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Shape Shift Posing Techniques for Glamour Photography

This is my favorite class to teach on because I believe everybody wants to look the best. That can be right. So for me, it's about looking at someone and making the very best of their body, not just for use a photographer, but you make them look great. I have come up with a bunch of cold little things that you can ask for to make it much easier on yourself. I'm going to go down a path now of photography things first, and I'm going to show you some cool clothes to have in your like, kit. Um, you know, I spend a normal like to get it, I'm gonna give you some links and places you can go to places that I find help me so let's get rolling with this because I want to shoot a little bit for you anything that I've done today. I was on the dvds times ten, with all examples and f stops and lighting set ups. And how do we make the adjustments? Just like the posing thing? The opposing is going to be downloadable video there's also going to be a pdf attached if you just want to scroll through and g...

et some ideas imposes if you're stuck on dure, not making you know any. Advancement with yourself and you're frustrated it's always a good idea to have reference material and if you could put him on your phone or put him in something easy for you to access where you're on the set nobody knows but you that you've got these new ideas so if opposing his times to inherit makeups times to get the attention you name, the more you talk to there you get so I work with may through this a little bit as the phone rings the girl calls says I want to do a boudoir glamour shot the romance starts, then your friendship with that person that's going to tell everybody about how great you are she's going to be your number one advertising person if you treat her well? Most of the models that I have shot over the years tell me two things the most important thing that they see in a great photographer is a person who knows what they want and they asked for that to be delivered and every shot they take they tell the model they tell the hair and makeup people they communicate well, what their ideas are and it's a collaborative work ethic the second thing is somebody who's set up it has it all together when they get there, so all you're doing is bringing home that baby again so verbal directions shape shifting poses I think if you communicate well, what you're looking for and ask for what you want to see with the poses in the body, you can your home run if you can redirect where your eye goes to the flaws to the places they're great, I call it address, assess addressing, assimilate, it's a mode you're going to get in person comes in, they bring their clothes, you look in the bag, you haven't try everything on ellen, where you going to see what they look like in this clause is to say the minimum, I still do it. After thirty four years, I'm gonna break the ice, you have to disarm the subject to trust to you so more you can talk to them to better. But before we do any of this, I'm going to talk about user malfunction that I do, and I see other people to use happen on occasion and it's, lindsay level. If you've got a twenty four to seven year, twenty four to one o five and you're shooting a twenty four to fifty because you have a tiny studio, you're probably using the wrong focal length too close to your subject, and you can make somebody look short, squatty, you can change the structure of their head and actually devastate what they look like if you get too close to my face with a twenty four to seventy you're going to make me have a razor tan if europe too high if you lower down suddenly in my jawline pops out so if you have limited space is you're working in don't try to shoot it fifty or higher and you really want to look at your stop and look at your image and say, what am I doing most men to take all pictures standing up women really one of the first ones to sit down because of comfort but it really should be about how to make the person like the best beauty if the girl standing you should stand she's sitting you should sit if you're doing a portrait you have a little bit more leeway fashion and three quarter length images are from knee level to the ground as I said earlier so beauty you want to talk to the eyes, the eyes of seal, the camera on the shot, the eyes and the communication coming from them make or break to photograph no matter what she's wearing so glamour photography boudoir photography is usually looking straight at the camera cause you're selling the subject fashion the isar off camera because you're selling close so there might be movement in the clothes and you want to see that first so you lightened shoot the close so clamor good warriors shit for the person so you're trying to find all the angles so here's that badlands choice the waves were coming in, so I jumped up on a log to take this picture. My camera was at her face look at her legs compared to there stepped over three shots, sat down at the knee and she's taller, better angle yet further away. So if you're clint crammed up too tight, you probably distorting a few things, so relax back off a little bit longer, lands more foreshortening so for a glamour photograph to succeed in my mind, it has to be totally signup seductive, not sexually seductive. But you can't you need to make people feel that they can't stop wondering what's going on, who is she? Why she there what's the water doing well with the flag? Wow, you know you want to feel involved with that image long enough that you're looking at for two or three minutes if the arms cropped out decided picture you're I was going to go right off the page, so you really want to think about what's going on in every photograph you take? Is it finished? Is it complaint in my cropping it where it should be so it feels good to have that crop fall where it isthe. Posing and cropping to make a hand in hand so you can hide a litany of issues with good cropping and perfect cropping I should say so if you're subject doesn't understand what your vision is after your this most killer photographer in the world you've got all these great ideas if you don't tell them what you want in advance they don't have any vision if they're looking at you like is this what you want that's what they're projecting in the photograph like I don't understand and she want my hand on my hips so you've got to say okay and this shot we're going doing sent a little more dynamic have your eyes toward the camera for you shoulders up all things say what the projection is but war photography's invitation photography it's about the allure and the mission of what she's doing so you poses that's your thing doesn't who cares what she's wearing right? I save my nude photography for art in the good war about the invitation so there comes poses all wrapped up in the invitation the straps coming off she's flirting with the camera automatic you have a job description so it makes it a little easier for yourself so just think about what you're doing so I believe there's places where you can crop to make the most sense if everybody's just standing there like a bloc straight at the camera they're going to be square boxy how do you make things look dinner have a vanishing point created by some post you put them in starting the legs crossed if the body I took drawing a painting in college that's what my background and I was taught to draw a human form and put it on a piece of paper how do you get that form to fit in a piece of paper? Well I took a pencil and I could like measure your head measure from your head to your hips and down I could come over to my piece of paper put those dots as I create a circle for your head there's a platform for your shoulders a vanishing point for your waist that vanishing points upside down to your hips another one to your knees so everybody wants to have vanishing points everywhere right? So your goal is to find a way to bring that internet shell so if you crop with smallest place in the body guess what happens it makes a person look thinner if you crop around person here guess what happens your visual and your mind thinks that the shot goes on forever and the body goes on forever so head and shoulders you never want to shot h anybody straight on across him right here because it's a big box at the edge of the frank if you turned sideways you've taken fifty pounds off somebody and you've made them a little more kind camera because they're not like I'm ready to come in they're cropping at the waist is fine if the hands air here and you want to get all the hands but you should never cropped the fingertips off under any circumstance or the feet here so cropping goes from head here to the waste of the arms or an it to the knees to the ground so then you have beautiful shake this whether they're laying standing looming there's no rules other than that to me so even when there's rules there's going to be ah problem person that's going to walk in the door you know you never know who that person is going to be and then you're gonna have to deal with that but the more you practice cropping and talking and looking the better you could be on it and eventually you'll just be coming out of you this creativity on demand as I call it so I say there's four body types an apple, a pear, an hourglass and a ruler they're probably all sitting here in the room everybody wants to be the hourglass the rulers the hardest one to pose and wears clothes better than all of them you're most people fit in the apple in the pair, so your goal is to camouflage that and make them all look like that so we'd see they're done with close posing for stylization or light and shadow so in the curvy girl the extreme curvy girl you want a very shadowy set was very interesting lines I pulled a record close here and I pull this record close to kind of help give you an idea of what I have is to go to emergency bag because everybody his body is different I still to this day can't understand how we can all walk in macy's and pull off a pair of jeans that it's a size six and several of us they're all different sizes shapes informing we can still fit in the genes so how did they come up with that? Well, I like to have places I can go when there's issues or five got something a little bit and secure about doing it once they get there and they're like shaking or whatever I have these robes that I have that I bring to help let just to hand to the body show through they might be wearing lingerie underneath it just don't put the white shirt on there's somebody better ideas so let's just talk about something for a minute if you were an artist and