses. What you might want to try to do is look at that study those and repeat them for yourselves. I'm going to take a little a different approach today to the photography I am going to do glamour, super sexy poses, they're tastefully executed so you can learn how to speak to people and do glamour and due to our photos and not be worried about how you're saying it. Our fortunes saying is being interpreted the right or wrong way so you can have fun with this and enjoy it rather than being scared to death, you're going to make in the state because in the beginning, sometimes you have to make a mistake to feel what not to d'oh, we're goingto have also have after we look at the slides, a conversation with my model who has shot with lots of wonderful photographers and she's been in some pretty amazing magazines and things like that, I wanted her to share with you what she feels like because it is we forget sometimes that person is sitting there in the chair and that there are human being and however comfortable they are really is kind of resonate with kind of photograph you take right? So my goal as soon as I get in touch with that person, if they're going to come to do a boudoir shit with me or if it's a model I'm shooting for a job, I want to make sure that feel absolutely comfortable. So what goes on behind the scenes? Nobody really sees. All they see is that magic picture that floats around in the universe that you share, so speaking and directing is probably the most important part, as you have witnessed earlier this week with the class, you know that we can take high fashion for real or we can make fashion we can shoot someone in their own clothes or we could make a fantasy happen but their messages sent home by the way the person moves in in the photograph and is most completed by the expression coming out of their face so your subject walks in or your subject calls you on the phone and says I want to do a glamour a boudoir picture with you you have that that's the beginning of the control and the communication process that makes it so much easier for you not only with the clothes that you have them bring toe where but you can find out as much as you need to know about them so you can start prepping for it do I need to get a chair like incident do I need to think about finding a different kind of outfit for them to wear? What about high heels or darker colors can I make a suggestion about clothes it would make the lines of their body look better so those are the times that are really going to make the biggest difference if you are new to this I suggest you meet with the people before the shoot getting to know someone bike's breaks the eyes the more you talk in the beginning even if you're a nervous many talking you know asking a million questions you are also becoming more relaxed so as you've developed this friendship and you get to really see what the person looks like, that's when you're going to start controlling better outfits, higher heels, better shoes, there hose things like that give structure so there's two things actually three, two made it control the posing that you're going to do. If you pick the right kind of close to go in the body that's going to make the first bit of difference, someone with curvy bodies and different places, each person's gonna wear a different kind of outfit to help kim lodge that so that I call shape shifting, you're going to take the eyes away from any flaw so that all you see is beautiful. If you look at the person and they've got amazing hair and face and legs and that's what you want to focus on, so all your poses, they're going to start from that verbal direction talking about the clothes. What time you want him to come there, you come up with a concept you share, that you pick the clothes and kind of an idea before you start. If you don't have all the joy of what I'm talking about, you want to invite them to your studio or you want to go to their home to see the space they live in, in case you might want to shoot there. You're getting a chance to break the ice even more and you're also looking at the set and saying welcome maybe lay the person down somewhere there so far they're beautiful piece of furniture are they're amazing staircase I could have the person go on those are things that you would maybe have to pay for. I hear a lot of people say they like to go to hotels to shoot because of the grin do your of it, but I don't want to spend the money on that I'd rather save that money and have them do another shot with me so you want to think about how you can make the most out of every photo shoot by how you communicate and I use this term constant communication because as much as I'm talking to you right now is how much you need to be talking to the person while you're taking a picture and every single pose in the beginning needs to be directed from the hands to the hips to the spine, to the body to where you're looking at on the feet. I'm going to give you lots of tidbits about what you shouldn't show on what you should show it, how to camouflage that so speaking constantly and also sharing positive feedback you never say no you never say big, you never say tight, you never say wrong you never say what was she thinking you never say any kind of contrary words that would eliminate a spirit of the person right off the bat, make it bad for yourself. So the more positive, uplifting things you can say starting with when the makeups being done, if you're set up in, prepare before the photo shoot goes on with your lights and you're set, you can go right into make up room and sit down with your subject and start communicating and getting a good report and having a laugh and getting, you know, the edge kind of removed from the whole photo shoot. So positivity is a big thing also, when you're shooting, you know, in the beginning, you're gonna break the eyes, shoot ten, fifteen pictures, go back review, and then make sure you stop and show that