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Lesson Info

Live Shoot: The 5 Poses

We're going to go through the five poses now before I would normally do this in a studio environment we would have had a whole conversation we're going to give you that conversation when we go back and sit down so we're just jumping right in as far as you're concerned we've had all that and we're gonna sit down you're perfect all right and that stool I think is pneumatic I think it can go down there you go my dear just so you could be a little more comfortable swing your knees this way couple things about lighting these air old school rules any photography book will probably tell you an old school portraiture your tummy goes away from the light turning that way your nose goes back towards the light what's that what that is doing is sculpting the body in fact you can kind of see it with me tell me away knows towards the light now my main light is coming here and that slimming my body if we break that rule tell me towards the light nose away from the light I'm now what we're doing what's...

called broad lighting my body correct I'm now in lighting my entire body I look wider I look fatter, I look heavier and I'm broad lighting my face it looks bright, wider and brighter so we're not going to go back to um tummy away knows towards their shadow on the body therefore slimming the body and especially with madonna portrait's this is important so tell me away knows towards it's a very very simple rule we're going to go through the five poses and we're going to show you exactly what how we take a mom threw the siri's not gonna photograph as much today we're kind of doing this backwards so I'll give you the ten second version one of the keys with this siri's is keeping the baby away from mom everybody knows what happens when you do this with a baby they're gonna want to eat correct it is a chemical reaction babies smell their mom it's part of how they grow is they smell mom and that gets their tummy's growling and mom starts to produce and all the sudden it's time to stop a nurse so I don't want the baby's facing into mom as little as possible so these five poses were created to take us through this siri's very quickly keeping baby out facing out for mama as long long as possible now in my studio we actually do have dolls ennui we have a dog called the ugly baby which will show you later it's the ugliest all you've ever seen and we use it to actually teach parents have due this week we grab the doll they hold their baby and we explain to them ok, this is the first suppose I wanted to do pose number one we call the next and you do not have to take notes on this because we're going to cover all of it and um it's in the book you're going to get for free the catalog you're going to get for free this is it I really want you to focus and pay attention on this closed number one is called the nest now all of these poses require you as a photographer to assist moving the baby so I will go to mom and I'll tell her I'll say ok the first proposal remember I have a doll not her baby I'll say the first proposed my goal is the baby's cheek near your chin and the legs have to be straight out when I started photography like most people this was my madonna portrait back then and of course there's a problem here and that's the distance between baby and mom so my first fix for that was to do this hold the baby up by your face well of course what happens when you do that you blocked those shoulders and you become like a football player here so that didn't work so this is truly an evolution of years and years of me trying to figure this out in fact these five poses I taught a five day an in studio workshop and I started doing this and student turned to me and they said is this formula you have do you have this written down and I looked at her and laughed and I said no it's not for me because it kind of made me feel like a cookie cutter photographer and as I was shooting I realized I do the exact same thing when I do this every time and I realize it is in fact the formula it is something that I had trained myself without knowing because it was a problem it was a solution to my problems and so post number one we're gonna put the baby right in here like this so the key is the feet straight out like that and I will help mom and now that's how moms that's perfect his mom's mostly go like that and I will say you know what? I need you to wrap your arms all the way around so she uh she needs to be in the elbow right there. Good good. Get him spring her little hands out till today. Really? What do we try to move her head? All right, so now tuck this hand. This looks heavy, right? So we're gonna take this hand and hide it down the hole and we would take let's go and take the watch off I'm sorry, I know we're not really shooting, but I'm kind of freaking about the details so sorry and this will be on ebay in just a couple of minutes. So many of you are interesting ways that we really make our money. We'll need your necklace, your radio. Okay, do anything. All right, there we go. This is posed. Number one, we're going to turn you forward later on. I'm going to explain very soon. I'm going to explain why this pose works now when I shoot, I always tell people think like a crocodile. Everything I do is formulated in the sense of speed. I'm trying to get a job done. I have a baby and I have a twenty minute window. Excuse me, people ask me all the time. Why do you always say twenty minutes for a session? I absolutely, positively believed children have a twenty minute window. It doesn't mean that when they walk in the door, they're good to go. It means if I give them an hour somewhere in there they could be super shy and takes me fifteen, twenty minutes to get him comfortable. And then we get the twenty minute window and they're awesome and then they start to crash. Some kids walk in the door and immediately we're good to go, and twenty minutes later they start to crash