Lessons

Lesson Info

Small Posture Changes

My name is ken klosterman and I will be your host for small changes big results with roberto valenzuela now roberto you know very well here from create of live he is a wedding and fashion photographer based in l a who just recently became a cannon explorer of light and congratulations to you on that roberto one of his books is the best selling book in the wedding photography category and we are thrilled to have him back here on creative live so please help me welcome roberto valenzuela take it away with bart thank you. Welcome good morning, everyone. How are you all good relax have a good time shows life I'm can I thank you again for the introduction it's always a pleasure being here with you and you know, whenever I'm asked to speak at a photo for a week or it just created life in general you know I'm always like I'll do it if can it can be the host know kanna no class is like the soup nazi no class for you you know that way I just get anyway because everybody yeah nice good thank you...

all for coming some of you flew here, some of you drove here someone we drove five minutes on, some of you walked here like I didn't hear what I just went from there, but welcome to all of you this class is called big small changes big results the reason why I labeled that class that way because as photographers in all my teaching experience that I've had over the in the world people try to make big changes and it creates small results so we sometimes we buy a lot of equipment that we do a lot of stuff and you do this dramatic things to the model to think that the more you do, the better it is and the more results you're going to get it turns out especially in the in the posting world which, you know, I wrote a book picture perfect posting out of pure passion to be ableto help people realize that posting it's simple supposing it's actually more more off a body language they need is a set of rules I gotta tell you, you can do whatever you want in photography it is your choice but to do it regular beautiful porches that just consistently look amazing it's actually more simple than you think and I think that's the problem that, you know in my classes, for example, people tried to they have they have a model or you have a couple on what we do is we go to the same post is that people are comfortable with so for example, we always do the most common posts where you have if this is like a wedding photography situation you have the bride here in the groom here and they're kind of like facing each other and they do the sleepy post where they're both therefore gets together and their eyes are close and they're both like thinking in that on each other doesn't make sense the other one is with the bride it's kind of like standing somewhere like a place like this and she's kind of doing some dramatic thing with our hands and you don't know why like why you going like why are you doing this? Why what motivates you? What compels you to do that crazy movement in the middle of a particle wherever you are when my work started really taken off is when I started actually putting my bright here unnecessary making a tiny adjustment to her arm and then I started focusing on where the chain was facing on I stopped shooting bright or my fashion shoots or whatever always in front of them so if you have um I guess I'll take you now, cathy, this is, uh everybody welcome awesome kazuya from russia who got what a face right? Like what is wrong with people these days like, you know, how do you lift like that? You know, if I had a face like that I would wake up in the morning look in the mirror, I just never leave I'll just be checking that every angle for example um you can put katia let's see catholic and you stand here for a second just gonna arrest your body on this for example you have situations like this where you just kind of start out write a simple adjustment the beginning ofthe all quality posing stars with boom the spine the spine check this out if she stands like this feet together arms together spine it's actually slouching or all of you right now are slouching every single you're definitely slouching okay most people in their day to day life it takes too much effort to make your back straight it takes energy to do that so people don't as a photographer you're capturing a framing time so if you're framed you capturing time is where your back slouching which is the default that people have you're always going to have four is that like energy or they like a sense of the dynamic so some accents so it has to in video if you're taking video of someone you don't know it is those things as much because that's the person he's slouching and then straining and then slouching and then straining and then moving left and walking right when that's happening your brain just processes all the movements all at once you forget all about it but when you freeze one little frame that's the friend that you have to see for the rest of the pictures lifetime so if here's you have a fashion shoot high school senior bride it doesn't matter sometimes people get too caught up on what color the dress is like if you get if you shooting somebody with a waitress there like I don't shoot weddings that's it this is not going to help me I'm like what is she was wearing a red dress and I was on the exact same thing oh that would be okay that would be totally fine that's why I always wear purple or what yeah I think we did say no why traces because then people think it's like only for weddings you know this is not our wedding posting lighting small changes big results it's just about howto get that with people in general so check this out the smallest little movement makes it such a big impact let's begin with the bottom part of the spine called the lumber the lumbar is what makes a person look sexy that middle part of the spine is called the jurassic that middle part of the spine is what makes people look engaged and it's also what makes people's head stand out in a photograph them explain if I was taking a photo of her right there right now her shoulders are actually about four inches from her face does that make sense in a photograph you want to make you want to compress the face and the shoulders but you wonder face to still win to do that you have to use the jurassic part of the spine to make that adjustment to make that happen it's very subtle but it makes a big difference