you were drawing something and you were going to talk about shape and form of a person let's say you do it gravitated to piece paper and put a big circle in the law first thing you do to make it come forward to come three dimensional is what put highlight on it shadowing the edges so in the way of thinking as an artist withdraw shadow goes back and highlight comes forward so in a curvy girl, the less highlighted places you want to photograph, the better with your light and with the close you choose dark clothes doesn't have to be black there's brown there's, eggplant there's, jewel tones all the holiday colors will help you add dimension, so then you make a killer photograph based on color and style and not worried so much about what isn't happening in the shot there's all kinds of lingerie that style that's made with it cut on the bottom to helpyou camouflage that pear shaped girl so that you're looking at the beautiful parts I usually balance out the body putting the opposite scale on the top in the bottom. This is a little thing that I bought it target you would never know about this a target it was like twenty dollars it's one of those squeezing type things that makes any dress look great over it. This works great on somebody that's not as thin if they'd like to be a toe hold everything smooth. This makes it easy for you to retouch really quickly with your liquefy tool because everything smooth and tight um when I'm shooting great looking girls that have just a little hip, you were having a little tiny mini skirt to lay over the edge of the panty and I think women look better in structure, so I have I'm going to go down. The list is we cruise along here, but let me talk to you really quickly about posing for one last moment. So lying people down we whether we're using the cam ranger and the levitate er above are shooting down. This makes for a great way to shoot, not to mention every flaw falls behind the subject. The only thing you have to worry about is holding in the cleavage together. If it's a nude or in a bra lying down that's the one thing you never want to let happen, okay, everybody knows what I mean. Um, one of the hardest things that get that one of the most important things to me and a photograph that makes it look like the person was supposed to be there is people so stress here and here I call it the white knuckles when their hold on to the edge of the chair and their hold their tummy and their fingers or wide on the end and their next whole stress, because they're worried their po's isn't strong enough every pose I get into the expression I want softly placed the hands this is the pretty sound of hand, this is the butt of the hand. So when the hands are touching, they're not like that there like this when they grab something, the fingers were together and gentle hands on the hips or soft like this this is athletic hand on the hip this is soft fashion hand sexy hands are here so hands that grab like thiss and like that are not so pretty so they just don't know to polish up that hand I hear people talking about dance hands but that means, you know, tucks thumbs and over exaggerated you want it to look like it was part of who they are their essence so after you get them in the face you want touch gently on the face she's showing a little poem here but her hand on inside was so perfectly white matched to the top. I allowed that to happen, but most of time people are red and center and who puts makeup on the inside of their hand? And then you're in there trying to retouch that and here it is up by the beautiful face so it's just easier if you're gonna have it there to go ahead and put in in a gentle place on the face, gentle hands finished the nails make the nails match everything by retouching pull the knuckles out and I usually blamed the neck up and all of this is gone almost everybody so never harsh never laying never squish legs, arms, hands on face because it can make someone look fleshy and that's what we talked about in our our goal how to make you know a chair of type figure for shortening foreshortening means anything that comes toward your camera as an artist gets bigger just by the nature of your visually my hands bigger than my head now if you pull it back it's smaller so elbows are not here elbows or hear others air here anything that comes big comes toward cameras going to get bigger so guess what happens with legs and thighs so like sometimes behind put the worst assets behind you that's I say that but you know what I'm saying right following me so here's good things you say this is a lot you could take a picture of this if you want when you're talking to a model you never say no you never say don't don't say wrong obviously big never stay tight never say the word but you have to say better things deliver what you want them to do instead of what's wrong don't say this pants are too tight uh sit up straight you gotta tell me roll uh you know what I'm saying naturally we want to say that but you have to be on point with your delivery turn your hips to the side never say the word, but you say hips lift your bomb bomb seems to be a good word for me to be able to say, and it doesn't offend anybody when you lift the bomb, it engages in muscle on the leg in the bomb and makes a beautiful curve line there if you turn at the ways you made a bigger vanishing point and the shoulders a wide again and the waistline is sideways, since in a mall, so turning the hips, looking to bomb, turn it the ways left her chest strong women lead with stature. This is not a strong woman unless she's a fashion model and it's okay to be edgy and artful, but in glamour photography it's about but al so you want to be strong and you want to be moting something, and the body language test tells it all, and I'm going to give you an analogy. Have you ever looked at your best friend? And you know they're mad at you and they never see edward? What helped hotels use a body language? Isn't it there's something they do that puts out that's, energy and negativity? So you want to make everything come up from insecurity and bring it out into positivity as I get? Through moving up the body with the pose turning in the moving his shoulders around the next thing I want to do is relax in that contest and then I bring the face and head toward me slightly as I take a deep breath and have them relax there it becomes their own just as I did with her up on the stage earlier so coming through the mouth also let's all the tension fallout through here so you don't end up with that you know, pulling in here per slips are never good eyebrows raised are never good sometimes I find people over exaggerate and you just wanted like tone it down a little bit and sometimes when you're posing the hips inside you want exaggerate that even more because it will elongate the body so the mouth is always closed it's never the mouth is it has not nobody is aware of the mouth here and then there's a million ways to smile other than so I say that sometimes to my subjects when you're from the camera smile at me with your mouth closed pretend like I just told you something kind of sweet now flirt with me like I just called to buy off guard so the whole time I'm supposing that once I get a good body language hands neck advice too relaxed and that moves through all these expressions and last thing I do is ask for the eyes squint your eyes at me, clarett me a little bit can make it a little happier so I get a variety of expressions and when I shoot for modeling agencies, they all tell me, lou, you get it in the eyes every time the people have never been in front the camera but they have something coming out of their face. They look like they're professional already and that to me is important. It means I did my job for that a person who hired me to take the picture so straight on even a girl that has this ruler body can look a little square boxes. So I started reposed by turning everyone to the side and knees going over in front just like you don't want to show the bottom of the hand unless it's for artistic statement you don't want to show the inside of the arch of the foot so always showing the top of the foot is that the pretty part of the show? Usually if you pick up a book and look at any shoe ads you never see the inside of the arch is always the outside of the ship, so crossing one knee in front of the other it works great when they're lying on their back or standing up it's what will make the body have that esseker sexy lines on a woman or are always on the side so while the curves are for the hip the bomb the chest everything it's the thinning lying too so when they turned back around you canon attacks that v shape something here with clothes creating things that put the attention where it should be this girl had a pair figure even though you can't tell it we put something big on the top and it suddenly made her hips like narrow so you want to think camouflage opposite of what the bigger portion is a lot of structure to the clothes will help as well so creating a v shape overall in the whole film photograph is going to help you even with opposing bigger hair here the arms a route had her doing something so you didn't notice the bottom part of her body which doesn't seem noticeable here but if you saw her she's shaped beautifully but very curvy so I try to work to make everything balance out the best I can and my goal is that you don't notice it it's kind of like smoke and mirrors sent and I brought this fashion picture and just so you could see this girl has really narrow hips so I could put her hip toward the camera but traditionally the hips always go to the back all of these triangular lines here in this movement keeps your eye away from any other flaw in the photograph this is studio like a natural light kind of combined the one big story so when you turn them sideways to see the sexy angles anytime on a really hippie girl, if you pull the arms out to the side or lift him up to hear or have activity going up here with a shirt, that might mean our arms are in your hands. Maybe she's pulled off her t shirt and she's holding that that gives emphasis to that v shape, and then suddenly you're not looking at this part of the body when you turn the model sideways, if you have them squat a little bit, engaged the muscles and suddenly have very curvy up to work with where here we just had kind of a straight line hip positions here are real important, even though they're sideways when you turn sideways here and you push out this way in a long gates the belly. So you get into the crunch position, and that makes systemic look more tight. Pulling in the tummy like traditionally was sent hold your tummy