some kids. It takes me the forty five, sixty minutes to get them going and then I get my twenty minutes but I believe there is a window of time where you have the perfect session and that's what? I'm going for anything after that I consider it gravy if I can get an hour out of a child that's awesome but I'm going for my twenty minutes here we do this on the uh belize and babies tour we did fifty two cities and we ask the audience we told them to time us every time this segment that I'm going to show you the longest we ever took shooting these five poses was eighteen minutes the shortest was thirteen and out of it came you know good fifty awesome strong images okay, go ahead and tilt your head and supposing we're gonna tighten up those elbows a little bit more post number one nice told back we're gonna talk a little bit later about that shit up just a little bit got it right there. Good deal. Okay, this is posed number on when I said crocodile I always tell you people shoot the widest form that you're going to shoot and then crap crap crap crap crap! So there are five poses and within the five poses there are five cropping points or four to five crafting points what that means remember we've already discussed mom doesn't want anything from here down photographed at all don't need to go there right you look great so post number one my first shot horizontal three quarter shot right then I'm gonna turn the camera vertical three quarter shot then I'm gonna come in tighter mom's looking at the camera horizontal just their faces looking camera now mom turned your nose in close your eyes now this is just baby court are croft in nice and tight probably gonna make it a square later so we've got one two three four we're good and now guess what we're gonna do we're gonna turn you this way and stick your chin out a little bit and we've got one two more does that make sense so we're going to go one two three four five six and we've got one shot done now swing back around the next post actually yeah well between you this way the next pose and I probably should shoot them because they wanted me to push that button over there so let's do that real quick okay, I gotta make sure ok thank you all right and I haven't I haven't even seen these yet so I want to see uh coming back here but here I just get a test real quick and I got to make sure we're at one twenty fifty alex good all right, you look fabulous. We're gonna clean that up okay? So we're gonna go through the siri's real quick nice and tall your baby is flashing the camera later on we're going to show you put your hand just kind of cup it in just a little more you can tuck it in but we want to take it up a little bit right there we're gonna explain why these works so well that right there all right, here we go so we're gonna go through this very quickly she's actually doing a little spill tonight okay coming off a little bit more here we go alright so nice and tall uh turn your knees away from the camera a little bit just torque your body back towards your nose comes back towards that main like good deal right there so we're gonna go through this real quick nice and soft smile newborns don't smile mom shouldn't either as far as I'm concerned it looks dumb when they're like so nice and soft right? They're beautiful there's one now I want you to look down at you know what I need to turn into the light a little bit more I'm not getting it the problem with big rooms like this it's eating all of my life even though you think there's a lot of light hear my strobes have very, very little light so I'm gonna try toe lighten up that shot a little bit okay one more ready here goes one soft smile good turn your nose into the baby a little bit right there close your eyes too good eyes back at me turned into the light a little bit more good bring your chin away from the baby a little bit there it is right there soft smile beautiful right there good girl. Now tuck that hand in a little bit more right there just talking down behind the baby close your eyes tuck in nice and tight beautiful right there good girl and now I need you to swing your knees this way there you go right there and I'm going to swing again efficiency is everything lighting is even more important it's all unfortunately there's a lot of light here it's actually all about the shadow it's never about the light it's all about the shadow so we pushed that light back and close your eyes relax. Stick your chin out beautiful right there. Hold it. Let me get a test. Good. We've got some awesome contrast there but I need more light on that back. Okay what's happening is because there's so much room in here I'm not getting any light back over here that looks good on the screen though so whoever's retouching and making those look that good that fast right there relax right there, chin out again close your eyes good turn it in and towards your baby just a little more that's much better light right there and she turn just a slight hair towards me good that was actually cool no eyes and now go ahead take a peek beautiful wonderful. Okay, now my dear that's po's number one the next pose now remember she would have her baby and I would have my doll so I'm gonna take my doll back for a minute she's here with her live baby I would say ok, the next pose in fact actually can I have the other doll um took all the way back in because she's just finished in this position so who's this this is carlos why is he in pink shorts then eyes the football baby the tour crew always dresses my dolls with stuff like this so my baby I'm going to turn and I'm going to say okay, you're here now don't move the baby yet I'm gonna help you do this because it takes two people what I'm gonna have you do is turn her this way the key is I need her bottom above your breast right here and in europe here we want her feet right under your chin gonna take your hands, put them on your head keep your thumbs tucked in and you're gonna be looking at her this way so I'm gonna