Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Different Women, Same Pose (Wall Lean)

In this next section, I want to answer as many questions as possible as to what do you do if, what do you do if, what do you do if. So these are the sort of little segments I'm going to break it down to. I've got 13-year-old Abigail who is taller than me and looks like a supermodel. But I want Abigail to look like a 13-year-old, not like a 23-year-old. So I'm going to show you how to pose Abigail like a 13-year-old but like still a 13-year-old model, okay, not a 23-year-old supermodel. I have got Victoria, who is nine months pregnant. So I'm gonna do some beautiful just little maternity glamour tips so that when you do get beautiful maternity shoots in, you know what to do with them. You know how to make them look gorgeous. And she's absolutely beautiful. This woman is nine months pregnant with her ninth child, due this week. Now the last three pregnant women I photographed went into labor so I am quite prepared to deliver this baby, just give me some gloves and boil some water (laughs...

). Then I have Tatiana who is her divine, gorgeous 19-year-old daughter and Tatiana is-- She's 16. Oh, 16-year-old daughter, sorry. 16-year-old daughter and I'm just going to show the very subtle difference between that age group between Abigail, who's 13 and Tatiana, who's because there's a very, very big shift in difference but I don't want Tatiana to look 25 either. I want her the look like a gorgeous 16-year-old. So tomorrow, I'm gonna do a senior's shoot, my style senior's shoot. I'm gonna show you a senior's video. But today I want to show you the difference between how Tatiana can go from a 16-year-old to a 26-year-old and why it's important to cross her somewhere in between. She is not a girl but she is not yet a woman, Britney Spears (laughs). But the truth is that's exactly what she is, she is not a girl and she is not yet a woman. So I'm seeing a lot of senior's images that are just a little bit too grown up and I just want to show you where that line is for me. Then I have Maggie, and Maggie wrote to me and she's like, I wear glasses, I have a double chin and jowls and I want to see what you can do with it. So I'm gonna show you how to take a bad shot of a bad chin and jowls and how to shoot glasses as good as you can in natural light. The thing is at the end of the day, the chin for me is something that you must get right in every one of your image. The chin's almost as good as the connection. You get that chin right, lengthen that neck, you have a beautiful shot every time. A good neck, shoulder and chin position takes off 10 pounds. Okay, then we have Valmut, who is 60-years-old and she is the most beautiful 60, like all fabulous Dutch women. And she is going to just demonstrate what I refer to as elegant portraits. So I take away the same sexualization that I take away for say Tatiana's age group and Abigail's age group and I take that away for that mid-adult range, from 20 to and when I start getting into the 50, the movement changes in the body and I'm going for beautiful, elegant portraits. So I call my over-50 portrait shoots elegant portraits as a genre in my studio. I try and make it look like and shoot that demographic as often as I can because these woman are so beautiful and I want to show how elegant and sophisticated you can make that age group look and how divine they can look without making them do things that you've just done with the fashion quarterly girl. And it's different, it's a subtle change but it's very, very different. Then we have Reagan. Reagan's offered her body up as our curvy girl. And Reagan is going to bounce through all of the poses. So I'm going to do one pose with all six girls but in a different way so that you can see what I change about it. And I really want you to focus on what the shift is and the energy of the image. So I want you to really look at what it is. Why are Victoria's hands placed in a different place because she's pregnant? She's no longer touching her shoulder line but she's touching her stomach line and bringing her face and shoulder to connect to it, whereas none of the other women will put their hands near their belly. No hands will ever go near the belly. The body language for Tatiana will be more open and the body language for Abigail will be more shut down and friendly but still not crossing the diamond because we don't shut down that diamond. Now we talked about this at the last Creative Live but now I want to show you. We are building, in these last two days, we are building you a posing menu on PDF so that you can download them. You've already got 100 flows, you've got about 180 this morning, they told me there was 100 but we did 180 shots in portrait couture. Even the bad ones, you've got any doubles, you've got any blanks because then you can just watch the videos and watch it unfold, pick out what your favorite poses are, work on those. Now I'm going to create a variation posing menu for you. I'm going to get a little bit of a variation so when you get a curvy girl in, you can say, how did she do that lying down again with the curvy girl? When you get a young girl in, it was like, how did they make her look 13 again? You know when you get the elegant portraits in, et cetera, et cetera, how did she nail that double chin and jowls? How did she do those glasses? It's all gonna be there for you as a reference as much as I can show you in the next hour. Any questions? Let's go. Okay, so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to go back to and I will do it over and over again, I'm going to go back to my classic wall pose. And the reason I'm gonna go back to my classic wall pose is because it works for me and I really want to show you how to rock it. So the classic wall pose for me is when I get all of the girls to stand up and just do a natural recline. So I'm gonna start with Tatiana so come with me, Tatiana. Okay, so Tatiana is 16, so what I want to do with her is I want to take a beautiful portrait of her and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make her look and then I'm gonna make her look and then I'm gonna show you somewhere in between. Okay, so come here. I want you to lean, let me just push this back. (high-pitched squeaking) Okay, when you lean against the wall, you can take your whole weight on there. So put your hand down and turn your body away from me this way. That's a good girl. Okay, now, I want you just to, can you just come off there? I'm just gonna push this back. Is there something stopping that from going? (high-pitched squeak) Whoops, sorry, noise. Nope. Okay, you're just gonna have to take your body weight on there. Good girl. All right, so lean against the wall. Savannah? Tif, yeah? And a reflector would be good. I got one, I'll go get it. Okay. All right, let's just look at the body. Not this one, I want the half. Oh, over there. Just about any age group for younger girls I could leave them flat against the wall and let their body just go up and down the wall. The idea is that the less shape that I put in the body... Just lean forward just one little tad. I'm just gonna bring your hair out here, there you go, and go back again. Good girl, perfect, don't move. Absolutely right, okay. So now I can leave her body straight up and down against the wall. I want you just to bring your chin all the way around to me. So I can do nothing with her body shape and just connect her chin. Okay, so her chin connection is when the shoulder comes around and connects with... The chin comes around and connects with the shoulder. All right, so I can do nothing with her body line and just open up this pose here