and makes your rib cage standout it's just awkward. I don't think it looks nearly is pretty is crunching down on the tummy, so and pushing the hips forward and out as well is crunching. It will also help that as the arms come out and up, we starting long gauging the body and taking your eye away from the hip. Something could be don't close I put this outfit on, I have actually have it hearing here on the rack to show you you know she comes right out boom with a slip on and I see a beautiful woman with a nice figure, but I'm isa caught right here on her leg just by simply moving around the fabrics you start to take the illusion change in your attention comes up to the face as well as does with the light, so putting the right outfit on the right body type is essential. I think so if you most people buy things they like when they go shopping but they're not used to seeing photographs have them I know that I've had my own picture taking and go, I liken somebody tell me that was the wrong thing for me to wear, you know, I could have lots of statements that I can say, but most of the time big close make people look bigger so fitted things that have some structure to it is going to give a slimming effect. So since most people don't know what works great on them, if you meet with him a week or so in advance, you can at least say, wow, she needs to go shopping, she'll say most of the girls were working out and they will know I probably need to go get something they're craving for somebody to say go get this maybe if you do your research and your look at victoria's secret you go to the stores you'd go in name and you go to targets goto charlotte roose goto all of the lower end stores as well as the higher and so when the little girl says we'll have the extra money I've got four kids or something you have options or you can constantly thrift and go and buy things there's two websites I'm going to give you for a link one is called costumes et cetera and it's a costume shop that I go to in atlanta I'm sure there's one something like it out here but this company has a website and I'll send you anything I don't care what my same is and I'm looking for I can go there and find cool props like I have tons of masks I have hats I'll go there and buy key pieces from them and then I'll have the girls bring their own underwear and ho's and shoes and robes and things like that then we have more than enough to choose from if I have more to choose from then I'm never going to get into position of cheese this isn't working so last but not laser warning be careful if you go too far too while too edgy too sexy with somebody that's not really ready to have that happen it can bring unnecessary stress if somebody says I want to do my boudoir shoot on a harley or something like that, make sure that's a thorough part of their everyday being before you try to put him into that because they won't show the potus to anybody you want to be able for them to embrace him and shown to everybody that no so structure clothing to may means course it if you're going to buy course. It's um, the best thing you can do is buy one that license up in the back because it'll fit anyone it's pretty on the front goes with anything this would even go over the outfit that she's wearing today, but in the back, it laces up so this could go over someone in my age is waistline and suddenly you don't know if any flaws in the middle, so they look beautiful, put on a broad, tighten up straps, lift everything up, everything falls in life, so lift everything up that you can if you shoot somebody in the nude again, don't ever let everything fall to the side so you can do things in color forms to I usually shot when I'm making head shots happen for people, I work off the color in their eyes of the colors in their hair. So for me, you could look straight at my face and say blues, greens, purples, file, it's, grey's or you could work with the color tones in my hair, which would be something like what you see here so you can ask the subject to bring white spaces and ivory's, and then you have a go to, um, solution. Um also, when you're shopping, watches cell rex, you confined things that you can use again and again that are neutral. Longer robes will help you hide a litany of problems on hips and thighs, just featuring the cleavage in the face and hair and a little hint of the leg with a high heel on. If you're going to shoot people in white, which I love to shoot people in white, you have to be kind of fit for that, because why highlight comes forward, which means bigger, so every time, if you've got anything to challenge, darker clothes are always going to be a better solution for everyone. The next round thing round round the ground openings here, mohr highlight is going to come forward so wherever you can save always looked for things this dress photographs like there's, nothing in it but jules all over the body. This makes for a great nude if you will watch the dress stores when they have you know last call last sale you could get something like this for cheap also looking on etc you confined things also look for other ways to make something interesting happen from these dresses that you can grow from from there and this is a solution that I'm working with she actually has own I think these stockings today but I had to go to of course that the cinches everything in it laces up the back and the front it would fit anyone by pieces of lice and make jewelry and I'll work through these hats then I get rid of them I won't shoot that hat or any part of that on more than four, five people unless I'm traveling all over the country for the reason why is you don't want every time you go see someone how shot with, you know low freeman and she and she pulls out her photographs in the same outfits on her girlfriend it doesn't make her photo shoot special, so if you've got one place to work and you're repeating the same thing over and over again, you're not helping anybody here. You're going to go be a flash in the pan so you gotto revolutionize and revolutionize every week every day and constantly change over at the way things look if you only have two lights and you can't pull off the playboy thing, I told you you're on a budget you've got to like what you're limited to dio is shadowy lighting which is good you can help almost anybody look better through the shadowy lighting I used to strip thank here on one side and I put my doctor softbank's right on top for the beauty like I call this my name is like because it's classic and elegant it looks really pretty for fashion, but it also works really great for boudoir you've got a sexy element here that the chair something for her to work on I started standing then she's leaning than she's sitting that she's lying down the shadowy light will help hide any problems in the back if she wants to crawl in the chair um pulled the sitting tight laid down a rug down just kept it simple for the apple type body you wanna have things that move a little bit because they're usually you know, thinner on the bottom so they have great legs so you want to do high heels, maybe thigh high boots something along those lines creating that the something here opposite pairs usually gonna want some camouflaging on the bottom and they're usually really beautiful here, so that's the one time you're going to want to have bare shoulders and arms ruffles things with jackets little skirts with a little lift on the bottom to help cover that darker colors long lines are going to help thin them down and they oppose I'm going to show you right now is something that I asked for brides to do as well as models but it's uncomfortable to do it on do you want to stand up? Put the one foot forward and as the hips turned to the side, the hips or sand for this apple person excuse me pair person so you pushed the hips back almost to the point uncomfortable head shoulder comes around and then it leans forward so the bomb is really pushed back and then the shoulders were strong so you want to hold somebody in that pose because they're going to start and if there needs her locked in my faint so keep them moving, let him get into that, keep it and then drop it and switch it up sometimes when I'm shooting fashion the models tell me their backs heard at the end of the day and I think maybe you know why? Because it's just tilted but each girl here has their body like that any long gates the waistline elongates the legs on poses for hiding more in the bank, always sitting hips behind, putting all the attention forward with a face I'm going to show you some of these poses when she comes out here's a great example of how to deal with somebody that's got a gorgeous figure much heavier on the top in the bottom address that has rushing that wraps that fits snugly around that waste will elongate that anything that's going to fit tight here and hang like, you know, kind of like the dress is everybody seems to be wearing now with movement will not photograph that great on that person that will make him look bigger than they actually look. So support garments, anything with a wide belt course it you know, any kind of layering where you could pull something and dissension that way and give support structure is going to be your friend. The ruler can get away with anything with what they wear this usually like what I call the fashion model, but guess what they want, they want curves. So there's a product called a new bra. I'm sure you guys have heard about it problem girls where I'm underneath the address so they will have to have straps. I keep a couple of those in these little plastic barons when I have somebody is going to shoot with me if they don't have the budget to buy it, I will take these washington woolite drum off wrapped in the tissue paper, put him back in a cute little bag and put it in the drawer, I do not bring underwear for people to wear. Everybody brings their own everything, and they're usually excited about it, so I have these extra pieces that can lay on top of something that they have, but everything that I do here is for impact on to make him look as best I can something here tall, skinny girl, long ruler body she has on the push up bra ads pulled uncomfortably too tight for lifting on did she could wear the little flared skirt on the bottom to add some curve to her so all of her poses air a little more exaggerated to extend that curve, sensing here, straight body all the way down, no hips, no curves whatsoever. So your poses have to really exiled. You're right with that girl she's gonna have beautiful muscle time, her hips and thighs show it, you know, it's what she came with. So remember that clothes make people look bigger, of