go ahead and help you do that because it is a two person job we're going to go ahead and rotator around there we go right there. Beautiful when we've got our little hands and right here and I need you to swing your knees this way very good right there. Okay, now this doll unfortunately does not have a chernobyl head, so you're going to manually grips the base. Babies don't come with tags either, by the way, there you go. So just writing there nice and stuff that's good. She actually not too bad. Okay, now we have a couple issues here. Mom's care, but just for the sake of finishing up the baby is the key here. Mom's a prop, right. So now again utilising awesomely fast tools here. Here we go. Uh, and just so you know, typically I work in a dark environment so I could see exactly where the light's going. I can't see what's officially having here, but I know that they need the lights on for the video. Um okay, so here we go. Shot number two. I'm just gonna do it real quick is later and explain why it's so important I just need to check my lighting. We're gonna pull your hair back on this side. I'm going to a little trick here. I'm gonna tuck your hair behind your ear and then nobody likes tucked hair and their ears showing but if if I could just hide a little bit of it it gives it a little so does after the first shots you're gonna look at the baby, extend your chin out like she just had a baby you wantto elongate that neck so I've got to take a quick test here real quick just to make sure that everything is good I'll let that go um turn your nose actually away from you just a hair that way good right there. Okay, so here we go again. We're going to start with the horizontal keep it pretty tried there's one and a little tighter tio and now I want you to turn and look at me. There you go right there and what I'm gonna tell her is before I do this shot before I asked you to do what I want you to do, keep in mind babies hate this position what you're going to do is I'm gonna have you bring her towards you and you're gonna look up that way if that makes sense but perfect but let's keep her out because babies hate that. Usually they've just been fed. You squeeze him up that tight and they're going to get pretty mad so it's a one second shot, you've got a second, so we've done one, two, three so now I'm gonna get back to the camera turn your nose this way a little bit more tilt your head and just a bit more right there very good my dear all right so now go ahead and bring her up towards you soft smile good turn your nose up towards the light a little bit more good actually that's beautiful close your eyes beautiful right there close your eyes again good now put your lips on her cheek cheek do not pucker them though just bring them in to close and do not touch her there you go right there close your eyes bring your lips towards me a little bit more right? They're beautiful and she's mad at you so really sort let her go there you go just keep her in that position though so that squeeze we always tell mom wait till I get back to the camera before you bring her up and then released her will cook so we've irritated the baby they don't like this we're going to go to the next pose this is the third post keeping your mind the baby still has not been touching mom this one I need doll again carlos and pink um so I will say okay you're here now I'm gonna help you with this before you do that we're gonna lift her off and I want you to rotator around and uh right uh we're gonna rotate around your hand is gonna go right through the bottom and her little head is going to rest right in your elbow now they're two things I want you to remember she's a three month old to a six month old the other hand can go here if she's a newborn ifyou've ever photographed a newborn in dad's arms they look like this because they have no structure and know that tunnel head so they look like this newborns the hand the second hand comes under and we actually have all this haven't put it right under and I will say touch the collarbone and when I start shooting I'm gonna tell you two a lift I need you to push that collarbone up what happens is that pushes the body through here lifting the neck off really relaxing the face so the baby has a nice soft little face now I know you guys are sitting here going this is nuts but this is honestly twenty four years of figuring it out and that's why we can formulate it into this so newborn is the lift you could kind of see how it happens lift on the collarbone pushes the baby space out uh three months six month old you can definitely do this and get away with this so hang on okay, so we were here now we're gonna rotate around, put your hand actually open your hand up there you go right there, you got it right there beautiful hand on her back were going to say she put it up here because she's a bigger baby so we're gonna stay right here hydro tag good now swing your body this way a little bit now where the eyes go the lights go this is another one that makes this really nice because obviously my focus my primary focus of the baby would have you turn this way just a little bit more to get a little more light in there since I can't really see the detail as well unfortunately this baby needs some head help there we go okay so the same thing now we're gonna go through the shots we have shot number one mom's not even in the picture this is a great dad shot by the way this is just arms and baby shot number one shot number two now when we need to bring the baby up to mom twenty years ago I would've said bring her up to you try that real quick okay, what did we do? We just made her look really heavy so drop her down again. What I'm going to tell you is what I want you to do because I want toe lift her away from your body and lean your chin out towards her so let's get her in a little closer with yeah just like that goods to tilt your head towards her a little bit more and you bring a chin up here a little bit more than you so what