and I'm here. Okay, don't move, Tatiana. Beautiful name, by the way, my dear. Okay, we're away. (click of camera shutter) All right, at this stage here, the straight up and down for this age group, absolutely fine because I'm not putting any shape into her body. I can let the natural shape of her breast line and the natural shape of her waist just take over because that looks beautiful. Now what I'm gonna do is I'm going to start putting in shape. So I can straight away drop her down to here, so push your hips forward, that's a girl. And I want you to take your hips away from me, this way, so I want you to push away, stop. And I want you to take your hand here and slide it down. Then I want you just to open this up to me there. Okay, I'm just gonna tuck that in. I'm gonna pull that back. Hairspray, can we spray? Have we got hairspray? I just want to spray back this here. That's it, perfect. Don't move. All right, so from here, I can turn her 45. As soon as I turn her 45... Bring your chin around to me, Tatiana, this way and just turn your body a way from me a little wee bit more. So straighten your head up to me and bring your chin around. That's a girl. As soon as I turn her I start to show off her body line, which is not a problem. At this stage, I'm fine with that. There, she looks about 15, 16 and as I start to bring her body line in, obviously she's gonna start looking more mature because all of a sudden I start to see the hour glass in her body, okay. So from here, what I do is I start working this more. Go lower and kick back a little bit more. Put this hand up to me here, that's a girl. Turn your hips away from me, so push that way. Now bring your chin back there, stop. As soon as I connect that chin to the shoulder now that connection comes in really, really beautifully through here and I have to be really, really careful because as I start turning her body more and opening her body up, I start to make her look older and older. And I think there's just this halfway point where you kind of cross that line between really young and looking supermodel and just starting to look a little bit too fierce. So I don't mind them having just a nice, light expression on their face, a little wee smirk. And if you come up to here, now slide onto me and really take your body weight onto that outside foot. Come up onto your toe. Good girl. Slide down to about here, straight up and down with your head and shoulders and then just relax your mouth. Stop. Okay, forward and down with your chin. So that's it, slightly this way, don't move. (click of camera shutter) So most girls this age read fashion magazines and they know a lot of posing. In fact, a lot of the girls this age are doing a lot of the poses themselves. So I really think right now it comes down to a couple of really subtle body languages. One of them is this, instead of doing the pouty lips or the little smirk, she can go... Rock your hip away this way, Tatiana. Stop, that's it. Take your weight there. She can bring her chin around, what she can do is give me a little wee light smile through the eyes. Good girl, that's beautiful. Keep it soft instead of more pouty and as you watch this come out, this is so sweet, it's lovely. Also you can shut down this body language here. Okay, so cross their arms and instead of bringing the shoulder up too much, just bring the chin down this way. And when you bring the chin down, you just get this beautiful little line right here. And then you can add a tiny little smile in here and that's really sweet and really age-appropriate. So I just am very aware of what that little smile is and how to shut it down. So Abigail, come here. Just stay there, Tatiana so just walk the that side. You're all right, it won't fall down. Okay, now it's gonna... (high-pitched squeaking) Okay, Abigail come here. Abigail is 13 and she's taller than me (laughs). Okay, the difference here between Abigail and Tatiana is three years and it's a significance difference in age, right, through that time from 13 to 16. What I want is I don't want to make Abigail look 16, look 26, look older. So what I'm going to do first is I'm going to get you to stand against the wall, which is what you were doing, exactly right. I want you to put your thumbs into your jeans and I want you to come up onto your toe. That's a girl, right up onto this toe here, good girl, perfect and I want you to bring your chin around to me. Don't move. Okay, so right now there, can I just bring some forward on the other side. Beautiful. Okay, exactly the same shot here. All the way around, chin around to me, Abigail and chin down. Okay, so bring your head off the wall. That's it, and bring your chin down. So Abigail has almost no makeup on either so keep it really natural, keep it light for this age group. Really, you can work this shoulder forward a little wee bit and bring your chin forward and down. Now, what I'm trying to say is when I was just... Soft eyes, Abigail, that's a girl, stay there. And now I just want you to give me a tiny little smile in your eyes. A little bit more, a little bit more of a smile in your lips. Good girl. Sorry, did I get it right. Okay. What I'm trying to say is these girls don't mind looking like models but I just don't want them to be in really open, sexy poses, okay. So I want them to look like models and they want to look like models but I just gotta be really careful where I place their hands. I don't bring their hands up into their face or into their hair because I just find that it looks a little bit too much in terms of a little bit too sensual. And watch where the hands are placed. You don't do any of the decolletage touching and none of the lines down through the bottom of the brow line, which really are kind of boudoir poses anyway when you're touching that area because that's the area you touch when you want someone to look at it. So when you flirt, you touch the parts of your body that you want to look at, but these girls can be cute and beautiful with their shoulder up and they never do anything open, okay. So as soon as they open their body up they just look too old and it just looks wrong. It looks really, really wrong. But what you can do is generally this age group is so confident... Well, it's funny because this age group has a different type of confidence. What it is is they're a little bit shy but they have no problem with themselves because they haven't got to that older comparing myself to everybody, I don't have this yet. They have that beautiful, I'm just who I am ness about them so I like to work it. So I'll swap out one thing. Turn around, Abigail, so that you're facing me like this. Put your thumbs into your jeans and kick your hip out this way. Okay, right out, right out. Push it out, push it out. Okay, this elbow goes back around your body and bring your chin around to me this way. That's the one, stay there. Okay, she can create at 13 this beautiful body line. So that to me is a perfect pose for this position. And she's wearing a nice high top so it's sort of just a casual, age-appropriate outfit. Chin around this way. And I want you just to kick your chin towards me, like this. That's it, don't move. Even a bit more, stop. Just lift your chin up a touch. Okay, Abigail's got a lean face so when she goes chin down her face gets too small. Okay, so she needs to be chin up to me. And I can photograph her here. And Abigail, I just want you to give me a tiny little smile. A little bit more than that, a little bit more. (click of camera shutter) Good girl. Chin towards me a little bit more and then stop. Now give me a little bit more smile, more, more, more. (click of camera shutter) Oh, sorry, did I get a