course, things going to happen is you and have somebody call you and they're going to go well, the first five minutes, I you know, I don't know if I've been working really hard, and I'm just not able to work out quite like I wass, but I still feel like I look up, but I wanted to be one of those shoots with you. They're going to come in with this big moving see through thing for you to wear and ultimately what you're going to see is this big moving c three thing and not them so structure and form around the body is going to be better sleeker lines stay away from all that stuff it looks good feels good when you're wearing it but it's not going to photograph well so when somebody is in front of your camera shooting head shot three quarters are moving into the body the head as we smile guess what happens to our face when we laugh it's a reaction laughing we took it in here as you get over thirty five and striking the older your definition your jaw line faults so when I'm shooting any age woman I usually have the chin come out it's not up it's down and outs so that two things happen joe definition they can laugh and there's no pulling back and double chance and next stuff for me to deal with and they see themselves right in the back in the camera and they look amazing when I shoot head shots for actors and they're all laying all over the table together when they go their audition I want the photograph to look like the person's jumping off the page we meet people what happens to us no I'm not going to come talk to you what I do that lead to you so if you're photographed, pulls that around is going to look like that in the picture, so shooting the first thing I do head is down out, then they can laugh then if I'm worried to the severe case, I might stand upon a half apple box or even the whole apple box and come up to a higher england shoot into them, and I'm talking about lindh's level here, not here here, so you just barely shooting down eyes, so all of these poses every last minute was engaged into the camera like that, so everybody is going to do this when they get in front of you. I don't want to do it, I say two before head down and out before head toward me a little more. So if you get stuck, you just have to choose a little different words to talk about. So emoting expression is the most important thing that you can have happened on actor is emoting personality, interesting photographs don't have blank faces except in fashion, you know? But then you're like off like looking we've learned mary wonderland and fashion right it's fantasy world, we're creating a fantasy world, too, with glamour, the person has to have intention. I'm coming right off this bed on my husband's going to love me or something like that or there's a little flirtation or maybe she knows something about that person the more you interview your person and more you know than the more you you can ask for those kind of expressions to come out of their eyes, your expression from the eyes, the bow on the package before your shutter clicks that instant, that expression pops the camera shoots because guess what happens, expression and fades and then having a base tried to photograph somebody smiling and then you're tinkering with your camera. Nelson, you look at him there a light, you've got a split second to make the magic, so you either have to shoot a lot or direct well, take picture, so I connection is a dead giveaway if the faces blank the photographs over so expression is your key to your invention, every single person, every celebrity, every person I shoot has to have that so whether they're happy, sad, indifferent or whatever that's the key and I think that's been the most important thing in my life is a photographer. At first I could listen, learn how light but the people and getting in disarming people to trust you is key people call me, they're like I know you can get this shop I tried this with three different people, but I know you can get this shot and what a great thing to say right? So talk for the first time and don't let yourself get all stressed out the more you talk, the more you're making the invention of confidence and calmness come about you create your own environment on we want this to be amazing, right? So what I'm going to do now is do twenty poses in twenty minutes um when I was shooting on those twenty rolls of film of thirty six exposures, you can only imagine how many eggs poses I to put people in so what? I thought it might be fun this is the first time I've done this is I'm going to direct her through twenty poses so you can see how I talk to her and what I say and I set the bed up here so that you could see her moving I imagine from my camera view what I would be shooting and so you can see I've already set my chair here and look where it's sitting stand on the ground because she's going to be here on the end of the bed posing in propping for me so I guess at this point are we ready? Can I have a sip of water could have a sip of that water thanks are you going to use the camera I think I'll actually shoot maybe get a busy signal ok awesome so um in the beginning like if you're stressed about posing can you bring this light for me a little bit flatter onto the front of her I usually almost always take my shoes off when I'm shooting so if I want to get down on the ground I can I dress in close that look nice but I want to be able to get on the ground when I have teo I don't dress for fashion addressed to be from the knee up comfortable so I can get down on the ground and I don't if I know I'm going to shoot the railroad tracks I'm not going to wear my favorite shoes in my pant favorite pants or you know three hundred dollars shirt I'm going to wear something though let me do do the best job I can because in the end it's the pictures that are going to sell you it's not what you look like that day although I believe that you have to dress for success up into the point when you're actually taking the pictures you don't wanna have somebody come to your house and the kids running all around and underwear on the floor popcorn and then the names everywhere if you go teo different location to shoot you're certain that the fabulous factor khun stay with you all the way through to the end of your chute so protect yourself from your own environment if you bring people to your house because it's convenient to shoot or to interview or look at the pictures and there's nine thousand distractions, they're going to leave with that energy, not what you're trying to sell. Okay, so just think about how gonna make fabulous everywhere you go, it's like throwing rose petals everywhere you go. Okay, so can I bring that slide back up? Or can we go back and forth from this show to the? Because there we go, that's good. So what I'm going to do is I'm gonna walk her through these poses, and the twenty poses that I picked r one r twenty out of about two, three hundred that I have on the opposing guide book, but when I was shooting for playboy, the most important thing is that the girl really looked sexy and like she did those poses herself so that you believe her so as her party's in these amazing shapes and forms it's about her shoulder position is about her head is about how she's looking at the camera brown all the way through. So as you get her body and oppose, you're talking the whole time, as can put your knee down on the ground believe this way, and if you look at her and she's like going I think I'm going to die they should no way she could look at you and be confident so ask for something that's easily delivery able so you can send a message through the image and then once you shoot like fifteen pictures and you scroll through them always show them the magic picture because they'll go oh yeah, I forgot you know I hate that place on my thought can we hide that? Oh, I love that angle on my head can we do more of that? Because it's a collaborative thing at that point and then they're going to be inspired by what you showed them and the fact that you pay attention to them to that degree so all right, let me just get set up here all right? I'm slightly too close to you to actually pull this off you do we happen to have a fifty? I didn't I have a twenty four to one o five I can use just for this particular thing. So what I usually dio like I said earlier start with a head shot, but in this case we're not going to do that because I'm just going to show you body poses the head and shoulder things pretty simple head down and out toward the camera, shoulders and hands and bodies that have intent the shoulders kind of rolled forward just a little bit but the head is pushed out because the head is what connects back seals that shot the camera. Joe knows how she pulled back. Naturally, this becomes forward and bigger, so the head comes down and out. So that's the seal on on the head of that particular post awesome news. All right, he's. Good over. Just a little bit and then he put the gloves on as well. So the whole thing is together. So since I'm going to try to shoot her all the way down and I have you grab that tattoo to tag right on the front of the way, we could probably even move those shears and bring your hips to the very front edge. All right, so turn to the side like this. So I'm going to talk about your body right in front of you and it's all beautiful, but I'm goingto go all the way down head to toe. So she's naturally is moving beautifully because she's set to great. You can tell she's a dancer with confidence, but as her leg is coming here, if she were sitting just a little bit less forward, see how the leg flattens out. Now lean up onto your hip bone so you really want to have him sit on the back hippo? Not the front hip bone because that's once you sit down that's when they get soft so she can flex with this leg and lean on that one so lift a little bit in the chest in length in your body there all right, so I am going to just shoot this with the natural light so you guys can get an idea hold on one moment beautiful. So does anybody have any questions about anything before I just go along, put your foot right on top of that eric great scoop back a little bit so you can't even see I'm shooting with this seventy I'm coming right back to be in the audience with you guys so I'm shooting at about fifty millimeters and you can see that there's some chunky nous in the middle of her body it's from linz so the longer the lens the better she's gonna look so what you to kind of pull up here now long gate tall for your upper body around toward mia love it turn turn turn your head forward and down beautiful so my focusing points right on your forehead beautiful right now reach down your leg