Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Portrait Posing Part 3

So what the middle one I really like whenever I'm outside to work with my elements like I said, I generally shoot outdoors so having anything that I can frame the model with and I come up with poses based on that so so for that the middle shot you see right there I really wanted a lot of emotion I wanted to frame her through the flowers in her to kind of look like she's part of the flowers as well so I had her just just opposer body and curve a little bit and close your eyes it was pretty simple shot just I think just closing eyes something simple that adds a lot of emotion and interest here photo shoots the other ones are just a couple of portrait with the model just a little bit to the side always love the over the shoulder shot generally it depends on the body type as well you just have to look beforehand it's the shoulders a little bit large move over a little bit so that it's off center so that your it's not directly in front sometimes it's fun to just have a kind of peeking over ...

shorter and these air fuel just portrait I love having the model just moving around I meddle one I just wanted a lot of emotion from this model it was more of a jar kind of whimsical shoot so so I had her just quote, I would have a close arise just I just had to keep moving your head around so something times as simple as that just telling the model is to keep moving and you can find the angles really well that way too if you have her extend her next and go down, you can find her best angle, so just learning faces and learning what what you want in your photography, too, and this was the same thing I had her just look up this was she was sitting on the floor in this post, but I wanted a lot of emotion through our faith, so just giving a scenario like shawnee said, getting telling, putting a mood out there and letting her go for that, having her look down, I had her look just kind of off the floor. I didn't want her looking completely down, but just a little bit up psycho see that emotion and see her eyes and have a little bit of connection with the model, so I'm going to go ahead and shoot, do a couple more shots. Here we go, so I'm going to do a couple more portrait shots for this and I want just a lot of it emotion and then list theo just for fun let's do a couple smiley kind of faces so that you guys can see I have what the difference is tio case so let me start with the portrait perfect and let's go little more to the side and I want you to look shiny right like right here so you're looking a little bit until your head slightly down I like the life beautiful and then let's see how fast shiny conflict over a smiling so she's not really in like generally in this dress I guess it could be a happy bridal kind of shoot they would go along with it so let's do something a little bit not not a cheesy smile but something that something that say you just got married and you're a beautiful brought flour brian look right in camera and so you see her whole expert expression changes her eyes light up just a little bit more than with the sadness so really seeing the expression through the eyes as well how about a little bit of a bigger smile and pull your arms in a little more so generally when I rang doing more commercial kind of shots look one more time I do different poses to so this this kind of look wouldn't be would it be considered commercial at all commercials more just shorts and pants or like surf brands which we have a lot of in california so it's more than just kind of walking and running around looking back smiling kind of like catalog images that you see that girls just look super happy and all the models look like they're best friends and having the best time of their lives, even though they've been smiling for like ten hours and they're really tired of miley, probably yeah, yeah, chinese says, and then you don't know the girls toso but it's creating that route and creating that whenever these teenagers are looking through the magazine that like, well, I wantto be happy and have fun in those clothes, so what you're doing is really selling the clothes so let's, do a couple more how about let's stand up for a couple to show a little more emotion cream just the light just a little bit? Yeah, they're a couple more smile happy ballerina yeah, I come up a little closer so what? I would have her d'oh if I was doing a commercial or lifestyle shot shoot, I would have to move around, take a couple of stats, look back and smile for this one. I would let one of more of a sauce kind of subtle smile rather than a really big smile, so turned around really smile great and a lot of it I was doing a bridal shoot, they would want that, too, for their looks, they would want somewhere sad, emotional kind of shots that are a little bit more artistic but then they would also want happy shots and some bridles bridal places are a little more commercial, so they want all happy shot. So so we're totally work in this outfit, so let's just kind of play around again like you were doing earlier, I'm going to do some crossed in shot's perfect a little further, so it's just showing just a little bit of emotion through the faith, kind of like she's hiding a secret are just a soft kind of smile let's move around a little bit more to the side, but that's it it was a good question why you asked earlier about what the different types of smiles. Sometimes the girls have to really work on it, work on not showing all their gums or doing something a little more soft because some things you, your natural smile is beautiful, but it may be a little cheesy for cameras, so so working tio so the next thing that I would generally do is have the model down on the floor, so I'm going to go ahead and do this with shining what struck the light a little bit down. I love just kind of a new ng shot, and I think it works well with this dress so shiny let's first, I just want youto mill down kind of like this and this is kind of a standard post that I use a lot to you like you see in the center photo over here with this stress what would always be looking at it the clothing I don't really like the back but I like the side of the draft in this image over here the right I really liked the back of the rest I really wanted to show that off so that's why I had the model just kind of curve and go to the side so for this one it is a beautiful dress you aren't going to see her I don't really want to see her legs in it so more of just a really pretty elongated ballerina shot so just putting out the fabric if I had a cilice onset