subject a magic picture photographers tell me quite a bit that they don't like to show images to the subject, and I think that's the worst thing you khun dio I think it's empowering to show it because the subjects looking at their hips in their legs and their face in the lines in their hair, and if they've come there with the notion of what they want to see, you want to show it to him, they know that you haven't retouched that that will empower them to want to shoot more. And if there's something they don't like, you can tell you right then and you could fix it waiting and start of waiting till the photo shoot is processed and you show it to him and and and then you they tell you they didn't care for the output you chose, so the more you tell them, the better off you're going to be before and after. So before we talk about actual body posing, there's something that I'd like to talk about because I don't think a lot of people focus on it and that's, the camera angle and the lynns level. When I was shooting for playboy, we had three basic stances that we would photograph. I followed the eyes of the subject in every stands where the person was lying down, sitting down or standing because completely standing up, I was standing. If they were standing with a camera, the eye, our eye would drop down to the knee and shoot up to them to increase their height and stature if it was somebody that was five feet taller, so if I were shooting headshots and their face was in, the care of the limbs would be right in the face, so you're beauty portrait in fashion, they're a little different from one another beauty is going to be camera angle right into the eyes unless you have something with enormous lips that you're just you know I can't stop looking at the left, you might want to bring the camera down to that if you feel you need to balance out their faces, their eyes are too big and their mouth isn't, then you want to find someplace in the center? I usually work with an eighty five sometimes I work with a fifty and earlier this week I used to twenty four tilt shift on a beauty shot. I'm not going to get right on top of somebody's face with that lens, but a beauty shot that would now come to here because you've got blurred going on, so you're far enough away that you've not distorted someone's head, so as a boudoir glamour photographer, you're selling your subject. You're not selling your artistic self, you are selling them to themselves, it's a different way of thinking, so you are essentially the person, the eyes of the person that she's giving the image, too. So your camera and your persona as a photographer ships into that here. If you've got the girl lying on the bed, why not have the camera angle skimming over the top of the pillow into our eyes so things that you might not want to do it? Your camera angle is shooting with a fifty crossing over someone's thighs up their body you think about what is happening with your camera I used this term a lot to use your camera as a creative extension of your mind I your job as a boudoir and climber photographer is to really essentially show that person exactly what she sees herself that she wants him or her toe have so it's kind of a different way of thinking you know it's a za fashion photographer we're selling clothes when we shoot glamour we're selling that subject when you get into shooting board oir you're shooting the romance of the success of this six the invitation the suggestion of sensuality sometimes in the beginning it's a great idea to get a story going to give yourself a catalyst in which to operate by that makes sense but down little storyboard for yourself just like you would for fashion but instead of listening to the fashion channel, listen to the sexy channel from minute and look at the person no matter how tall, how short, how whatever find their inner sexiness of who they are if they're into you know edgy or darker things if they've got a real glamorous side of themselves if they like fancy beautiful, opulent things you want to go with that persona that's the fun of being this type of photographer you have so many more opportunities without limitation really then you do was fashion fashion to me is rigid in that one direction so keep your lens level on a healthy place that you intensify the person's best assets the worst assets should be out of the creative I out of the way I'm showing you these two images because I too could make a mistake every now and then I get lazy I put one camera lens on I walk around with that one camera lens on because it's easy to do twenty four to seventy twenty four two one o five I was taking these two images in last summer down in florida on the beach and we have one of those magic sunsets with the entire air turned his peachy orange color and the tide was rolling in there baby alligators out all around it was just a magical kind of experience I had sneakers on my feet were getting wet I jumped up on a log and continued to shoot with my twenty four two one o five for shot on the left you can see I foreshortened her legs. The girl on the bottom is like five ten and she looks like her legs or diminished. I stepped off the tree and went two more feet to the right no further away from her just moved over and got down a little lower and suddenly she looked like she was the right height same thing can happen if you have your lens level on the wrong level of headshot if you were to photograph me from here, I would look like I have a razor pointed chin you can bring the camera down ii level and suddenly you see my jaw line down below changes it yet again, so it might be a good test for you when you get home to pick up your camera if you've got that one person that'll don't you take a picture of them any time doesn't test and see what happens to the composition, the structure of the month of the face when you stand up, sit down and shoot up at someone, so you'll start to see what not to dio and you need to