here pulled his hand into your hair here great, beautiful so pretty awesome all right, now let's come forward and do the cross legged thing go back to our opposing guide here I'm not missing anything about moving closer right all right so yes pull your elbows out to the name you remember we were talking earlier when I was talking about the curvy girl in the hips and camouflaging the flaws if she was rounder on the bottom I would have her sit like that and you can do a number of different things with the feet from here to here and the arms concomitant here like that and then in that case you want to emphasize what the most beautiful thing is look at her legs right there so I'm going to come down there because when I put the camera there puts the center of the focus of the attention there so lift your chin up a little bit and once you get her in that pose then you khun roll through seven eight shots from there so it's all about the legs so even though she's in lingerie and it's working beautifully there if she had a little skirt there all you would see his beautiful face hands legs, shoes, feet and you're I would never notice any flaws all right so let's try a little bit more from the side or do you wantto when she go ahead and get right up on their um that's great that's the last one on the little test chart beautiful keep your tummy tucked in beautiful once you look up now toward the sailing turn your head to that that's beautiful for a moment awesome so even though she's kind of sitting in submerged down in there, still very flattering on her tummy, if you have somebody that's just had a baby or something like that, I always turn them over and focus on their hips and their bomb and their legs and her thighs you could the way working out to me is like squeezing a tube of toothpaste from where you lose the body fat and people will have great arms legs and I'll get right to the middle and that's where the softness this is so you either have to stretch that out or focus on the other areas, so don't bring attention to it but focus on the other areas, so now we're focused on feet, legs and arms. The drama comes from her head and her body, so let's have you come around now, it's sit upon to your shins and can we get rid of that for you? Just kind of throw it, so come to the very front edge, so I'm going to stay down really low here if you're shooting there's two rules from playboy women were never photographed with her feet apart this way, says cameras here you can choose somebody with feet apart straight at them but not lying down, so you have to be very careful because suddenly you're going to catch yourself in a place you really shouldn't be the only thing you can do is correct that yourself you have to say anything just get up and change repose because she can either direct her to move into a new pose or you can move slightly and just moving up a little bit can like that okay now for her to sit like this with what she's wearing is fine but if she was wearing a dress no so she's going to stay in this sort of half engaged set up here beautiful and I'm going to jump right in and I crop everything right in the camera the best I can take a split second I think so look how beautiful her thigh is there it's all flexed and she's leaning so the only thing would have to worry about retouching would be the very sight of her tommy there so why don't you pull your go back in the same pose with your arms up now shift your hips this way in this way and we'll do a couple shots but keep your head forward and down beautiful to see how she just kind of came right into the camera by that down and reaching out it gives this one gives the intention because she wants to come out of there that's what it looks like she's reaching out to grab you so as you're posing that beautiful all right shift your hips to the other side beautiful drop your chin down a little bit straight close your mouth for me now put one hand on the hip turn a little bit more sideways I'm looking at this out of your hip beautiful great beautiful turn your palm toward your forehead beautiful put your fingers like in your hair like this has intention to it beautiful awesome great now just for giggles when come forward put your left foot down on the ground this is another pose that I didn't bring the foot forward come a little closer to me so you're not reaching toward me because if she's reaching too far right for shortens so you want to keep things flat on a plane toward you or flat horizontal or lying down looking down anything that comes toward you gets bigger so come up a little bit higher and now turn the top of your shoe toward me a little bit turn it the ways toward me put your hands up in here and kind of do one of these things and lane a little bit close your mouth all right beautiful show me a little more of the top of your foot beautiful awesome so to me that's just killer she looks very proportion drop your chin down a little bit close your mouth someone's gonna say man since it's such a great fit pull up in the chest a little higher lift long get your wife for me elbows away from the camera close your mouth beautiful so just that quick one, two, three, four, five so you're looking for the vanishing point you're lifting up in the chest. We're a little bit shooting into the arm there, so well, I may do now that I've seen that work with the left arm down you're so fit the shoulders keep it soft turned the top of his shoe toward me they're good beautiful could relax your neck and take a break through everything good smile with your eyes for me just a little bit beautiful. Good. Close your mouth again soft in the eyes good. All right, let's, move on to warm or post. All right, let's have you crawling across the bed now you are right in their push your hair back from your face just a little bit um, actually let's flip you over on the back let your head hang off on this side there's a tag on the bed again and somebody just checked out under flip all your hair out and kind of spread it out over the edge. So you have to be careful with people that work out a lot when you get him in front of camera because they're used to flexing and they're usually that's killer from running in the veins pop out on the arms, they get the forehead thing that pops out usually they're holding their breath that happens and I see it when people that run a lot and they're dancers and things like that you'll get it here in hair cause there's training you just have to calm down a little bit and a severe case if you'll have people kind of put their hands above their heart for sixty seconds and bring it back down everything will at least recede long enough for you to shoot it so you're gonna relax your forehead let your head fall off just a little bit more and you're gonna bring your need legs straight up in the air put side by side this really beautiful side by side feet across your left knee in front of your right knee perfect now take your hands around your knees good, beautiful ease your forearms lift your cleavage up good softly, then your arms they're going to relax your face and neck so what I did there was I found the perfect pose for her and then I just kind of rolled right on through it now moving my focusing point to her beautiful good pressure chan up in the air close your eyes and tip your head back there's like your mouth open, beautiful, take your right hand, put it across your chest here as switch switch hands beautiful, you can laugh while you're there good beautiful relax it's really hard for anybody to hold their legs up that long but this is also a really great post for somebody's just had a baby because it's camouflaging all the flaws on dh her forearm lift her cleavage up and then look how graceful her hands look and her feet are beautiful there um so she's in a dream so to me this is a good place for her to start just a really beautiful image all right so there was a couple of more poses here that are pretty darn crazy can we lower this light down so I want to put maybe let's put your head and shoulders down on the floor and then you're gonna put all right right now put your hands behind your head toward me like that that's beautiful now relax your forehead took your hands and around your face for me good beautiful hold it gorgeous beautiful culture legs back up again awesome all right now come all the way down off of there only a dancer all right so let me go to you I've got a few more to do all right let's have you come back up and can we turn the bed on an angle so there's a corner you can stand up and relax for a minute yes yes moving where you're shooting you're always keeping the lens parallel to the floor though right it's not like you're at that point in shooting. Yes, I think the difference between something look like it came from a magazine and something looking like a young untutored portrait artist is when I see all kinds of crazy angles and we're crop lines that makes it look like not so awesome magazines have set the pace for horizontal vertical no matter how many sliders we put on our web sites it's still horizontal vertical when you shoot something at an odd angle it never has a place to sit and we're not familiar with that so it's sort of the art has dictated what we're comfortable with looking at so I'm not saying that you have to be rigid and shoot everything like that but I kind of do you know it's kind of like shooting with ukrop somebody's feet off if there were anything to stand on shots over so um a couple more I'm just going to keep rolling through these so if you think about how many pictures I just have taken already so far we've probably taken what twenty pictures we've already uncovered it so the goal here is from you know the reason I said top twenty for twenty is if you took twenty minutes twenty five minutes with each person and you've made yourself much more financially viable with your time have you guys ever set up a photo shoot and three hours later you've missed dinner and you've made your husband mad and everything else in you to do that, so you've got to get control of yourself otherwise we're in a non for profit business and I wanted to take beautiful pictures and be successful with every photograph you take, you know? You know we are fortunately for me, I grew up in a time when film cost a lot of money. I can remember one of my commercial clients coming to me saying how many expressions around that roll of film and I would say twelve and he said, could we're shooting two dresses? I want you to overlap one half on one role and one half on the other, so if something happens at the lab, we at least have six pictures, but that's all the money I'm spending, so I was very profound