Original subtitles

We're going to have a little chat about

posing here, which is probably our least, or

used to be at least, our least favorite

thing to talk about because we kind of

suck at posing.

We find portraits in particular the most stressful

part of a wedding day and we know

a lot of photographers do, but what we

realized is that we could see that stress

and we could see that anxiety that we

were feeling during portraits in our actual photos.

And when I do a lot of critiquing

of photos and I judge a lot of

contests and I can, I can feel when

the photographer is stressed.

I can feel when the photographer is feeling

anxious and that often has happened with us,

so we can totally relate to it, but

we've got some tips to get over that.

Yeah, and I would say like not only

are portraits the most stressful part of the

day for, well for me, specifically it's the

posing part of the portraits when it comes

time to actually direct because remember we're taking

a, you know, a completely documentary approach for

the entire wedding, documenting actual reality, but when

it comes time for portraits, now it's on

us, right?

Now everything that plays out before our lenses

is on us to basically create and direct

and when it comes to the composition, you

know, I'm happy to find my way into

compositions that I'm excited about.

When it comes to the lighting, I can

figure out how to make that work and

I'm happy with it, but then that final

elusive ingredient is now what do I tell

them to do?

And for me, for even still, it's a,

it's a struggle and it's often where us

and a lot of photographers fall flat.

It's like we get it there, we get

two out of three, we got light, we

got composition, but we've got no emotion, we've

got no moment, we've got no movement.

So we've got a couple different tips in

order to, in order to help us with

that.

Right, and one of the first most fundamental

tips is, is we really do everything we

can, right from our first interaction with all

of our clients, is to try to get

on that friends with cameras vibe.

And we try to, we try to set

that before, long before they even hired us,

so that by the time we get to

actually making portraits with them, we feel like

we're friends with cameras, which allows us to

sort of get in and it makes it

that much easier for us to bring those

walls and that self-consciousness down because everybody

feels that.

Everybody initially is awkward when it's, when, when

cameras come out, right?

And so really what we're trying to do

is to get past that so that we

can start to open them up and we

can start to bring out, not posed emotion,

or genuine, authentic emotion and movement, right?

Yeah, so that's really important.

We're friends with cameras and when we take

you through our entire workflow, you'll see we've

got very specific strategic steps within our workflow

so that, that we can be friends with

cameras.

It doesn't just happen on its own all

the time.

I would say that we don't pose, we

direct.

And there's a big difference there, right?

So posing is more like static.

Okay, chin up slightly.

Can you turn your face 45 degrees towards

me?

You know, it's very static.

It's very hard to get that genuine emotion

unless you're working with incredibly talented models.

And it's, it's telling them specifically what to

do with their body and their position.

And I mean, sometimes we do that, especially

with silhouettes, but we, we do try and

avoid that at all costs.

And it's usually later in the shoot.

But this idea of directing instead of posing,

I went to, probably the most useful thing

I ever did to improve our posing is

I went to a class with an acting

coach.

And he really hammered in the fact that

actions control our emotions.

Conventional wisdom often tells us that emotions control

our actions.

And that's what we think a lot of

the time, our emotions control our actions.

It's been scientifically proven that the opposite is

true.

Our actions control our emotions, right?

And so that really comes into the way

we direct our couples.

We have to give them actions to evoke

the emotion that we're looking for, right?

If we, if we just say to our

couple, be happy or be connected, it almost

blocks that emotion by asking them to be

that.

But if we give them something that makes

them happy and goofy and, and energetic, or

if we give them something to do that

makes them feel connected, we're going to get

them a picture that communicates that emotion.

Also, when we give them a specific action

to focus on, it takes, you know, it

takes up their mental bandwidth so that they're

not thinking about the fact that they're having

their photo taken.

They're not thinking about how they look.

Am I doing the right thing?

Because we've told them something to do.

And that takes up all of their focus

and attention.

And then the other thing that's very important

for us, right from the start of the

portrait session is even more important, I would

say, than the photos that we make for

them is the experience that we create for

them.

Okay.

So, I mean, obviously we want to make

portraits that when we give it to them,

it, you know, it blows them away and

they're super impressed, but, but we would rather

the photos, in addition to that, remind them

of the great experience that they had together

with us.

They remember the feeling.

Right.

I'd rather give them, you know, a bunch

of great photos that bring them back to

remembering their connection during the session and the

fun time that they had with us than

to just give them like some crazy mind

-blowing, like award-winning photos.

But in order to get there, it was

a horrible experience for them and they were

standing awkwardly and not knowing what to do.

And so it's more important, the experience, and

then that's going to frame the way that

they experience their photos when we give them

to them.

Another tip to posing is observation, right?

Observation with all of our couples.

And what I mean by this is observing

them when the camera's not on them or

when they think the camera's not on them.

Often our favorite portraits are the moments in

between the portraits when their guards went down.