blink then? Okay, got it. Okay, I want her to use her body line. I want to use her shape but I just want to keep it into those locked down positions. I want you to stay there and I just want you to fold your arms like that. So keep kicked out onto that hip, turn your body a little bit more this way, even bring this elbow around a little bit more. That's it, hold your elbows. Maybe swap hands so that you're like, that's a girl. And put this one underneath, all right, so up underneath your hand. That's it and then long chin towards me. So bring that face towards me. Good girl, beautiful. It's uncomfortable, isn't it? Well, especially with everybody watching (laughs). Okay, don't move. Thank you. Okay, and there it is there. Chin around to me, Abigail. Push your chin towards me and down. (click of camera shutter) Okay, long chin towards me and down. Give me a big smile. (click of camera shutter) Now anything with a smiling child will be bought by their parents. Anything, anything. Parents love children that smile. Can I have the bar stool and the box? Its possible how the angles * somebody to look slimmer but you can change their age too? Not only can you change their age and their sexuality, their body language really dictates all of that. But also what I like about it is you can slim somebody down and you can thicken somebody up. So you can bring them around in all the right places. Like she's lean in the face so we lift the chin forward, not down, because if we put it down we slim her face down too much. So we're always looking at what's little. What's little is coming forward, what's big is going back and we're trying to get that balance in between. What I like with this outfit is I don't feel the need... Sit up here. I don't feel the need, it won't fall... To change anything about what Abigail's wearing in terms of trying to make her look hotter or anything like that, she's 13. What I want to do is use what she has, and that's her innocent sweetness and her 13-year-old ness. Put your foot up here. Let's look how long her legs are. So I just absolutely... Now come up onto your toes, yep. Not too much and bring this knee in, so cross in. Now Abigail, I want you to just lean forward onto here. Now when I did this pose with the other girls this morning, I made it look more like a cat, okay. I made their knees come in and I made them look more cat-like, more sexy, and I kicked them out to one side so you could see their bootie out this way, correct. But with Abigail being 13, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to try and keep her right here, just in that zone, and I want to look for assymetry. Stay there, just put this one through here. I want to look for assymetry always and I just want to work with the fact that I'm actually shutting down that breast line. So remember what I said from the front, if the knee comes up too high and you can't see the boobs, you need to drop the foot forward to see the boobs because on an older girl the idea would be that we'd drop this foot forward and we'd see all the space in here. But for a younger girl, it can stay covered up. It doesn't have to be opened up. There's no cleavage in there to show off. We're not trying to get the attention down through the diamond. All we're trying to do is get that gorgeous long legs, that look there where she's wrapped around her own knee. So then when I photograph her I'm trying to get this look here. So lift up nice and tall through your neck and shoulders and bring your chin towards me. Isn't it amazing how that is a universal language? I'm still amazed every time relaxing somebody's hands that people understand what those moves are and it's really amazing. Bring your chin this way. Now stay up and tall, Abigail, and bring your chin down. There, there it is. Okay, now I'm more interested at her age, chin forward and down a bit more, at getting these shots in here and getting as much little personality shots as I can sitting on the chair, knees curled up. And another thing I would do for Abigail's age is, jump out, take that bar stool out, Tif, and I want you to go with your back down, straight down against that wall there. The other thing I'd do... Actually, stop, sit down, just sort of come away, watch that bar, that's it, sit down. And the next thing I'll do is use her long legs... This way, sit down with your back up against the wall. That's it and put your hand up and over. So tuck that knee under. That's a girl. And your elbow comes up to here. I would bring her up into this pose here. Because to me it's that halfway point, we did the same sort of pose with Rose, we did the same pose in the fashion but we made it look more fashion. And all I'm gonna do now is push that elbow to the back, use her knees, her long legs, bring her chin all the way around to the front this way. That's it, so chin that way, good. Actually no, stay upright, Abigail, and just bring your chin like this. That's the one. And as soon as I get that I can shoot down this line here. So bring your chin towards me and down. That's the one, stay there. So I'm always looking at shutting that down, keeping it sort of around that 13-year-old and I'll bring her back for a couple more. What I'll do is, swap places with Tatiana and come in here, bar stool in. So same rule applies, okay. And what I'm gonna do here is I'm gonna bring your knee up. Just one foot up. So you can bring one foot up and cross your knee over in the front so I can't see up your skirt. Put your toes towards me, just this one. That's it, good girl. Okay, now what I'm gonna do is I want you to lean forward onto your knees. Right, two things happen here. Instead of getting her a little higher on the knee and getting her to do her cat, I'm just gonna let her sit really elegantly, you know, just nice feminine pose through here. Sitting nice and tall. And then what I'm gonna do is this, okay. Okay, leaning forward a little wee bit more. That's the one. Okay, give me a slight tip this way. Just a really slight tip, that's a girl. And I want a tiny little smile in there. Good girl. (click of camera shutter) Okay, I can keep her sweet and sitting up like that. Then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna point this toe more and bring this knee out because when I bring this knee in I'm bringing... Legs up, in, more, longer. So point, point, point, good girl. Now I want you to lean forward more, okay. Now I want you to kick your body out this way more. So elbow across, this one, yep. So I can see that shape through there. Then I want you to lift up nice and tall, okay. And then I want you to bring your chin around this way. So I want you to lean towards me more, that's a girl. Now I want you to straighten your head up and I want you to bring your shoulder around and bring your chin back this way. Okay, I can just keeping moving with this pose. Little wee sweet smile there, good girl, gorgeous. (click of camera shutter) Now, when you bring the hand up to the face here... I want you to bring this elbow up, okay. And I just want you to touch behind your hair, that's it. Okay, so just bring your chin forward. Now, there's a distinct difference between putting the hand on the outside of the hair. Remember, we don't want to talk on the phone. To bringing the hair on the outside than it is to cupping the face and touching the face in this way because this is look at me, look at me and this is I am who I am, do you know what I mean. So there's a distinct difference between that friendliness and that body language through there. So I don't bring the hands to the face, I just make them look young and confident and I'm cutting that top knee off. Now she's not working her body