you could see happens by lifting the baby out in a way and coming in you've elongated the neck and you've shortened the body so instead of doing this you're actually stretching ok so let's drop her data let's try to kick through these shots real quick so we could kind of get an idea of the session um you were just gonna kind of cheating here ah little bit I'm gonna get some like wanted to see her eyes too bad there's one two now let's go ahead and bring her out and just like that perfect and lay your head right on her like right on the head there you go right there good tilt your head like you're almost like asleep there you go right there bring the light up to you okay turn into the light just a hair right there that's beautiful I could not quite so far come out a little bit more until your head onto her there you go soft little smile let me check now obviously she's a baby doll in her legs or dorky let this elbow come down a little bit there you go right there thank you but a real baby you could manipulate them a little bit more let me just check the catch lights real quick um I know I know she's not a real person but there we go good dio turn slightly into the light a little bit more good right there this hand here is looking heavy can use to tuck it under I would never say looking heavy to a client I would just say tuck band but you could see what's happening there it looks like claws so look at the difference with just moving that one hand watch that shot it's gonna take a second to come up just really and truly watch how fingers are such distractions when working with new newborns wow, big difference right there all right, so hands are important all right, now put your lips on the baby I have to speed this up because I want to get to the slides. There's three and there's four we've got it all right. That's po's number three I'm going to speed this up because I would rather show you this visually a shot number three now the baby's upset and crying cause you squish there tell me again I say you know what? Do me a favor just put her in like a burping position. Everybody knows that position so I quickly changed my lights. This one is actually all about mom and her relationship and this is also a great way to calming baby down and it's also great because she could have a pacifier in her mouth then it doesn't matter this is also a great way to show the little bottom which we're going to show you later one hand on the bottom like a little cup the other hand gently on her back you got it we're going we're gonna force her head there you go fingers together tilt your head towards her so we've got a little bottom showing her hands aren't very flexible but you get the idea this is posed number four no's towards the light again a little bit actually needs away turn your upper body towards light there you go till did so here we go there's uh relax they're told back lean forward a little bit there's one knows towards the light a little bit more yeah there we go one eyes at me that's ok one right there beautiful oh you're you're good blinker this is pretty impressive what you don't like ok right there nice and tall lean forward nose towards light again good right there there's two and now a little soft smile a little bit just breathe with the mouth so I can see a little teeth action there there you go. Relax you did you're doing that's okay, there you are right there too soft smile I don't do a lot of smiles with these types of images now what I want you to do is tilted and close your eyes turn your nose towards the light a little bit more right? They're beautiful right there there's one now turn your body start turning this way turn, turn, turn, turn turn keep going now it becomes all about the baby babies calm down take the pacifier out now extend your neck out there you go. Close your eyes, attorney in a little bit more so this is posed number four one two and three there we go on that is how fast it would actually shoot that the last pose pose number five we're going to take it is actually a variation of poe's number two but the reason I do this is this actually works really well. If mom is carrying weight through the neck I shoot from a ladder on this one I'm just going to say you know what? Just take your hand put it on her head and I want you, teo but the weight of her head head in your hand all I wanted to do is lean her away from you so just leaner this way there you go just like that and just put your lips in close to her morning turn in towards the light a little bit more and she kissed me and I was nothing thank you gotta guess alright so turning this way there you go. Just look at her again separate from her just a tiny bit right there and her head won't turn dorky, baby. All right, that's good. Nice and tall back fingertips on the back of her head. Slide them down so I can't see them as much. There you go. Just I know she doesn't move very well. What? Squish your head towards the light. There you go, that's like possessed baby there, hold on. I'll get a light test real quick. We're almost done looking a little hot, but we're going to just finish up here. All right? So you're gonna look out of the camera first paternity? Not now. The thing that I can't show you here is I would be up on a ladder would completely change the perspective of what we're doing tomorrow we will hopefully have a ladder. If we could pull that off, I would be up her angle with the up and I'm going to show you that instills in just a minute, so pretend like I'm up in the air. Good now put your lips on her chin close your eyes good there's two turned towards the light a little bit more that way you got it right there and beautiful now last but not least remember, we're shooting for product lines never ever, ever ever shoot the hands and feet before you do this part? Because even though you think the baby's in a good mood you think everything's going ok, you have a very short window this baby could be screaming its head off and I can shoot