they would be really good about running around making sure the dress look perfect so I'm going to get with the shots I always get down low to the floor because like I said earlier I wanted to be going up I don't want to be looking down on my model so I'm going to go ahead and she right here beautiful gorgeous yeah a little bit writer please and make it a little and this would also be a great way to get in a little bit closer for portrait shots I'm going to go a little bit so I'm always readjusting my light as well I have to when she's on the floor I to move it down and change my settings slightly I'm gonna go a little bit we'll row my aperture and go and really close for a nice portrait so shiny I went tilt slightly perfect and extend your neck up just a little bit and now look right off here I'm going to go in and shoot at one point they don't want to be quite at one point too, because I don't want her skin too soft but I would like to kind of get rid of some of the details in her hair and the flowers so turn around and look at me for one shot prevent gorgeous how about close your eyes for one look up a little bit another important thing whenever you're working, especially with a new model or you're working with the percent is the gap in their let have them separated? I didn't shut down after a couple weeks ago and he was really tense in the whole time he really pressed down on his left side to keep reminding him to separate his let to make them look more relaxed rather than the more stern kind of face. So what separate let's look right here you'll just get back a little further and I want you to turn around just a little bit so you're facing more of the corner of the room and looked back over your shoulder great gorgeous and now look right here at my hands and now let's raise your hands up a little bit and I'm shooting a little bit about the gorgeous perfect and now I want you to put your legs down and sit with him a little bit behind you so that you kind of see me like this so I what I do to is I mimic my poses with my model so a lot of times I'm showing them what to do especially they don't have references with me and I'm tryingto explain something to you perfect. So for this one I wonder legs a little bit in front of that I want to see a lot of the fabric I don't mind it that's a little bit bigger and my image I'm going to be luring it out since I'm shooting with the low aperture question go back a little bit further gorgeous perfect let's go ahead and wayto look right over in this direction and a little bit of a softer hands awesome hey beautiful so that's generally my worst lie would start with her standing up moving around than having her sit down and then having her go down before that's great set up for me with studio because I get a really large variety of shots that way yeah if you have questions yeah, I want to know cano in the chat rooms wants to know is there a particular order that you go in looking at body parts that you are checking to make sure that all of them are what you want? Hm? Yeah, yeah, their particular flow that you have yeah, generally the first thing I'm looking out of the face looking for the four different angles with you to model like you mentioned earlier, then I'm looking kind of the shorter's I don't want her to just watch, I want her to look like if she is, I am having your curve, her body that is sown purpose, that it's not just her just kind of lunching backwards, so I would have started looking at her body and then I would look at the hands because the hands are very important to have just really soft hand instead of ten hands you don't want to assist or anything that's distracting from the image, then I would go to the legs so so yeah, I would generally go from top to bottom just making sure that everything's hae won it. I tend to shoot a lot of portraiture and upper body shots and not quite as many full body shot, so so what I'm really looking at is the angle of the face as well as the hands and the pot's making sure she's not hunting, we have a question in this studio, yeah hi, I really enjoyed you showing us our examples here today so I got us that the background a lot of times is almost completely black but then sometimes it you show more of the background can you describe how you do that? And also secondly, could you tell us why you choose to shoot at one point two? Yeah, totally. So for the background, the closer the model is to the background the brighter it's going to be. So if I wanted more detail in the back and I'd have a really close to the background if I wanted a darker I pull away a little bit so just today I was really focusing on the posing aspect I wasn't paying quite as much attention as toe I was making sure the lighting was good, but if I was doing a full story I would make sure that she was in the same place throughout so that's a really good question because I would want to show the texture or I would have what a more dramatic and just darken the background completely and what was the second part? Why do you show me too? I just really like it because of the boca that I guess so I really like focusing in on the eyes and I recomposed my image so I like that it loses a little bit of detail around the hair like a it's kind of a soft focus around the hair and the flowers, and I also love it when I'm shooting outdoors because I can shoot through plants or shoot blue flowers and different aspects and have just a knife glo o or haze in the front of my image around the delight, the cover on the light, what does not do just softens like, yeah, I just saw the light yeah, and it helps to when I'm shooting at a lower aperture just to get that to get that nice soft kind of style. Thank you, emily, I'm thinking maybe for a final question goingto end out this little segment here you've been telling us a lot about what to do, what are your biggest posing mistakes to avoid things that you definitely think people should not be doing? Definitely watch out for hands that's the big thing I've had shoots that I look back on, where the models just has a fist, especially like I said, when I'm working with doctors or musicians, they're a little more tense about it and sometimes all overlook things because I'm focusing on my lighting and focusing on the style of the shoot rather than the post, so I should really be aware of what they're doing so so looking for soft hands for for good posture so that they're standing up straight as well a cz feet. You don't want their feet to be kind of awkward standing around. So so just giving them that direction with their body and there's this shape.