know what not to do that's the first step of taking a better picture. So in these images I moved back really far got a longer lens and now you not looking at the, you know, the crossover of the four shortening and the shortening of the legs. Now you see gorgeous people standing there with beautiful long body limps, and when I shoot fashion and full length, for the most part I am sitting down this high I always wear clothes to my photo shoot that I don't mind if I sit on the ground in I almost always seem in standing up, no matter what with their camera like this, because it's comfortable to them to shoot women and if you've got a longer lens in your shooting from here to here, that might be okay, but if you back up enough from them to get fully, you're going to four short in the legs and make their legs look thick, squatting in short, so you want to empower the subject by shooting back up to them if the person if you have a small studio, you know, that's, one of the first things my first studio ps was the size of a single car garage, you had to walk into the studio from behind the background paper and then cross over onto the background paper to get over to where you were going to shoot, and I worked that little place until I had to have somewhere else to shoot. I would two, three, four people on the same paper, they're lined up in a row together, so there where there's a will there's a way, but shooting as low as you can for a full length, you may be seated in a chair for three quarter, and if you're going to stay on the subject up, you can shoot right into their eyes. I found I'm too short for most of the models I shoot, so if they're standing, I'm looking up their nose so I can't give them that perspective they don't know that so my message to you today is about telling people what you want in need posing is something that not all models automatically know how to do way were watching this beautiful images emily was just shooting with this whole dramatic, artistic, relaxed, pensive, sort of moody thing. I'm going to show you the opposite of that how to make people look like they mean what they're going to like ambitiously do in this clamor board who are kind of pose people that have strength and ambition about themselves are not, you know, artistic, this is going to be the total opposite of that. So I say women stand tall from the chest. This is a leader kind of woman. S o when you're going to put girls in this kind of dramatic light in this much color and this much makeup you gotta, like, pick up the pose and pick up everything with it. One of the ways around that is having plenty of conversation so that you're on that same, you know, with with the subject you're shooting, whether it's a model or not. So for shortening what that means is anything that comes toward the camera or if you're drawing someone, my hand is bigger than my head if I pulled my hand back to here it's more in relationship so for shortening the things you don't want to do if you've got somebody that's really big on the bottom is shoot with their hip toward the camera you don't want to sit him in a chair and lean the upper part of their body back you want to do the opposite because you put the big part to the shadow so you really want to look at what you're doing you don't want to tell the subject we've gotta do this for you but you just want to do it you have to just kind of take take control of the situation and speak in a very positive direction everybody's going to be bigger facing you straight on so start looking at the body and say how can I twist this around to make this a little more interesting for me to look at? So when you're cropping people that's one idea today was shooting in a booth and I had this wonderful experience with this guy he had never had a um pocket was on top of his camera and he had all the gear and he was into the light and we were shooting lexi and I looked up and here goes his camera clickety clickety clickety clickety clickety clickety clickety clickety clickety beautiful expose we took the meter we taught him how to set everything he didn't know and have any idea that that was probably not the right way to be shooting. So for the most part, back to my playboy analogy, standing, lying down with a camera like if you guys are the photographer lying down, standing, sitting, reclining, the action is toward the camera, not away. Why? Because engagement between the subject and you, the photographer in the end result, the image viewer is who the partner she's giving the images to she needs to look like she's going. Yeah, well, now you know, and this is moving backwards, and then the bigness is coming forward, so you've got to really think about everything you're doing and what what's your ambition what's my story, one of my telling, what am I doing to make this person looked better? You want to show them a photograph where all they see is wow, that's me, I looked great. You never want him to say my hips, my size, my arms, my legs, my ankles. And if they say that you didn't see before you took the picture. So your eyes scanning that subject the entire time you're zooming in and zooming out. You're the person has to stand up in the frame otherwise they're going to fall off the frame so the guy that I just gave you the analogy of these cameras going change change change you know the type of photography I'm talking about it was his only way of being creative and his first shoot but really fill your composition now let's look at the cropping points I say cropping the narrowest point on the body so if you're going to take a picture of me and you cropped me right here you might think my body went on past that so if you crop where it's now where you get a smaller space I'm speaking artistically now so if you looked at the the image of my headshot this would make me maybe look a little thinner straight on turning me sideways cropping would be even better so if there's not a vanishing point you