from side to side, she's just sitting straight up and down. So she still looks young in her pose and she still looks relaxed and just really, you know, gorgeous, young, beautiful girl, which you are. Okay, so from there, I want you to give me a slight tip this way, bring your chin back this way, okay. And I want you to give me a really big gorgeous smile. (click of camera shutter) Sorry, blink. Ahh, sorry, my bad, don't blink (laughs). Okay, you can blink. (click of camera shutter) That's it and then your shoulder comes forward and you can just give me a big gorgeous smile there, awesome. Okay, same thing, just keep it closed, keep it closed down instead of up and touching, make it look beautiful. Still give her a couple of supermodel poses but just don't give her any of those open poses. Don't open that body language up, don't touch down, don't do anything like that. It just makes such a big difference. Also try and remember that at 16-years-old, I mean, she's with her girlfriends, what's the most thing you do, talk and laugh, correct? Talking and laughing is pretty much what you do, talking, screaming, and laughing, generally at 16. (clicking tongue and mock screaming laugh) Lots of fun. (laughs) So the idea is I don't photograph a whole lot of 16-year-olds that go like this, because she might think that that's cool because Victoria Secret models do that, and they do and they do try to pull it out of me, and they are very, very quiet in their expressions because they're quite shy. But they're also confident enough to really give you those beautiful smiles. And they should be able to give you sweet girl arm shoulders and I'll show you what that is. From here take your arms down, we did this with Rose. Now to me, that is not, I'm showing off my body. It's an arms down that is gorgeous but it's giving me a lead into her shoulder. You need to point that toe because it makes that leg longer. You need to give me a beautiful shoulder here more, more, more, that's it. And then you need to bring your chin around. So I can take her to there with those arms there and chin forward and down, Tatiana, and give me a beautiful big smile girl. (click of camera shutter) Okay, so I can take her right up to there and it's still cute to me. That is still beautiful, it's still age-appropriate, she can still work her shoulder, both of her arms can drop down, and she just looks young and her age. Do you find that girls her age when they bring a friend that they find it easier to relax and smile. No. No? They're all the same, they all do it. Relaxing 16-year-olds and 13-year-old girls is easier than 26 and 30-year-old women. I notice that there's less of a connection, maybe I'm wrong, between her chin and her shoulders. So if it's sharp and it really connects, that's for older and if it doesn't quite connect-- No, it's not so much a shoulder thing. Okay, so stand back up to me and I'll show you this. It's a body language thing. Okay, so if you turn your body this way to me and then lean forward, that's it. So from the waist, so tip forward. Then give me a shoulder there. Okay, if I bring her shoulder, her chin all the way there to the shoulder and then I have, stay there, a sweet little smile here. So give me a look there. (click of camera shutter) Okay, that there is a young pose. Okay, have a look. So that to me it's sweet, it's young, it's connected to the front shoulder. Wouldn't you agree? Beautiful. So then I go like this and I go give me more shoulder and then tip down, stop. Relax your mouth. Chin all the way around to me now. (click of camera shutter) So age-appropriate. That's where her father says hell no. (laughs) Yeah, so it seems to add a little bit of edge, right. It adds some edge to it. Because what it, the difference is if you call my name, Gabe. Sue. And call my name again. Sue. (laughs) Say my name. Say my name, Gabe (laughs). So keep it age-appropriate but still age-appropriate but what she wants. Relax your mouth. Okay, chin all the way around to me now. The difference in her gaze is significant. What I did next was somewhere in between. The shoulder is forward but it's not a sultry mouth. See, half and half. Yeah, that's a perfect medium to it. It's a softness to it. So to me it's like a body language. I see cute, I see sexy, I see sultry. Like I kind of see it like she's half, she's beautiful, she'll love that. But not seductive. Yeah, but not that seductive, you know. And I just kind of think if I get, Tatiana, here so turn towards me. If I get you, actually just maybe just hold hands up like this. So I want you to yeah, cup your face. In fact, put this hand across and just low cup, that's it, now push it back to your throat. That's one, come into the light for me. So step out here. That's it, you can push this out. Don't move, okay, right here. So here I want you to just take this hand away from your neck, that's it. Bring your elbow across a little wee bit more and I just want you to turn to this position and let this hand go and bring your chin around. All right, now I can get her to move her hands up into the frame, but I think as soon as I start putting her hands up into her frame, I start to age her and I mean age her in towards her 20s because that is really... Kick your bootie out now, lots of shape. That is really starting to get towards a pose where it's really working her body. Work it around a little bit more. Cross this line, oops, cross over there, that's the one. Keep it away from your face and just tip down now and look at me this way. Now bring your chin around, that's the one. And a little tiny smirk, just, yep, gorgeous. So I can keep working into that shoulder and working into that expression but the more I turn into it, the more I feel like I'm bringing attention to whatever I'm touching. Okay, so you are bringing attention to whatever you're touching. Okay, so that's why we never touch our breast, we never touch our tummy, unless we're pregnant because there's absolutely no point doing either. Okay, so Abigail, you can go and sit down just for a minute. Tatiana, you can go and sit down. Victoria, you can come up. So bringing attention to our hands with what we're touching is really, really simple because it's like this... If you come and stand here. You are the mother of that beautiful child about to have another beautiful child, no doubt. Amazing. And I loved your video, by the way, that you did for Creative Live. It was absolutely hilarious. Did you come up with that saying? (mumbles) of fame? Yeah (laughs). Okay, so there's a couple of things pregnant women can't do, they can't lay on their stomach, obviously there's lots of positions that they have to, they can't get with the hip pushing out and the hip pushing out but they don't need to because I'm not trying to give her a waist, I'm trying to show that she has a bump. So the idea, for starters is, I want you to turn this way. I do get a lot of women who come in that are pregnant that don't necessarily want nude shots or want that fabric shot. You know, you get that fabric shot. The one thing I would say to all portrait photographers is to me you have more than a client here, you have two clients here. Okay, so this client here needs to be won over with some beautiful maternity shots. She might buy anywhere between one and three shots is my usual amount for selling because women don't generally buy full albums of maternity shots. However, somebody in the chat room's going, I'm a maternity photographer and my girls always buy a full album. That's me, I have never really sold many maternity shots. My idea is that I take a few really poignant shots. So I have two shots that I love to do. One is fully clothed. I love