All language subtitles for 1. Corrective Posing

Let's get right into it, and I want

to give you guys incredible value, and I

want to go through now very briefly all

the points that we're going to cover.

We are going to talk about how to

pose a plus-size bride, plus-size groom,

plus-size couple, odd-height couple, of course

many of us have been in that situation,

maybe minimizing large ears, a large nose or

crooked nose, small eyes, odd-shaped eyes, large

forehead, welcome to my club, I have the

biggest, I call it big-ass forehead, so

I have a big-ass forehead, we'll learn

how to photograph me, and also perhaps creating

fuller lips, among other things.

As we go through it, please don't be

afraid to ask questions.

All right, are you ready for it?

We're going to talk about this, hide weaknesses

and amplify strengths.

Now, I don't want to call it a

weakness, because in some cultures, for example, if

we're talking about being plus-size, it's celebrated

to be plus-size.

In fact, when I met Melissa, I was

with her, let's say for the first time,

without giving you too much information, I was

touching her body and it was really hard

as a rock, she was like, had the

body of an athlete.

I'm Greek, I want something to hold on

to, is what I'm saying, and I fed

her and fed her like a passionate Greek

man, until she's just right, so now she

has these incredible curves that I wouldn't trade

for anything.

So, with all respect and sincerity, like I

said, let's call them physical weaknesses, because quite

simply, no one looks in the mirror every

morning and says, I wouldn't change a thing.

Every one of us looks in the mirror

and perhaps we wish something was a little

bit different, so what we're going to do

now is work out how to amplify those

strengths and hide those weaknesses.

So, here's a golden rule that I want

you to follow.

If you want to minimize something in a

photograph, I want you to hide it.

If you can't hide it, crop it.

If you can't crop it, then just don't

shoot.

That's as simple as that.

We need to minimize things.

And guys, when I talk about rules, I

really talk about common denominators.

After 25 years of photographing professionally, after 18

years of teaching, no one can say to

you, this is an absolute, this is a

fix for the rest of your life in

every situation, it's not going to happen.

What we need to do is look at

these as common denominators.

Most of the time, I believe this will

work in this situation.

Let's get right into it and let's start

talking about the good old forehead, okay?

Now, for me, first of all, I have

a very, very large head.

If you look at me, if you see

me in person, you think, holy crap.

Now, Melissa, now quickly, Joe, go to a

close-up of me, go to the close

-up camera.

So, look at how big my head is

and then go to Melissa, right?

Look how narrow her face and beautifully elegant

her face is.

So, at our wedding, for example, even though

that I ended up photographing quite a bit

of us in the mirror and photograph Melissa

on her own, I posed myself in a

lot of shots.

Now, what does that mean?

Let's say if Melissa's over here and she's

got a very small, narrow face and head

and here's Jerry right over here, if I

put it really close to me, the problem

is then you're going to see how big

my head is and wide my head is

and how big my forehead is.

So, what I deliberately did is I literally

stood back a lot of the time and

I turned my face in.

That does two things.

It minimizes part of my head.

Also, her face creates a shadow on my

face as well and then I bring the

proportion back in together.

Otherwise, you're thinking, well, either like my head's

just expanded in the heat or maybe Melissa's

face and head is just sort of like

contracted a little bit.

But just so you know, this is the

reality of photographing normal people.

Now, as far as I'm concerned, because I've

got, again, a big ass forehead, you would

do not want to photograph me from up

above.

If you put the camera up higher, it's

going to emphasize my fourth and that'll be

a problem.

Even people with a normal shape, size, head

and face, I often see photographers shoot up

very, very high and if you don't bring

the chin up to be parallel to the

camera but you just bring a normal face

down, then the forehead's going to be the

closest thing to the camera which is going

to make it appear larger.

So either with a normal face, you just

bring it up and you go parallel or

a larger face and head like mine.

But if you bring it down, you better

be careful not to include too much of

the forehead.

And if you include the entire hairline, you're

going to see this big hairline, big ass

forehead and then you're going to see small

features, that's going to be a problem.

And let me show you also the way

we crop, how it can make a difference.