have to make one I have a vanishing point here there's one that naturally forms at the knee so in fashion and glamour you never show this out of the foot exactly part of the foot all shoe ads air from that's high so you know when you go home I want you looking every magazine every catalog and look and see what the difference is that the things and now you'll start to say oh okay I get it I'll show you the pretty side the hand the precept of feet so head shot is either here or here if the arms are important and somebody's holding something let's say you're doing a bank at instead of the clamour shoot him he's holding a paid a check or something in their hands you still rules still apply profit nearest point on the body well, the albums could be positioned so that they're in the vanishing point got it so crop in the camera I think every time you take the picture a three quarter shot is that above the fleshy part of the knee not above or below the knee and you never crop anybody's feet off otherwise how they're going to stand up in the frame you making your aren't going to fall out? Do you see what I'm saying? So look at your subject if your how you could make a vanishing point if you're gonna crop in the knee so that gives you narrow ness at each point so if you can't create a vanishing point let's say the person's gone on a dress and it just looks like a big bag you can start to do things with it all those you can ask the makeup artist to do the hair a little bigger you can do a lot of things to make as I call it smoke and mirrors to bring the attention to where you wanted to stay and not to follow on the places where you don't so in this case I use clothing and hair and makeup to help me create a vanishing point turner sideways you're you're much slimmer from the side then you are from straight on so when someone comes in for you next headshot shoot and they sit down in front of the table and they look at you with their elbows straight on they're going to look broad and somewhat aggressive I think straight on but if they turn on an angle a bit kind softens things up a little bit not to mention it gives you that beautiful as shape you can work with angle of tilt of the head you can start to work with lengthening through here with your pose to make somebody look better so in a severe case you can always bring arms above the head especially boudoir now give them something to do with the robe in their hand and have their hands come up get their body curving on the bottom then you've made this giant v with a vanishing point and because even if there are bigger on the bottom if you've created a larger on top is going to come down to that so knees crossing over these air insecure feet so when your fashion model comes up no matter what route that is if she's standing like this she doesn't know what her feet are doing it's not she doesn't know she's not aware for feet so when I teach models that work with me like a lot and they get paid well for it, I tell them to imagine for a second that you have peripheral vision and you can feel everything on your body from your toes to your fingertips, so you want everything to be perfectly posed and then so in the shot you're looking at here, those girls both have knees here, you know, one foot in front of the other, you could do a tea with the back one foot in front, the other, so that works on almost anybody let's say you're shooting somebody in their large scale, very big cleavage. They want a glamour review to our shoot, I usually suggest not putting them in their underwear and sitting right out there in front of everybody. I suggest having killer brought killer underwear garden well, robe, open leg out the front and show what is really pretty not all of that, because then you're just going to go the whole time you're president, what am I going to do? We're going to do there's a million poses I'm going to show you two put them in to help remedy that if they just interest, but that is one way to think about it, so arms air up on buzz of these girls about their head so finding something to do, even if it's with a pillow or something in the air to keep their arms above the head also hip position turning what you turn someone to the side in the leg is curved, a curved or engaged muscle, whether it's in the butt hip, the arm, the leg is more fit. Then I relaxed muscle and the hip should never come forward. The hip should always go back, and severe cases you can push it so far to the back that it almost disappears visually to the photographer. So I'm going to show you a couple of things with these images so straight on even somebody with a straight up and down body that doesn't have a lot of curve is just not gonna have any curves. I think everybody wants to be smooth and curvy and look like they have a youthful essence about them so smooth and curvy and a youthful essence means that there's, some kind of action going on in the body, is not just, you know, you really wantto lam, you know, it's, like think about miss america. When she walks out on this date, she comes out with poise and elegance she's tall, she's, strong, she's tight but her shoulders relaxed, so we believe it. So what you have to dio when you're talking to your girls or guys really is to get them in the position that you want so shot number one straight at the camera, so I usually that subject come out couldn't find the camera and I've already looked at the body of had them trying to outfit I've looked at it and it proved it I've asked for the rite shoes so I can get muscle tone high heels make legs with beautiful pushes the button up if you need more help than do whatever you can to get the hip up in the air in the front engaging or leaning her squatting is always a good pose, pushing the hits after you get to that pose backwards it's uncomfortable it's kind of like that toward the background pushes that hip back and will round out into move the front of leg elbows out arms above