to do a pregnant shot because I really like the idea that you can get a glamour shot but you're pregnant. First thing I do is circle the baby. Okay, so I'm up and under because to me I think about Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair. I think about how she did that beautiful pregnancy shot. I think about from the front how that little circle is so perfect and it is showing where we want to look. And that image it's really looking at that image and saying, this is my belly, I'm pregnant. And also when people are wearing certain colors you can't actually tell a lot of people are pregnant. So I still do the same. Recline back, so just push back onto that wall. And really I just show off the belly here and you know do all of the same poses. And I want you to bring your chin forward and down this way. So the two eye lines I always do with pregnant women are this. I make sure I get that beautiful shot right there. And chin forward and down this way, Victoria, a little bit more, stay there, don't move. And I make sure I crop it right to the end where the belly is. That to me is just a beautiful pregnancy shot. Like it's the one I've always sold to people. I take it, I know it's gorgeous, it works, it emphasizes her beautiful shape and I think wow, that's so gorgeous. Then what I do is, I'll just get you to go back a little wee bit down that wall. No, no, no, that way, that way, yeah, yeah. Okay, and I want you to do 45 to me and I want you to swap sides with your hands this time so you're up this way. That's the one. Now I want you roll back a little wee bit more so I can see the shape of your belly, that's it. And I want you to bring your chin forward. Did you always want a big family. Um hmm. You did? Four (laughs). Four kids, you're like yeah, we'll stop at four (laughs). That's fantastic. I want to know if all nine of her children have the same unbelievable beautiful features-- They do. Can I just tell you? I've seen a photo of all of her children and they all look like the first one. They've made no mistakes there, they're perfect. I don't think you could take a bad picture. Okay, from there, I want you to bring your chin around, bring your chin this way, away from the wall. And then bring your chin around here. Okay, this is the only time I start bringing the head away from the wall. Okay, so you know how I'm always here to the shoulder? I'm taking her chin away from her shoulder. And do you know what I'm doing? I'm putting her body language to her baby. Okay, so her body language is going down to here and it's, we are looking at you, not I'm looking at you or look at me, rather. That's look at me, this is we are looking at you or this is us. And her body language goes away from her shoulder and down to here but around to me this way. And then I know that I can get the shape here. (click of camera shutter) I actually think I prefer hands around the other way. So try that and I'll take two so that you've got it. But to me, I just want to see this beautiful shape here. Now I also love when you go... Just stand on that back wall, just straight to me. Two things, one of them is doing the circle from the front and I usually... I won't make Victoria sit down because she's nearly due, but usually I want to get the shot where I get this perfect circle in the belly and I like to do that sitting down with the legs crossed because I just think it looks like such a beautiful shot. I also, I love that. I also really love it... Come back here to the side. Come towards me, that's it. I also love both hands underneath the belly that way. That's it. And I want you to bring your chin down this way. Now to me she's looking down her own body line but she's also looking down her belly line and I just think that is so gorgeous. I always get this shot because I just think it really works. (click of camera shutter) And I also love the quintessential Demi Moore shot, whether you do it with clothes, fabric, or nude, it doesn't matter. You can do this in a G-string and then remove the G-string on Photoshop. Stop. You can do this with fabric wrapped around their belly and breast. Or you can do it in a white sheet. Okay, a white sheet just folded but tuck it under the boobs so that you can see the belly. Don't just wrap the boobs and the belly together, okay, they just look like three bumps, instead of... It's got to be boobs, belly. Okay, and then do the typical side on, I absolutely love this. So Demi did it like this, she had this hand here, she was naked, so she had this hand here and she had this hand across her breast line that way. Just drop the shoulder down, that's a girl. And then work the shoulder forward and come off onto this toe. Now that there was that quintessential Demi Moore Vanity Fair shot. Just tuck in under here. So it looks good white sheet, looks good with fabric. Chin all the way around to me, that's the one. And shoulder up to meet it, good girl. And that to me is such a beautiful shot. I've done it a million times. Another one that really works, that really works beautifully for me, is when I get a soft ottoman... Ahhh, you look so gorgeous. Come on have a look. You are, so beautiful. Awww! Yeah, do you think you'll have 10? No, this is it. Oh really, if it's a girl can you call it Sue Bryce? I'll call it Susanna. (laughs) So Hebrew is Suhanna, something, Huhanna, I think it is. Oh, Shuhanna I think it is. So what I'm gonna do also is, I've done it before. I always have a look at the girls and how pregnant they are. There's a half shot for me. I won't make Victoria do it, I'll do it myself. So what I do is I always ask them how far they've come along. On a soft surface they can do this pose really beautifully. If you bring their top knee over like that and then get their elbow down so their belly is here, what happens is if you swap the top leg out so this knee takes the weight, so the stomach sits here and they can do that pose, okay, and it's actually like a lying down pose. This arm here hides the breast, this arm here takes the face, the belly sits beautifully between the knee and the elbow. It's one of my all time favorite shots. I usually do it in a G-string because I don't ever shoot any nudes without underwear on because then they feel comfortable lying down. I've done this also in a strapless bra if they don't want to take their bra off. But the front arm hides the belly, the knee slides forward. In fact, somebody lie down for me so that I can see that I've got it right. Okay, so what I do is this knee is there. It's really important this knee is here because the belly comes out from here, this hand crosses the breast line and rolls forward, okay, so that elbow goes down. That covers the boob. So the belly fills this space here and they're not actually lying on their tummy. If they're really pregnant, they can't do it. But if they're... Victoria could probably do it and especially on a soft couch like that. Then I get like a sleeping pose because I get this beautiful sleeping pose and it's this gorgeous form and it's this belly and I shoot it pretty much from the knee and then I get the eyes to look down or asleep. And it's just... I shoot it horizontally. I always use those nude, pink tones that I have in all of my images and it just... And I can remove the underwear just here on Photoshop so they look naked, if they want to. Or I can wrap them in a white sheet and just have the white sheet tucked up under their arm and have their leg showing and it just really is a beautiful maternity shot. Thank you. All right, from there who have we got next? Maggie, come here. Two things, the first thing I always ask my clients is how do you, do you ever photograph without your glasses on? No. And if they say no, then obviously I'm doing the whole shoot with their glasses on. So to get around glasses, I'm obviously dealing with natural light so unfortunately it's just something you have to remove on Photoshop because it's very hard to deal with a bounce reflective light when you've got glasses on. But I just look where the light is and try to turn them in and out of the light as much as I can. I just work right around this. So come into here in my standing position. 