And so just observing how they interact with

each other, observing what sort of position they

stand in, observing little nuances and little things

that they do with their fingers or little

things that, little sort of idiosyncrasies they might

have.

Just observing those little things in between times

is really, really important.

And those transitions, you know, the transitions in

between the script, the more scripted portraits or

the transitions in between the more scripted parts

of the timeline of a wedding day.

Those are where the, where the real potential

is.

And often it will take a moment to

just say, that was beautiful guys, that, that

ceremony.

Now it's just the four of us.

Let's just enjoy this.

Let's try to set that vibe, set that

tone for, you know, the four of us,

or if you're, if you're a single shooter,

the three of you now.

Take that, just step it down.

And now we're going to go and we're

going to look for lights and we're going

to go and make some photos together and

we're going to enjoy this time.

So slow it down for them, slow it

down for you.

Yeah.

And I always just say in my mind,

slow is fast.

Fast is slow.

Slow is fast.

Calm down, move slow methodically because else we

rush into decisions.

The other thing that we often feel that

we have to do is to always be

telling them what to do.

Always have the next thing, right?

And that, that's stressful for us as photographers

and it's self-imposed, right?

They're not actually thinking that we feel like

we always have to, so just slow it

down.

They just got married, right?

They're good.

They're going to enjoy their time together.

Let them have that moment while you search

out, right?

Figure out what you want to do next.

And then hone in on quantity over quality.

Yeah.

Okay.

And basically the best thing that we can

do to relieve our anxiety, well, in combination

with all those things is really just focus

on getting three really good photos.

Three quality over quantity.

And if we focus on doing a really,

really good job on those three photos, inevitably

we end up with a, with a whole

whack of variety.

Yeah.

And we learned this actually from our friend,

Jim Pollard.

Jim Pollard, yeah.

This really sort of helped focus us.

Yes.

So the, and really how many photos did

people, portraits do people need at their wedding

day?

That's the thing, right?

27.

Well, I think they think they need hundreds,

but how many are they going to hang

on their walls?

Anyway, so we need one photo up close,

personal.

This is us.

This is what we look like, and this

is our connection.

So it would be sort of, and we're,

I'm going to show you lots of cues

in order to get this connection with the

couple.

But it will be, you know, sort of

right in here.

Something in close.

Something in close on their faces.

This is what we look like.

We're connected.

We're in love, right?

Yeah.

But getting to that, getting that emotion to

come out is what we're going to show

you.

That was bad.

We are in love.

We are in love, right?

And you're like, oh, yeah.

And then, so that's first.

One in close, this is us connected.

Yeah.

Two, far back.

This is us in our environment.

This is us where we got married.

Okay.

And where essentially the landscape itself becomes a

character.

And it's often a very important piece of

our client's weddings and their experience because they

choose the location for their wedding based on

important connections that they have and memories.

Sometimes they choose the location before they've even

chosen who they're going to marry, right?

So we want to show them in the

environment, whatever it is, right?

Whether it's, you know, a natural out in

the mountains or if it's in grandma's basement

or wherever, right?

We want to show that space.

And we understand that these photos have become

cliche, especially in our circles, you know, tiny

silhouette, big landscape.

But like Lani said, you know, just like

if you think about an author and how

much effort the author puts into the setting

of the book or a movie or a

TV show and how much goes into the

setting of that TV show in order to

evoke the mood and how much the author

puts into the description of the forest or

the cabin or wherever the story takes place.

The setting is an important character.

It's an additional character.

It adds to the mood of the story.

And so even though it can be cliche,

it's an important part of the storytelling.

So that's one shot we always try and

get.

Okay.

So in close connected, this is what we

look like.

Pull back this sense of scale.

This is us in the environment.

Number three, we often forget this one.

We have to remind ourselves grandma's mantelpiece.

Okay.

Smiling, looking at the camera.

Full length.

Okay.

We might even rotate our cameras vertically for

this for grandma's mantelpiece.

Yeah.

Okay.

And that's it.

Those three.

And if we try to do a really

good job of making those three photos for

the couple, invariably that's going to lead us

into a whole bunch of other variety that

they're going to get.

But it takes that pressure off of us

trying to just get a whole bunch of

variety.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

So we're going to bring in Jesse and

Jenny and we're going to actually show you

some of this stuff in person.

We have Jenny and Jesse who are our

models, but again, they are not models.

Real couple.

And we've never photographed them before.

That's important as well.

And that's often the case with our couples.

And usually when we meet them for the

engagement session, let's say before their wedding, that's

when we start to kind of set the

right vibe.

And we're assuming they're anxious, right?

We're all trained from birth.

When cameras come out, the world stops.

We hold our breath.

We say cheese.

So everybody's self-conscious around cameras.

And so we're going to start to try

to break down those walls and bring that

down by kind of setting the tone.

And one of the things that, you know,

we're just making casual, you know, casual chit

-chat.