with my focusing and on posing justice, though another thing most, almost every playboy model high shot had never been in front of camera, so we see these people, they look like rock stars, but we don't know that they just found them at a casting call somewhere and they have no experience. So you've got to get to a point where you you can achieve greatness and like twenty, thirty pictures beauty shot, three quarter shot, full length standing, sitting, kneeling, standing, sitting, lying down, yes, are you always doing five point six? Is that what you five point six or eight when we were up here I had a much higher of stopping that but I'm shooting at five six that's sixty of the second eyes have three twenty that's pretty regular thing for may if I'm going to do ah high end fashion thing where that I need to see detail in the hair like I've shot a lot for a vada shot lot for other hair care companies and they want to see every strand of hair songs and I have sixteen f eleven and everything's tech sharp go about a totally different white lots and lots of light so I can achieve that I want to stay down as low as possible I want to keep the depth of failed intimate five six and a half is still there a we're talking about fashion soon as you go up then you're looking at everything in the room and you're not looking at the moon and the person you're shooting so if we if we wanted to switch tio eighty five now you can start to say for for she's laying on the bed feet blurry off in the background so if you build a story based on that then you're not so stressed out about all the technical side of things get a few things that you can pull from lighting wants together don't cost a lot of money make the next impact about the clothes in the shot itself and this background is one of those many backgrounds is a portrait thing, but I'm constantly using them out of the circumference from which they were intended, and I love what I get from them. I've taken this bedspread and made it amended into it this background that into a bedspread I've had it that brought it into a house and hung in the background when the wallpaper was really bad, you know, I'm always in trying to find a way to make all my photography gear pay for itself every time I go out the door, so I have intensity take everything with me like a bag lady, but I use it every time if I have it, so so let's just roll through some more poses. We did this sitting, so what we do a couple now where you're lying down toward me with all the emphasis here, can we bring that silverware letter and it's over there looking like this'll itis here just so you guys can see I'm going the whole thing and natural lights of the total focuses on posing but it's not an unattractive life on this is an led light panel no it's not is aquino flow or something, isn't it? Yes, flores applying today as color corrected you, khun as her hands there's a threat or something there on your top glows so when we were putting this whole shoot together yesterday we were I was like take me around show me what you have that works in the jewel tones so sexy light is nighttime walking in the bedroom flipping on the overhead light is game over so right and wrong much we're up here in this today like thing so you want to find a way to bring ambience to the whole thing because you're you're the person directing the whole thing here they're counting on you to tell them what they have so she showed me her closed today and she showed me something she loved and then I had to give her a little direction but I had not met her I saw beautiful pictures, but I didn't know what she looked like I mean, that happens to all of us every day went to make calls you so I give them a lead and then I always have these few things, so what I'm trying to do here is I went on the joel towns, which means darker, moodier sexy of color so lighting wise let's say we're using this thing I would use the barn doors and limit down the light so it's barely people across her face it she was really curving on the bomb this pose totally camouflage is that once you position yourself just a little bit toward the opposite of that upset great. So I'm going to start her here and she's naturally sitting collarbone like this, right? That's what we all day we're comfortable we were t shirts and most of us don't even wear high heels anymore. So for her to look like she's going somewhere with this she's gotta have some intention, right? Just gotta get herself there so bringing the toes in toward me there and you can separate him they could play now not too far off because the shots going to be if you were looking over my shoulder it's either a horizontal or vertical convertible head shot and the hands look how pretty they are just relax like that. So maybe there's a shot here and maybe then they should shot there that you can work on the feet a little bit and she could be laughing here because it's so like flirty so I usually will zoom ryan for that to start, I'll street the head shot first. All right, let's pump right in for that and you could say that's great for the positioning beautiful pull this year's all the way onto your coming to your turkey. Great but you can't touch your face remember life gentle, good, beautiful museum all the way, so once you guys get down on the floor, you're never going to get up good and both hands under you tune good lift your chin up a little bit good beautiful all right so you can kind of see I'm cropping right in there and pulling right around the arm a little bit let's when we come back a little bit let's switch up your turn of your body um turn your chest and shoulders toward me a little more beautiful awesome hold on one second and pulled both hands up by your face feet like this but tip them this way about a little bit less in that moving small motions beautiful awesome beautiful then drop one hand here beautiful take your feeding again chin up a little bit for me good awesome so this is rather deep I'm an f nine so let's go all the way up so we can get a little more shallow depth of field goto four even beautiful beautiful it's coming coming the next one will be a little bit better but see how more interesting is getting with shoes is blurred out could somebody passed me to eighty five let me just shoot just a couple close ups for you're doing a great job and I feel like I've known you for a long time so I'm always like when she came out she showed me those shoes I was like I'm definitely going to be seeing the bottom of the she's so and they're important to her so that's always a good idea as well now accompanying shots if she after she leaves some fun things to do is go into that would be to take the shoes and shoot him on the set. If there's a guy involved, you could have him holding this show by his finger, you said you want to make it sexy from there. So all you're amending shots, which I call those, you know your trophy shots are iconic shots would be things after she leaves even make you shoot the robe hanging there, maybe it's dropped on the floor, so you want to build a body of work to kind of flow around that, but I would focus on face primarily and all the different expressions three quarters on the body, full length, standing lane sitting and every and don't be intimidated by curvy girl. You make a girl curvy girl happy and you've wanting the world and business because they don't have a great image about themselves, and when you show them one, they go crazy and I believe there's, not a person that you can't make beautiful, especially when you reach them on the heart and make him laugh and make them look pretty in front of camera there's nothing like that feeling, so anybody have any questions while we're here? I miss all quiet moment, thank you shoot like this how many photos are you aiming to deliver how many looks just when I shoot a boudoir shit if somebody hired me to do it I plan three full on outfits and I usually dio something tasteful and soft natural first and I have the makeup in the same kind of tonalities a little more high key if they're into something like let's say that ride horses and I want to shoot a version of it out in the barn by the hate bales or something like that I'm going to do genes and abroad of course that is something that has that guests kind of feel I'll do that sec it's so the lining of the makeup can come up and then I'll do the most fear thing last so that I can save time with makeup and then she's usually dressed a time the photo shoot so that they can go out if they want after so um and that's basically it I try to process out the images that right after I shoot them all of them and let them see them you have about twenty four hours from the time somebody calls you to book the shoot to get their money because if they have their money together and they want to shoot this type of photography if you don't answer the phone and call him back for for two of three, four days or wait they're going to shoot with somebody else happens every single time I wait I don't answer the phone, but I called them back when I have enough time to talk. So from that point sometimes if I feel the person has money to spend on themselves, I might go ahead and make a little tiny book of my top ten pictures they will buy it from me want to go to show into pictures almost every single time if they don't I've got a beautiful thing I can show to the next person, so I spend money on my photo shoots I spend money on my portfolio a lot because you got it you can't blend in, you have to stand out and you have to find out what your key thing is it's going to make you stand out as an artist not blending in, so if you're stuck on repeating the same thing over and over, you're probably not going to grow, so break your lights down every day go to a different location to shoot come up with a new idea if you're not working instead of going, I'm not working you need to be self assigning yourself constantly in the direction you want. If you see something on an internet, try to go copy it, see if you can grow like that the confidence you're going tohave than you have from it will be insane plus we have new pictures to show so great elements of being a photographer is photographer every day I love that you have to you never quit going with anywhere without your camera um a time for a quick question on the internet if that's all right from fashion tv in singapore one of our regulars here creative life can you reiterate what or where is the vanishing point? The vanishing point is say, a place that you create an oppose um let me just show you what a good vanishing point would be what you come back up and do this sitting pose I'm not necessarily going to shoot