45, lean (laughs). Good girl. See, my clients can just do it all on their own. I have my weight on the wrong foot though. So Images by Sarah says that Sue makes me believe I can do this. She is so sincere and amazing. I know it won't be easy and come naturally but she has convinced me I can do it. Yes, look, somebody wrote to me on Facebook last night and said, you said it's easy and you said it's easy and it's not easy. And you know what, it is easy if you just slow down. Because you just get tripped up so often. And so often I'll demonstrate on a model and then you'll go and get a model, and let's say I demonstrate on a 13-year-old Abigail, and then you go in to pose Maggie and you're like, well how do I deal with glasses and how do I deal with getting that chin folding down and how do I deal with that. So you just slow down and go through all of your points. You pose from the feet up, okay, so first Maggie takes her weight onto her back foot, which she already has. Then she goes like this and she leans forward 45 degrees away from me. Then I put the arm here, I've did this 50 times already in three days and I want you to keep doing it. I want you to go through all of these poses. And so what I do now is I bring her down the wall and I push that space there because the more space I get between Maggie and the wall, the more 45 I get. I make sure that arm's rolled forward. Stay pinned and I'll move you. You're not gonna go anywhere. Okay, the hand comes up from the thigh, all the way up, and the elbow goes back. So it just comes down into here. The reason we do this from the front of course is because if I leave her arm out here that becomes the width of her waist. So we go slap, up, elbow back. So everybody does the same thing, they pin their shoulder back. So that's why I say elbow back and then I look for the shoulder because people are so predictable. So Simone is my client. I go, Simone put your hand onto your thigh, slap it about there, slide it up your hip line, elbow goes back. That's all I say to everybody in exactly the same position because I know as soon as I hourglass that arm around the body I get their beautiful shape. Okay, from here then I get this nice long lift up through your neck and shoulder. So I lift forward, push forward, push forward, okay forward, forward, that's it and chin this way. So the weird thing about the chin forward and down is it removes all double chin and all jowls. Tuck your chin in, Maggie. Okay, push it forward. Tuck your chin in, push it forward, stay there. Bring your chin around to me. Chin around to me a bit more, tuck your chin in, more. (click of camera shutter) Push it forward. (click of camera shutter) All right, we have chin back, we have chin forward. What you'll find is, Maggie told me she has jowls, and she doesn't. Don't move. Okay, Maggie told me she has jowls and she doesn't. What Maggie has is a connection here, which most people have when they're in a relaxed neck. Okay, it's just a little bit of a line here but from the front that you can see. Okay, jowls come from here, here. Okay, and jowls are larger and they connect to the neck. So when people are jowly, they're here. So when the chin comes forward and down, jowls will often stretch out but a double chin will go but jowls don't go. Okay, jowls can get stretched out but they still are there. I will fix jowls on Photoshop because people hate them. You know, people don't come in and go I was so blessed I got dimples and jowls and I love them so make sure that when I'm smiling to the camera I'm nice and tucked in there. We want to make sure that we push them out. So you don't have jowls as such and this little bit of your chin is just tiny, so if you push forward towards me and then this way you have nothing. So chin forward this way, a little bit more this way. Okay, so the problem with glasses then, so we fixed the double chin and your arm's popped up at the back because when you move the chin the arm changes and the bum goes back. So I want to, bring that hand back under the hip so I can see it. That's it, slide it back. All right now lift up nice and tall. I want you to push your chin towards me, that's it. There's no double chin there. But I can't push your chin down. If I push your chin down, this is what happens, eyes to me-- (click of camera shutter) - is I lose Maggie's eyes and the top her glasses. So what I have to do now is I have to bring her chin this way and I have to push forward but not go down, okay, because I need to get Maggie's eyes in the glasses. Now bring your chin down, chin down, chin down, but I'm gonna come with you. So I want the neck in the right position but I don't want to lose your eyes in the top of those glasses. So I'm gonna go down. I've got her in a nice, slimming pose, her chin looks fabulous and there also is a weird thing because I can push your glasses up to a place where you don't wear them but still looks good to me. So now I'm going to push your chin forward and down, stop, I still have her eyes. I'm in a chin forward and down position. Okay, I'm in a nice, slimming pose and I've still got both of her eyes in her glasses. So the first thing Maggie's gonna do when she stops there is she's gonna pull her glasses back down. So people wear their glasses just away from their face. They never wear them right up against them. So as soon as I push them right up, then I've got a perfect shot. So I always do that to people, I go, I'm just gonna push them up there and everyone's like ewww, that feels really weird. And then I make sure I get beautiful eyes, I make sure I've got a nice, slimming pose, long chin forward and down. Once I've got that, I see where my eyes are, I know there's no reflected light in her glasses. And a little bit more of a smile, Maggie, would be fantastic. Relax your mouth and just give me a tiny, little smirk. Just completely relax your mouth, chin this way a wee bit more. Keep going, you can go that far because your glasses are up and you are gorgeous, there you go. And then I know I've got two things. So there's absolutely... Come hither. There's absolutely, I've got both eyes in your glasses, I've got a beautiful recline, I have a perfect shape in your chin and easy peasy. Very slowly in the smile. Yes. Nicely done. Profession. You look beautiful. Thanks, Maggie. That's really, really cool. Reagan. Reagan just announced to me... I love it how all these people turn up and they just announce stuff to us for this. So she hasn't worn makeup for 15 years. Yes, well, I don't usually think of myself as a pretty girl, right, so-- Oh no way. (voice cracking a bit) Yeah, really, yeah. 15 years? Well I wore it for my wedding, so that's the one exception but other than that, no, this is my first time with makeup in 15 years. You look great. Oh, my God, you look very beautiful. Your smile is beautiful. Thank you. Your eyes are beautiful. She looked beautiful before the makeup. Yeah, I know. Yeah, true, that's exactly right because I actually saw her shot with no makeup on and she was like oh, sorry about the shot, my husband just took it. And she was all like this with no makeup on and I thought, wow, that girl is beautiful. Thank you very