for example check this out let's begin with the long bar which is the lower part and then strain that out making like a smiley face do you see that smiley face on there just make it like a nice smiley face like cup popped out now go ahead and deflate yourself again which one looks better now which how big was that change it's a pretty small change let's try it again lumbar comes up good now let let's try this bring your shoulders on bringing back two inches that's it just a niche that's good now from your hips up move forward towards me by an inch that's it stop right there how small was that now you put you should a bride this way you put instead of holding her flowers hold these flowers for me let me get these flowers here okay instead of doing stuff like that people are holding flowers where it looks very contrived make start to think flow what is a nice natural relaxed look toe a person but their spine is still straight so you can grab the flowers and let him relax it just dropped them let them just drop now uh come to the side come over here actually no no, you're you're going you're going to get you come over the photographer moves here she stays there now you change the angle so instead of photographing with a typical angle which is a person photographer person photographer standing in front of each other that's the most common way we photograph I see photographers they're shooting a high school senior or something and there standing right in front of the person on here's one small thing can you turn your body? Just pretend you're in a chinese lazy susan thing but turn it yeah that's fine turn it that way yeah that's fine like that now you're standing here now the body's not facing the photographer that's a small change that can make people look more relaxed it looks like the photos never post now if you would a photographer move over here your own decide now you have her left shoulder competing with her face her left shoulder is now six inches from her face that's never going to be a winner when you have that kind of distance if you want to take a photo even if you were to focus on her eyes her shoulder it's like a big piece of flesh that's in front of her in front of the camera closer to her face which causes a problem, so to fix that small changes look at this just grab that left shoulder kathy and just drop it on in one inch back that's it now look at the difference it makes not check this out ranger chin one inch this way ah now look at me now stay like that don't move your shoulder or your chin is perfect and just move your eye stores and just keep moving your eyes stop right there boom take a picture to see how simple that wass now guys I'm gonna give you the microphone for a second let me ask somebody cliff cliff um how simple was that? It was pretty simple didn't look nice it looks very did you see the photo? Did you see it didn't look like she was over trying it didn't look like she was can you do something stupid dramatic like can you go like this and just yeah it's like guys if you're watching at home I'm going to ask you something I beg you like give the purse give the pose of purpose for being there like give the post of purpose people can if she was at a cocktail party and she was having like a nice cocktail drinking and she has her leg crossed over. Go ahead and cross your legs over like this so you shift your body weight on, grab your tippy toes and re going back towards your other foot now hold onto your fake martini glass on that hand and then bring you bring the shoulder this way and like you're talking to someone and now look at me so you're talking to someone over here you're talking to someone here I can see how are you how's russia good and then I am standing here check this out this is what I think about when I'm shooting I'm standing here she's talking to somebody better looking than me right which is hard but it can happen okay that just went life okay she's holding a martini glass grabbed that shoulder and drop in an inch more that's it oh my god is just awesome you're talking to this person I'm standing here and I'm drinking by myself I'm done she notices my gorgeous face and she looks at me and I'm like oh hail no that's awesome her eyes looking at me with a little peeking pick a book and a look is extremely extremely effective on powerful if you want someone to look like just amazing in a photograph look at her body her back her legs bent her body has been shifted to a different weight distribution her legs are one is higher than the other her shoulders are actually at a different level there's curves in every piece of her body on her chin this is the important part her chin is not facing me all the time her chin is here but her eyes just happened to catch me standing drinking by myself when she decides you should probably talking to me instead does that make sense now cliff if I could bore you for a second can you stand over here? Can you continue that post for a second please stand over here now forget it stand over here let's take a look at this clip look at the way this one looks it looks pretty straightforward to you right she's kind of her energies through you and you're feeling ok now come with this way look small changes big results right move this way stand right there now can't you go ahead and look at my friend cliff does that give you this powerful energy doesn't not low connecting with their much more isn't that amazing? Like you have this nose this way chin this way like this way hips that way everything is so smooth and flows and his curvy and beautiful there's nothing straining there's nothing no, no part of her arms legs, hips fingers are like doing something stiff. Okay so by simply moving from the obvious angle to this angle it makes a big difference now here's another big difference check this out if you could just take here for one more second look how small these changes okay the light is coming from this side right? Because it's more like it's coming from here if I was doing a photo shoot off someone our graph urchin, and just tow very nicely. Very quickly. Bring your chin down and this way like this, like, turn it like that. Now, chin up. Now take a look at the way that looks now here's, another small change. Go ahead, what do you think of that? Well, I mean, the lighting is amazing how the small change when it made on the small tilt of her favorite it's. Pretty pretty beautiful, right?