this but I'm going to show it um see you do your knees even for the reflector now the vanishing point here is there's a triangle from the knees down to the floor can we see that it's everybody following may should I shoot that? Maybe I should just take a picture of it so a vanishing point is anywhere you can show a thinning line or kirby line where standing would be here when you stand and show that version the perfect exaggerated a little bit more now laying your shoulders you can't have it twice now we head forward and down so we have a vanishing point it to me and we've created one by bringing her arms to her hits so everywhere the triangle get small it gives the illusion that thing's air disappearing so you have a vanishing point if you shoot someone that is heavy in the shoulders and chest and you put up the neck on them but they're going to look like they lost ten pounds in front of your camera so any time you can use angles or closer fitting clothes or synching in things that the waste another thing is um step over here real slow don't move too fast so the other thing would be something like this um if if she were thick here in the waste this course that automatically will take away from that just put this here giving a narrowing to the waste there so we're not going to put that on actually turned back around this way so we can see but what that does is it gives shape and form that isn't there and they have a couple of course it's a costumes, et cetera that roll down over the hill. Pierre and I have ruffles and I love those because a girl can have forty and chips and you put the course and on and suddenly her body looks like that and then you won't have to worry about the legs she moves beautifully with her legs as a dancer but most girls are going to just kind of stand there go I don't know what do you think so things like this have helped may find a passage from oh, geez, what we going to do? She wants to be in her underwear. Oh, maybe she shouldn't. You know, these things will help and they lace up in the back so you can change that to fit anyone. And it also comes in different colors and they're different textures to like, you can get them and softer fabrics. This works really well for that same thing. So let's, go back to doing a couple poses, but you guys can see the triangle shapes, right? So, um, more vanishing point would be set up on the corner of the edge of the bed toward me again. Right up the very front. Great. And turn your knees everything to the side. All right, great. Pulled this way. Always edge great that's perfect. Now, just kind of pull your head and shoulders up this way. All right, so now we have a vanishing point at the midsection. Then we've created several bottom. So anywhere you can keep illusion going it's about it's a perception, an illusion that she's fabulous and perfectly fit any longer. I did. So you look at it, you just balance out the shape in the form overall she's got the big c that comes down to a point is so overall saying as well is how close did that help so the vanishing point something I came up with I didn't read that in a book it's just something that I've noticed everything years everybody need to smaller waste turning someone sideways turning the tres and shoulders back the camera you can't even do that on the mother of the bride at the wedding you know have a reach down and sentient address at the back with her hand as she standing in that pose so let's do the post where your knee is actually right down on the ground all right so since she's down low I'm going to come all the way down with her so this is so pretty yes I think I need okay so in this post there's a million things she could do you could lean over on your knee and you arch your back a little bit um turn your head and shoulders around on cross your arms when you put your hand to hear pull up like this and year shoulders and then lean back with your shoulder, spread it wide through here and then bring your head forward and down so that shape also has nine finishing points and beautiful angles beautiful so this is going to be a little bit wider shot just so you can see the pose that you kind of get the idea and as she's moving even if you went backwards and forwards you could see how her body shifts from that so that could be done on the sofa on a chair, it could be done right on the floor. You could do it on the rocks outside on a bale of hay is not just something meant for the bedroom itself, so when you're picking close when you put someone in the course that you're not going to be able to then them in the middle because they're stays all the way around it, so to be honest, it might not be about idea that you put it on and see what it feels like say that you can kind of understand what you're asked them to do because they're going to our terms, sitting down and even relaxing because it's so up right and tight. But for me, this solution this longer line gardere is just a great solution. It narrows everyone in the hips. Um, have you come back up on the bed and sit on the edge of this time facing the clothing rack and then do your feet kind of cross like this poor you're just the opposite and put your right foot forward and then lean out onto your knees forward all the way down great switch, do the opposite, bring your right arm back that's great can turn your head around this way a little bit beautiful, you can look off that way for me beautiful isn't more camouflaging poses you can also bring your feet around toward me a little bit great beautiful for a sec beautiful all right, just for fun I'm going to zoom in a little bit good look off just to pass me again beautiful awesome! So the idea here do you see by being down on the ground all you see is gorgeous leg so it just really does put the attention where it needs to be so in her case she's beautiful everywhere but her legs are just amazing so it elongates said a little bit now I would probably tone down the color do you saturate this a little bit um and but overall I think it's pretty good don't you think if I were lighting this I would like a little up light into her eyes to bring more life into her eyes and color back into her eyes? Um and in the case of the speed lights, we could have done something really pretty very similar to some of the shots I showed you from the remember the blue shots with the blue chair in the blue outfit that illumination would been great for this set so all the things together that make this sing is how well all the colors match within the background and make her pop so make up you would request on darker colors is something to keep up to that lives to match you can ask her nails and sometimes I'll ask the girls to go get those little nails that they can just glue right on then you have to worry about painting fingernails so cbs will be your friend yes client the images the same time they're like right when you're finished, do you do you do any kind of at it or did you say here they are and then you say you explain I will be re touching these, but I try not to focus on inegative anything yeah, including my stuff I know it's going to look a little different when I show it to him in the final stages of it, but what I usually do is I'll shoot a killer beauty shot that's like ten, fifteen, then I'll back up she three quarter, then back up fooling before I get all the way down to the ground. I'm I'm scrolling through them constantly kind of culling through what I think is great and I've seen two or three when I get to the wild picture, I go over and I really make a big deal out of it and then I'll scroll forward on back and sure what I'm doing that will relieve her and let her become or part of what I'm doing andi, it just completely changes the whole playing game for what you're doing then nine times out of ten they'll say, well, what about adding this or what about that? And then you have someone that wants to give you even more at that point um you do need to know your camera and the settings on your camera enough so that you take a flawless picture right out of the viewer you've got to be right on the money with your exposure when you give her the pictures there's no blinking there's, no eyes closed there's no bad angles you have to edit it down. Tio remember when I said in the beginning I'd rather see fifteen flawless pictures than two hundred that you think are great that I don't understand what kind of all blends together it's like walking in wal mart? You know, everything plans together, you like what? I just see clothes, food and, uh, auto parts or plants? What did you see? I'd rather go in to the jewelry department, see what I'm looking for. I'm one of those people I know what I want usual before go shopping, so if you show them what I'm gonna work for you and then then exploit that go on beyond that if you want to add something to it, so you're going to get to where you're shooting faster and shooting more perfectly and always show them you know, I keep my camera I take the auto rotation ofthe where that loop around my neck and then I'll pop the loop on there and let them see themselves up close every once in a while they'll say you know I wish I'd live for darker or can we had something like this or after we've done what I thinks fabulous I'll say what about adding what about adding something else let's try a mask let's try something else so then you should will grow but I try to tom myself if I'm going to do with somebody asked me earlier about how long it takes me shoot that she and I think it might have been you early and that didn't answer you fully but I try to spend I give the makeup artist in an hour and fifteen minutes mile and a half we all eat something to have something to drink, water something like that before we shoot I spend no more than thirty to forty minutes on the first shoot and then it's twenty five to thirty thereafter they changed three times in each time the makeup hits about twenty minutes in the chair so you're looking at four hours probably maybe five so that's what ah lot for and I give myself an extra hour I never pile dinner plans on top of something like that because it's just not fair to your client but you need to get it down to that as too many times when I do commercial jobs, I can shoot thirty five shots in a day if I have to, but I know in that search circumstance I can't leave this set I've got to shoot straight through I have talked to me downloading, processing and whatnot when I'm shooting a shot like this, I'm like due to board russia today or I'll do a beauty shot for somebody in the morning and one in the afternoon. It depends also what they want to do if I've got to go to the you know, horse barn and then