much. If you don't think of yourself as a pretty girl, look at your mom. Well thank you. Yeah. All right. You saw me pose curves on the wall. You saw me pose curves on the wall yesterday so what I'm gonna do is bring the bar stool and then do something different. So first thing I want to do is the one thing that I really like is you're curvy because you've got big boobs. Yes, they're enormous. Yes. And I'll show you how to get around big boobs because big boobs, the good thing about boobs is no matter how big they are, they are squishy. (laughs) I'm still nursing my baby too so that's a part of what it is. Isn't that awkward, we're having a conversation about your boobs? (laughs) Hello internet, I have the enormous busts. There's only a few people watching. Reagan, the internet is saying you're beautiful, you're gorgeous, you're stunning, you have an amazing smile. They love you. Thank you, internet, I love you too. (laughs) And somebody just said, and tell her we love her boobs, I bet you because I-- Oh, my husband's on the internet! No, wait. (laughs) What's his name? So what I do is I do this front on shot, which I really love. So you can't lean on that wall, sadly, because it's, over here, that's it. And I just want you here and the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna take a photo and I always find myself whenever I'm photographing big boobs, oop, I got a blank. Okay, I always find myself doing one thing. First of all, I want you to push your chin forward and down. Okay, now down. Not too far down, okay, so you come forward first and then on that axis. So stay there. That's what you guys were talking about, right when the neck comes forward and down, we've been talking about it all week. We're gonna make sure we just tip now because if she comes, she's really flexible, so if she comes too far down, I shorten her neck. So I slim her face but then shorten the neck and it's the long neck that makes it look so slimming. So now I tip forward here now and I'm gonna take the same shot with just the chin forward and down. All we did, with shifted her chin, stay there... So she went from a normal... Now isn't it weird when people talk to you, they talk to you with your chin up. I didn't realize so many people did it until I went to start posing. Look at the difference between just one chin forward and down. Now I really love doing this. I want you to hold your elbows. Okay, now straightaway with boobs, boobs fit in there nicely and what I do is I then drop your hands down low, okay, and kick your bum out at the back, just like that. Because at the moment, you're holding your boobs up and if you kick your bum out, like this, and lean towards me ever so slightly then your body changes. Now I want you to push your chin towards me, stop. Straighten up with your face, that's it. Push your chin towards me now. Don't move. Okay, so now I'm gonna take the same shot there. (click of camera shutter) So what I did here, I'm not cropping yet, don't move Reagan. You're absolutely perfect and beautiful, by the way, Is that... (audience awws in admiration) All right, that is awesome. Now, we need to look at the hands because we've nailed her chin, we've nailed the shape of her upper body but we've got clubbed forearms because I haven't looked at anything feminine in her line. So all I did was got her to squeeze her boobs in to show you how her arms come in because boobs are so malleable, like I said. They just move around and we can do whatever we want with them. So don't be afraid to squeeze boobs in. So then what I'm going to do is I'm going to look at Reagan's hands to make them look better. So let's swap them over. So, yep, slide this one in, that's a girl. That's it, that's more feminine line on the hands. Now, I'm going to get you to kick your bum out this way. That's it, so I'm going to actually give you a direction, this one, keep your elbows tight, squeeze those boobs in, that's it and squeeze that bum back, that's it. Now, I'm gonna get you to lift, don't move your body. I'm gonna get you to lift up tall, with your neck and shoulders, and bring your chin forward. Stay there, don't move, and now I'm going to come in here. Now I just want you to relax your shoulders down because you're holding them up and I want you to give me a tiny little smile in your eyes. Good girl. And I want you to drop your chin forward just a tickle. So I want a little bit more smile, little bit more smirk. Good girl and you're there. So now what we've done is we've kicked up the body line, so we've kicked it out. And also remember too, what Reagan has done is if you put that one with the first one, or actually if you could put all four up it would be even better, Mike or Nika. What I like about it is I can change it from the front without using any reclining. Okay, so that's about that squeeze in. But to me that shape all comes from pushing that chin forward and then just squeezing the boobs in. Okay, now what I don't want to do is create that squeeze that's pushing the boobs up to here. So we do that by going lower and just squeezing in, so you're holding your elbows. That's a girl. Now what I want you to do is let's just try and do an angle, is turn this way with me, that's it, stop. And then bring your chin long this way. That's the one, stay there, and long chin towards me and down. Okay, are we able to put all of these up together? Long chin towards your shoulder, Reagan, and down and just tiny little smile there. Good girl, stay there. Now remembering Reagan is free styling, which means she doesn't have a prop to lean on. So we'll bring her back to the wall. If you can put all those images up together I'll love you forever. And then what I want you to do Reagan is stay there, don't move. Okay, so talk to me. She's gonna love these. It's incredible. Look and see just each little change and how different and just you showing us what not to do to what to do is awesome. Does the color of the shirt play into it at all? No? Yes, because white is a blocking color. You know, people wear black a lot because they feel thinner, but ironically, it doesn't matter if you're slimming them on camera anyway because white only looks bad on camera when you're on a crappy angle and it's blocking white light. So it only makes you look bigger because when you see it on a camera angle, you don't see the contrast of the top, you just see white width and so you see yourself as being this big white reflector and you're not. It's no different in terms of measurements or size. What about pants, like would you always want that contrasting color? I wouldn't care because she looks so hot in white, I would be disappointed to see her in black. And also I would be disappointed to see her in black because look at her blue eyes and what it does to her skin tone, it's so illuminance. But anyway, what I just wanted to show you was a free styling curve because I just find that so beautiful. Now what I'm going to do is exactly what I did yesterday. Bring your chin around to me, Reagan, and I want you to come away from the wall. I want you to turn towards it. I want you to lean down with your shoulder, that's it. Okay, now what I want you to do straightaway is Reagan's got really good arm line through there. Don't move, don't move, I've got that. And what she's got is her boobs are gonna dominate here. I want your hand to come up into your thigh. So what I want you to do, Reagan is to pull your bum back right to the wall, that's it. And bring your boobs down, that's it. Because what I'm trying to do is stop you from having your boobs out. Then I want you to bring your chin long towards me, that's it, and around, not too low, come up. I don't want