Now, stunning girl, beautiful girl, beautiful face and

the top left-hand side, that's just a

normal crop front on.

Here we crop into the hairline so it's

no problem.

When you crop the hairline out, even though

that most women never get bald in their

lifetime, she looks bald and it looks like

her head goes on forever.

Here, I believe, this is a whole other

seminar of course, but when you crop into

the head, allow a bit of breathing space

above the brow but that's where you stop

if you include too much on the left

-hand side as we see there, then that's

an issue.

So my big advice just to reiterate, don't

shoot too high and if you do, then

stretch that face up and go parallel to

the camera and again crop into the hairline

a little bit otherwise you're going to make

the head look huge and it's going to

be a problem.

So what I'm going to do guys, of

course, I could cover this in grave detail.

Many of these parts can be covered in

grave detail.

I think I'm going to spend most of

my time today on plus size because I

find that's probably our biggest challenge and then

certainly we're going to cover different things as

well but just be careful of that.

Now, eyes.

There's a few problems that we have with

eyes, okay?

Sometimes our eyes appear small, sometimes they appear

large and sometimes one is actually bigger than

the other and we have to learn that

how to do that.

So let's look at these three shots.

On the left-hand side, there's a normal

passive look.

She's not giving me any kind of expression.

This is, by the way, these shots were

made purely for teaching purposes.

They weren't made to be award-winning or

anything like that.

So the left-hand side, you'll see how

she's looking passively into the camera.

The middle image, I call it a hint

of a squint.

It's a little hint of a squint.

I know Peter Hurley popularized the idea of

squinching.

I thought that would be really sexy but

because he came up with it, I've been

saying hint of a squint all my life

and here he comes just giving me this

really, really awesome saying and I've totally missed

the boat on that but anyway, hint of

a squint.

What that does, it allows a bit of

mystique and intrigue in the eyes and it

just softens them a little bit and I

find that that's a really good way of

doing it.

So whenever you're dealing with a couple or

a bride or a subject, you might say

just give me a little hint of a

squint, a little bit of tension, right, under

the eyelids and it adds mystique and you

can hardly look bored when you're doing that.

Now, if you want to make eyes appear

larger, there's two things you can do.

This, which is going to look really, really

ridiculous or three things.

One is that, well four things.

One is that, two is liquefy them bigger

or drop the chin and you'll find a

bit more white.

Now, I didn't go too far in this

case but if you drop the chin and

keep looking in the camera, what happens is

the whites envelop the pupil, the color and

then your eyes appear larger.

Now, you've got to be careful because when

girls do this, baby, let's cut to Melissa

for a second.

So just be passive into the camera, okay,

passive into the camera.

Now, give me a little bit of a

hint of a squint.

There we go.

So now she's looking sexier.

Let's go passive again.

Okay, now drop your chin, lean your chin

forward and down and eyes, do you see

how the whites of her eyes are enveloping

her pupil?

That's making her eyes appear larger.

Now, be careful because when a guy does

it, Joe, go on me on the close

-up camera.

See, I'm passive right now and then I

get, let's say I do the tension in

my eyelids, there's a little bit of mystique,

right?

It's sort of like, it's a bit cool,

it's a cool way of doing it.

Now, when I drop my chin, when guys

do it, they don't appear sexy like Melissa,

you just look like a serial killer.

I'm not changing my expression, am I?

I'm passive.

So, if you want guys' eyes to appear

larger, go down enough that you don't look

like a serial killer, but then you could

raise the camera.

See, if you raise the camera and then

I look up like this, then whites envelop

the eyes and then the eyes can appear

larger as well.

Yes, you can go wide-eyed, but that

can look a little bit creepy.

So, if ever you're photographing someone, let's say

with those, you know, those big eyes, someone

like, what's that actress in La La Land,

what's her name?

She won the Oscar, no, she won the

Oscar a year or so ago.

Who is it?

You know what I'm talking about, the girl

from La La Land.

Her eyes just appear quite large, just a

hint of a squint.

Another thing, if ever you're photographing in the

sun, let's say for example the sun is

right there and you can get a killer

shot if the bride turned her face like

this and she's doing this, she can't look

in there or you got to reflect and

it's really bright.