come back to their house and then do a pool shot, it might take me six hours so that being said, you can kind of figure it out from there um time wise and what you can to put to the side so my lenses I used the most the seventy two to three hundred stays on my camera almost always I use this and the twenty four to one o five a lot and I call it my walk around lands because it's easy, but I love theeighty five when I want to show you beauty shots, I like the compression it has on the head I get a little bit enlargement in the eyes, but it's just wonderful to work with and if you have something in your bag and you're carrying around when you're not using it, you need to sell it so you're your camera gear is never worth more after you buy the media's on ebay. So all right and let's, protego is a really great thing to try if you guys haven't done that every time I go on a trip, or if I have a big job, I'll call and get two or three lenses and I wouldn't normally use, so the work looks new, so if you're using the same one over and over and over and everything looks the same, that could be one element, so all right, I think we're good. Um, didn't they have any questions about anything else? Um, in terms of, um, this type of photography, I haven't understand back up three client meeting. So you meet before? Yes, I shoot. I okay, it's anybody have? Can we get her rover blanket so she could walk away? So I have, um I meet with everybody unless they live in a different state. Um and I have to do everything on the internet, but I can't even tell you how I do it on the internet when I'm when I'm on commercial jobs, sometimes we have tio everything's like interactive because I could even hand you this as well. Thank you so what I dio if somebody calls me they want to do a boudoir shoot the first thing I do is ask him to see me a couple photographs I don't want to see professional photographs I want to see what they look like with their cell phone the dinner last night if they're uh I want to see what color the hair is and if they got broots I want to see what I can do with them what do you like to dio I'll interview them have take fifteen minutes would you like to do to you swam these ride horses do you? You know jeb motorcycle do you skateboard? What is it that you're into on dh sometimes I get people to call me nearly bill I don't really do anything tweet so you know and then I have to really work at it a little bit so I have to get a little bit more out of them. So what I tried to do and I suggest that you guys do is go interview them other house when the kids are its goal are when there's not a million people around you have two or three things there again you get to see their wardrobe and you get to see where they live and what they might be into and the things that they didn't think to show you about themselves that could be sitting right there um I'm like a walking stylist prop closet I always have cool stuff and I'm always looking for something new that I can enjoy propping and styling I love it it's fun like decorating so when I see what they have I know what I could get I might go to marshals are walked to the sale rack to get something I might be a target if there's no money I might go to my costume stores I might go to vintage store I might call somebody I know that has a car you know there's a million things for you to be thinking about at that point when they send you the photos you can usually give them ideas about what colors and things and you at least have given him some information um I stay away from spray tans because people go get them and then they start washing their hands and suddenly their hands are white and then their bottom of their feet or brown and I just would rather make them tan then bring tan I mean you can look how golden you look even here in that like so clean beautiful skin clean beautiful finished hair if they need their hair tram that's always a good idea to have that done fingernails fake fingernails or kind of out with tips so in fashion for sure all that's gone so natural neutral clean what's in fashion for the fashion industry is riel non colored hair things like that so get a feel for who you're person is your shooting go save them go see the closet to shoes ask him to bring more than last because if you consider least see what's in that closet you know you find things like this that could have been hanging there and suddenly have a new idea that you didn't have before and then if I have somebody who has absolutely nothing, I know that I have something I can pull from and they can at least go to target could underwear cute underwear in fact are victoria's secret buy things, so if I meet with them, I get everything set up and styled out that just tell the hair and makeup person when I'm going to be doing what the color family is all she has to do is deliver I always have food and stuff sitting out when I'm doing the shoot or I take something interesting I'll go to a cute little deli find some sort of something I can take even if it's just a little tiny something it makes everything just a little nicer than it then it is a castle breaks the ice a little bit, I avoid alcohol on the set on the reason I do that is because every gets kind of drowsy and sleepy and they sort of tennessee to lose interest in what the focus is and most of the people that I see that are working out they don't want to do that anyway so but if you've got something is an absolute nervous rick everyone's well it's a good idea so question yes can you speak a little bit too how you got started and built up your body of work before you were able to do this continuous business very nice question thank you splattering well I started taking pictures and I graduate from college in nineteen eighty four and I took a job I think I was waiting tables at one place at night and I was waiting place tables in another place during the day and then I got a job in an ad agency and I got thrown right into the frying pan and the person that hired me quit and I got his job so I was twenty four maybe and I did that job I was designing billboards, advertising campaigns and things like that and absolutely hated it I worked with and an office full of really difficult, edgy men and I was like what can I make out of this just like I'm saying what could I make out of this? You know, somebody hands me a ball full marshmallows I'm going to make a souffle any which way we have to do it that's just the way I look at life so when I started working in that environment I was like oh my gosh men were saying all the wrong things to women it was just kind of strange I was like this isn't me so what I did was I put myself into art and I got them that company involved with fundraising and they started winning all these awards and guess who was taking the pictures? I put myself served up a platter that I could actually do something with because it became a designer and stuff a photographer. So as I finished that I went on to giving up the waitressing jobs and starting to shoot and it took me about eight to ten months to figure all that out. So I started shooting models for modeling agencies actor's head shots. Then I start I shot one wedding and said never again then I moved all right on into ok how can I shoot the coolest fashion ever on I started creating my own fashion shapes much like lindsay talks about doing start somewhere, make yourself simon's. If you you have to shock people looking at your work that you can do it, then you have to have the ability to pull it off when you get the jobs so you need to be doing it and practicing your craft enough to be able to deliver on call all the time so I started shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting everybody and everybody that would stand still and then I started working for playboy early on I did it probably had worked for macy's and riches and I had done a couple magazine things, but it was like the local city magazines I'm going down in miami a couple times and I had one catalog company hire me it was a leotardo company, the playboy saying in the leotardo company took me out of the fashion thing and off down what really happens in fashion and then I was setting sail from their one job said the next job I would get a photo shoot like what we just did not have to go it's me you want to do, I could do better than cheaper than better than everybody else and I just kept going and going and going with it and then I started leaving my city miami in l a and new york and I was too intimidated to move to new york so I did the whole miami l I think and then somebody saw my work can you come to italy? Can you shoot for modeling agency and italy? And I was like, yeah, I couldn't remember going there and getting paid and going wow, this is so awesome I can remember the day I came home from there and I had a kn agent common he goes, I'm understanding you're supposed to be cool now and I was probably thirty five so who sticks? Was it for that long? I mean, I'm like a total like a junkie for the art, so I stayed in it for all those same reasons you do because it's a thrill to do what we dont make art make people feel great about themselves, so I just stayed in there I kept making new stuff I made I wanted to be a fashion photographer and I made more money as a commercial photographer, so it was run over here makes a martini right over here and make some money, so I had like nine portfolios had a beauty book, fashion book, high end editorial, edgy thing I had the glamour stuff which paid me constantly and all the while people were paying me money to do other things and then suddenly it was self propelling. So now what I do for fashion jobs as I act as an art director and a designer of the set shooting concept aa lot of people that can't afford to shoot with me, we will call me and ask me to help them come up with the concept for it. I get paid more to do that, and then they hire younger people to come in on staff and shoot, so I'm still doing the same thing I always did but now in this new way so constantly show new work that people haven't seen before the rule of thumb I can give you after you, after telling you all that is in new york, you can never show the same portfolio to the same client twice, even if you just saw them yesterday. So you've got to be rolling in with your clients. Next. Best idea. Whether it's this young lady, here are an ad agency and you got to keep it fresh, keep it looking good. You're gonna be thrilled about it. Otherwise, why are you doing this? Well, why I shot this seven years ago, we're twelve men. Do you like this that's, not your client's. Next, best idea you'll be on top, your gang, think like donald trump.