people to look through their eyebrows at me, okay, that is not chin forward and down. Chin forward and down is not when your eyelashes are touching your eyebrows. Chin forward and down is just a long chin, come back this way. It's all right, it's fine. And just give me half a chin line there, stop, two inches. God, beautiful. Reagan, don't move. And that to me (click of camera shutter) is how you know you push back that line. Okay, you look like you're leaning back in that shot but she was standing upright, correct. So it looks like she's actually up that way. So put those two side by side, if you can, boys. And you know for a big bust, it's such a beautiful... I just really appreciate the progression so thank you. I really just appreciate that I can talk about your boobs (laughs). Because the thing is that people just keep saying, I've got really big boobs, what do I do? They say to me, you know, it's fine, you've posed what you said were curvy women but what about when you get apples, what about when you get people with no waist whatsoever? Or what happens when you get women with a waist bigger than their boobs? What happens when you get... And I keep getting the but what about, the but what about, the but what about... Every single body size this works and Reagan just proved it works in white. Yeah. You know, and that is even better. And it's such a significant change both in the arm, in the line underneath the boobs, on the boob line and the face. And I just think you're beautiful. Thank you, Sue. I think your eyes just draw me right into the pose. Thank you very much. Gorgeous girl. So Sue with her shoulder it seemed yesterday maybe you dropped some of the girls' shoulders lower. Are the boobs the reason you don't drop the shoulder lower? No, here's the thing, it's not the boobs, it's the length because Reagan is tall. So short curves is harder than tall curves. Okay so I can get a taller woman than Reagan that's bigger than Reagan and she'll be easier to pose than Reagan because what you can't see in camera is somebody's height. Now, here's something interesting, when I look at images of models, I look at the length between the shoulder and the arm because I can tell how tall somebody is by how long their arm is. So whenever I get into, like whenever I look at images and I'm like, look at this model, look at the length of this model, I can tell how tall they are because I pose women for a living and short women have a very short distance between their shoulder and their elbow. So when you bring their elbows up we turn them into little midgets. And so I can see that so a slim, short girl is hard to pose. So when people say to me, you know, curvy girls, curvy girls, I'm talking about a size 2 or 4 that's 4 foot 10, I don't care if she's slim, if she's got short limbs you're gonna make her look chunky unless you lengthen her body. And so it's more about lengthening than it is about slimming. And then we push what's big back and then we push what we want forward, which is the eyes. And in one move you can significantly capture a bit of body line, right. Thanks, Reagan. I'll get you to come back but I just wanted to show that. (applause) Then I want to let you know, I have an entire page of comments from the internet that I'm saving for you. But I have to shout a couple of them out right now. Studio Betty says, she's utterly gorgeous. I would love to photograph her. You can't have her, she's mine. She really transformed, she looks very hot. Are you stealing my clients now? Clap, clap, clap, you're getting absolutely clapping. The internet loves you. It just goes on and on and on, on to a page and a half and I'm still copying and pasting comments so-- Thanks, that's very sweet. Thank you so much. Thank you. My pleasure, have a seat and I'll get you to come up-- Sue that was really a little a-ha right there that it's all about the lengthening, not just slimming, lengthening. So recently I had a girl come in and I talked to her on the phone. I talked to her, done a pre-consultation on Skype. Beautiful girl and when she was walking towards me I'm significantly 5 foot 2 and she's significantly 6 foot 2. So she just was so tall over the top of me and when she, I was like, wow, I never expected you to be this big. You're a big Barbie doll. But because she was 6 foot 2, she was also in proportion to her 6 foot 2 ness so she was effectively bigger than me. So I'm shorter and wider but she was in proportion but bigger in overall and so she made like, she was a big girl. 6 foot 2 is like wow, beautiful and I kind of thought, right, she's got big hands, she's got big feet and we started to kind of talk about I like tall men and she's like, you can't have tall men and I was like, okay. And so we're talking about it and I realized as I started to shoot her, she wasn't a little girl, by any means. She was in proportion to her body, which made her full, but in the camera she just looked like a supermodel. And I'd look at her, I'd look at the camera. I'd look at her and I'd go what? It was blowing me away because I very rarely get really tall women and I realized the length of the woman that you're photographing makes such a difference. Which, why are models tall? They're always tall because the length of their limbs. So it's all about lengthening instead of slimming. So if you were shooting someone that height would you shoot above the eye line? No? Make them look like supermodels. They're tall, they're long, they can handle it. Unless they're lean like Abigail. Abigail is really lean and she's got a lean face she hasn't quite filled out yet in her teenage ness so if I go too low on her I'm going to make her look anorexic skinny because remember, I bobble head if I go too low. But when the girls are tall and they're in proportion, drop down low and it just blows you away. When the girls are curvier, go up a little wee bit and drop the camera down and it just blows you away. But don't shoot everybody dead on. Okay, they're either down a little bit or up a little bit. Do you always fill the frame no matter what the body height? Yes. Okay. Yes. I don't take full-length shots. I like to fill the frame, I like to crop. I crop too close, I've been guilty of that for 23 years. I often reprimand myself and say Sue, stop cropping so close, because often I try to pull back. Lately, I've been trying to shoot with more negative space on top of my image so I've got room to move. And I've noticed that very slowly, even though I've stayed with the same genre and style of photography for 20 years, I've noticed that I've started to slowly pull back. And you know I never felt the need to advance my brand beyond what my clients want to buy unless I get bored so I do sometimes think I'm gonna try a new shot where I've got lots more negative space this way, and it'll work for me and then I kind of do that for awhile and then change. But I very rarely, I would never shoot anybody full-length. I just don't know why you would photograph people's feet. It's kind of the same thing as the bum. Okay, actually no, I know why you'd photograph someone's bum, because you'd want to show somebody that wants to see their bum but I still don't know why anyone would want a photo of their feet. So every now and then a client says, will you take a full-length shot of me and I'm like what do you mean, standing up against the wall? For starters, most photographers work with a backdrop that ends there so if you photograph the feet you're gonna see the floor and I don't get what that is. Like what is that? Every now and then somebody asks me for it and I'm always like no (laughs). Why would I do that? I don't know, it's just not a portrait to me.