We'll ask like, have you guys ever done

this before?

Have you ever been, you know, in front

of a camera?

You know, generally it's no or for a

lot of them.

Okay.

And we're trying to reassure them like it's

normal to feel awkward.

That's, that's natural.

And sometimes we'll hand them a beer at

this point.

We'll be like, you guys want to, we've

got some beers in the back of the

car.

Would you like a beer?

Or, and we don't, we don't, we're not

guns a-blazing right away shooting, right?

Like cameras don't even come out yet.

We're going to mosey around.

We're going to find a spot.

And while doing so, I'm going to make

sure at some point to reassure you guys

that your wedding day is not going to

feel like this.

Okay.

Because your wedding is an actual story, right?

It's not a photo shoot.

Exactly.

What we're doing is inherently contrived and that's

okay.

Right?

The closest thing on your wedding would be

like when it's the portraits, the rest of

your wedding is just whatever happens, happens, and

we're going to document it.

Okay.

But here we're going to go have some

fun and make some portraits.

And here's a beer.

Here's a beer.

Let's have a beer.

And Jenny wore a perfect outfit for today.

We often tell our couples to wear bright,

solid colors to contrast with the environment, especially

because we're often shooting out in nature where

everything's sort of, you know, brown and green.

And so we always are looking for those

contrasting colors.

So this red is just perfect to go

with the yellow leaves.

Okay.

So actually what we'll do now is we'll

just demonstrate a few starting positions for you

guys.

And these are only ever starting positions.

And then we'll give you guys cues to

add some realness and to make it about

you guys and not so much the posing.

So first of all, both hands on each

other.

All times.

At all times.

So no hands in pockets.

No hands like this.

Even when we're not shooting.

Even when we're not shooting.

If you're not sure what to do with

your hands, just touch each other.

Hands on each other at all times.

Hands are important.

Yeah.

So the first pose is kind of like

what you guys are doing right now.

It's the penguin pose.

So it's together at the hips and just

looking at each other.

Just like that.

Nobody ever stands like this.

So we'll make sure we give you something

natural to do there.

Right.

And all of these, again, are only just

starting positions because often it takes us a

while to figure out the light and the

composition.

And we want to have something for them

to do when they're standing in the reference

point.

And it's easy.

But we know that once we get the

composition, the light, then we're going to work

the pose.

We're going to make it real.

We're going to add some movements, right?

Try to get some emotion.

Yeah, exactly.

So penguin pose, if we say penguin pose,

just like that.

And the most important thing is that your

hips are together.

Nice and together.

So and then backwards spoon would be...

Jenny, turn around.

Jenny, turn around.

And then usually like I find one arm

over and one arm under works really well.

Yeah.

And then just start to snuggle and snuggle.

Yeah.

Jesse, if I ask you to nuzzle, it's

kind of like this.

Actually, we learned from our friends, Dan and

Lindsay Stark.

They taught us the snickle.

And that is a snuggle and a tickle

at the same time.

That's the snickle.

So that's starting position number two.

So backwards spoon.

And then the last one that we sometimes

do is like a bit of a shape

of a T with your body.

So capital T, that is.

So you would be the top of the

T.

So and then Jenny, you would just sort

of lean in.

And just kind of like that.

Yeah, perfect.

Just like that.

That's the T.

So now you guys know...

Three starting positions.

Generally speaking, we have you guys moving in

and out of positions and running around.

Right.

And again, often what Eric and I are

doing, as you'll see, is when we're guiding

Jesse and Jenny into position, our cameras will

be up.

And shooting them moving into or out of

position.

Keeping those cameras up to try to get

that in-between stuff.

We're going to start off with really, really

energetic poses.

Really energetic movements.

And we're just getting their energy up.

We're basically trying to bring down the walls.

So we're getting them into a childlike state

of mind where they're forgetting that the camera's

taking their photos and they're just having fun

with each other.

And that energy really carries through the residualness

of that energy.

The residual energy of that really carries through

the rest of the shoot.

So that's really important that we start with

that sort of very high energetic stuff.

Once they're comfortable with that, then we might

get a little bit deeper.

And once they're comfortable with that, we might

get a little bit deeper.

And every shoot's a little different.

There's no formula at all.

The main goal, and even just Eric and

I demonstrating it, is not just so they

see the poses.

It's that they see us being awkward together.

They see us touching each other.

And then we want to get them to

forget about the cameras and hopefully bring them

into a bit of a state of playfulness.

And then eventually a state of remembrance and

connection.

So we're never going to ever start a

shoot with those big environmental shots.

Where they're this teeny tiny in the frame.

Especially if we've never worked with them before.

Yeah, exactly.

We never want to start a shoot with

that because it's very hard to connect when

you're that far away from someone getting those

big environmental shots.

They often don't know what to do.

So we want to break down all those

barriers right at the beginning of the shoot.

And that's what I'm going to demonstrate for

you right now.