the feet now um and it doesn't matter pacifier in the mouth doesn't matter, so you're going to put her in just a normal cradling position and I'm going to quickly catch these two shots the first one what I wanted to do is to take this hand I want you to make like a gun tuck your three fingers in and I want you to gently hold her little finger top right there. There you go now again, shadow is everything you're going to see this war in the stills that I'm going to show you I'm bringing the light behind because I want to put shadow on the front to create death and the image if I shoot it from the front it's gonna flatten it out if I shoot from the back it's gonna be magical um, we could even make doll fingers look real now that is like the smallest doll hand ever, so turn towards me a little bit more right there, there we go, we're almost there this is not going to be amazing, but I'll show you a real baby in a real doll, but you can see this shadow detail now imagine cropping in just the fingers it's coming, but imagine we're going to use this is a five by five in a frame, so we're only going to see this small portion of it. Can you see the shadows? If I I just want to show you this? If I if I bring this around and I don't move that light, what? I'm going to get it's going to come up in a second, is this so while you wait for that, I'm going to go ahead and set you up for the next shot, make a cup with your hand, and I just want to get those little toes right in here. Good deal, and I we could do that again with the toes as well. So you concede you see the difference in the lighting? Thank you very much. Now I would say that's a little too much shadow, but I'd rather have more shadow than less shadow, because that creates the little davidson the little cute things that are all about those baby clothes, so now this one's going to be harder because I have lights on this one, aiken with modeling lights can typically see but I'm not gonna be able to see very well because there's a lot of light. All I want to do is make those toes glow. Remember, this is going to be crossed into a five by five let's. Just break that baby's arm. There you go. Take a nice little nice, cute little cup. I tell mom to make a nice little cup with your hand. Let me get those toes together just side by side. What I'm looking for is highlights and shadow on the feet. So here we go. This is we're gonna try to bring those up side by side again. This is the first shot. Um, with hopefully what will be ah, shadow detail again. I can't see what I'm getting too much shadow. So that it's exactly what I was worried about. Somebody bring it around front, a little tiny might let me keep it around. There you go. Not too much. That might be too much, but we'll try that. So now we have a little more light on the feet. That was too little detail. I like the little toes glowing like that, but there's no detail on the little pads of the feet, so we're going to bring that up and we're going to show you the difference. A little more light now you could see the crevices in the feet which is important I'm gonna show you really poor version which is if I didn't move the light at all and I was lazy and I just shot that light straight on then you're going to see what's gonna happen we're gonna have very flat lighting so that's now that's super boring to me they look fat and flat and ugly I would rather have I would if I had to pick out in three and the first one in the last one I pick the first one for the detail that it has so there we go okay, we're going to quickly have you guys set up and I can answer a few questions remember we're going to go through all of what I just did instills if I can cram it into twenty minutes or less great sandy cross few people including in the s is wondering if it matters if the baby is asleep or awake during the beginning to end of thes poses a ce faras asleep or awake doesn't matter parents want their baby's awake even the newborns you have no saying at whatsoever if the baby wants to sleep, they will typically they won't and so most babies are awake for this siri's so usually there in that within that twenty minute window there is uh five to ten minute break with nursing I consider shooting time the actual physical shooting time but if I have to take a break that's no problem if the baby needs to be settled that's not an issue and a question from dar mash what color clothing do you suggest for the parents? Parents are typically for this work we have we suggest dark clothing I'm gonna go over that in just a minute okay um typically dark clothing for the reasons we stated the weight issues and things like that um for babies are babies they're almost always naked okay, so that was another question exactly all girly clothes and we're going to go through that and how that works as well perfect marta photography's wonder I'm a great believer in now after light how would you achieve any of the shots with natural light? All of this could be done with naxalite in fact tomorrow we are gonna use continuous light which will be to me is almost identical to natural light we're going to show you the difference is the volume of light um I can control and collapse that light down to a tiny pinpointed area so that's why I'm getting those really dark shadows in the clothing is following falling to black if I was using natural light you're not going to get that dark you know that dark contrast you're not going to get the separation off the background they're still absolutely breathtaking. I love natural light images, it's, just a matter of your choice for me. I'm selling portrait's and I wantto slim everybody down, and I want them to bill feel comfortable, so I choose to go this. That doesn't mean I only shoot on black, by the way, it means if I know I have my best twenty minutes, I'm gonna do it here, and then anything after that, I'm gonna go all over the place, different backgrounds, different, you know, my clients don't just get black backgrounds.