head split lighting also will help you if you have somebody that's, extremely curvy, darker backgrounds, darker lingerie jewel tone robes hanging off the after his shoulder will help you bring some camouflage that you'll need to make an awesome image, so don't be afraid to shoot them as they see themselves. If they insist on being in a certain way and you keep adding those layers a beautiful fabric and style and design to it, you'll reach another level of perfection so vanishing point at the knees created with the arms of the head just to keep the motion going on inside the image you're creating, keeping that shape form filled with body movement is really important. I said there's four body styles and I think we could probably look around the room and we could see each one of us probably fits into the category of these shapes and forms and the apple's kind of round on the top of small with bottom they almost always have great legs they have no behind. So there's, where you focus always try to make a waistline on somebody that doesn't have one century and with a belt since it in with a big wide corset. Corsets do great things for women that don't have a waistline, especially a longer line one and if you get them that lace up the back, you buy one anybody could fit in it, you can change the ribbon on the back, you can dye them, you can buy them from china and they're like thirteen dollars you khun, goto, fredericks and there one hundred st kind of course that you can embellish them, you could put anything you want on them to make them more interesting, so in my prop closet I have corsets of every color and every kind I have robes, I have all kinds of fabric that I thought at the fabric store to help me embellish pillows and all kinds of cool things, so if I go to their home and they've got a beautiful bedspread but there's just no possess, I can help put an outfit together and make the pillows in the background and whole set will sing and I save myself from a bad photo shoot the pear shaped smaller top in larger its bottom, so the good thing about their body shape is you can almost always show their upper body they're usually pretty fit in the arms is like the total opposite of the apple. I usually put a flared skirt over the hip and something that cinches in the waist and push up raw if they're very small in the chest. I asked for those little jill inserts there's, a company called new broad that makes them in every different color. They're pink, they're black, they're beige, they're brown and the creek creamy white and you could put those inside a swimsuit or abroad, and it makes anyone have a little cleavage that and your retouching skills can make that even look more beautiful. So all the clothes have to be kind of planned a little bit to amend your poses convince toral from that, so you hide all of the flaws and only you're working with the advantage the hourglass girl has the most amazing figure, but she's going to be the hardest to shoot yet to be really careful, you don't put clothes on there too big and too flow, because they look like a bigger person when they're not so the necks lengthened to me the neckline and make everyone look thinner, it's creating a vanishing point with the clothes so you automatically a comfortable by looking at that, clothes that fit more close to the body are going to be more flattering on that subject structure in in the clothing, and that the bigger the floy er, the worst scenario will be watching out. Also for people that are uncomfortable with their body, you never want to put him in solid white. It just makes white comes forward and makes everyone look a little bigger. The ruler is the model body, they want more curves, so the fun thing is you get to put them in and just about anything you want, but you've got to move them around a lot to get the great curves. So even in every scenario I'm going to give you, there might be a chance that something will break the rules, and somebody will have an unusual situation that you'll have to address, but for the most part, these clothing styles and poses will work so explaining the apple there. Sometimes I'll put a loose flowing top on, and I let that beautiful body show on the bottom, and you forget for a minute that there may not be fit. Another example for the pears to have something that just moves a little bit if you don't want to put the little flowy skirt on a top, hangs down long, so you get to flirt of the leg but not totally exposing that every once in a while you'll have a challenging figure and you're going to put everything in the world on them and nothing's going to work and you're gonna go, how am I going to get past this it's always a good idea, too try to have a couple of ops shins to work with thiss outfit has like a roost gathered midline like a long line corset, and what that does this young lady was a very small a body with a small size like a size four, but it was everything she put on was making her not look her very best. The structure of this kind of lifted her up and synched in her wais, and it made it really great for me too easily light her, and since their structure to it, it was five times more easy for me to retouch and sentient her waistline, and in the end, the port, the pose of the larger hips scale, leaning back with the hip pushed back is really going to be something that you use a lot. What I would suggest you do is go home and practice it in the mirror. So you turn to the side. Make a big tea with your feet and more severe, the bigger this spread on the feet, the hips go back, chest comes around to the camera. So you're like, pretending, like you're trying to show the front and the back of you at the same time. So there's, a lot of twisting in the midsection, and then the shoulders are going to be the thing, and the position of the arms that really camouflage is all of this. So if you can see it on yourself, then you can certainly tell somebody else how to feel that.