Why even worry about this when you can

do everything afterwards in Photoshop?

Well, here's the thing.

Yes, you can do some of these things

in Photoshop and other things that we're talking

about, but what happens to all the proofs?

What happens to the proofs straight out of

camera that you're putting on an online gallery

or you're selling with?

They don't look as great and that's the

thing is that we want to maximize what

we can do in camera and certainly when

we sell the images, we can actually add

a bit of polish afterwards, but we shouldn't

just rely on Photoshop for things that we

can do in camera.

All right, let's look at this one.

Odd-shaped eyes.

Have you ever photographed someone with one eye

larger than the other?

Now, here's the thing.

Sometimes we totally ignore those anomalies, so what

I normally do is when I'm getting to

know the bride on the day itself, I'm

also going to look at her properly and

basically say, well, let me look at your

face, let me look at your nose, let

me look at your eyes and ears.

I'm not going to make it obvious with

what I'm doing, but I'm going to very

specifically look at those anomalies and then know

which way I'm going to photograph.

So, for example, if I'm looking at someone,

so Matt, if I'm looking at you, for

example, let me have a look at your

face.

Okay, so your eyes are very even, not

a problem.

Your nose turns a little bit this way.

It's probably because you sleep on this side.

Do you sleep on the left side?

There you go.

So, can you imagine, right, so someone like,

you know, you're 40, 45 years of age

or whatever you are and you're sleeping on

this side, then you're bound to just do

this.

But let's talk about eyes.

So, let's look at this girl.

She's a stunning woman, stunning girl, but what

do you notice in the middle image?

Which eye is bigger?

Obviously, the left one.

Now, here's the other thing, guys, I want

to basically say with all sincerity and respect.

Quite simply, it's the anomalies and imperfection is

what makes people absolutely beautiful, right?

Wouldn't you agree?

It's those anomalies that are stunning.

We have to embrace those on a personal

level, let alone in front of a camera

and let alone behind a camera with our

subjects.

But it's funny because I had to go

through some images and different recent shoots and

just sort of say, hey, I wonder if

I had those problems and challenges and I

wonder if I tackled those during the day

itself.

So, let's explain it.

So, in this case, looking straight on, one

eye is bigger than the other.

So, if we have the large, if we

turn her face and have the larger eye

closer to the camera, you can see how

that eye appears even larger and the left

eye looks a little bit weird.

Now that I'm getting you to focus on

it, you're sort of looking past her obvious

beauty, but there is an issue.

Do you see how in this image, she's

turning her face a little bit to the

right and we're balancing up that perspective?

So, my advice to you is, if you

have one eye bigger than the other, again,

let's just go through it.

If this eye is bigger, yes, you can

sort of, some people can actually tighten up

the underlids there, not a problem on one

eye, but it can be almost like a

wink.

So, it's a bit careful.

So, all I'm saying is, if this eye

was bigger than this one, then you really

want to turn the face and do this.

That little bit of an angle on the

face is going to be quite intriguing, but

if you do this, then that's a problem.

Now, if you go complete profile, it doesn't

really matter because you've got nothing to compare

it to.

When you're comparing, when you look a little

bit closer, then that might be a problem.

This is not a really huge issue, but

if you have it more pronounced than even

her, then you have an issue.

All right, let's talk about it.

Ears.

What do we do with ears?

Now, it's funny, like when we're younger, our

eyes appear, our ears are a little bit

larger, then your face grows, the size of

your face and your head grows, and then

the ears get back a little bit, but

some of us have pronounced ears, that's just

the way it is.

So, what do we do?

Well, on the top left, that was a

before shot, and that was just, it's not

really a good exposure, it was like a

disposable shot that I took, but it's funny

because I paid close attention to his ears,

I could not shoot him front on because

the ears just were really, really quite pronounced.

If he had longer hair, perhaps it would

soften them, but we need contrast.

So, what I ended up doing is turning

his face and I get rid of one

ear with perspective, one ear is hidden behind

his cheek, and then we actually have his

ear there.

Now, watch this, in your environment, when you're

photographing, do you see how, even though the

one ear that's actually visible is in shadow,

I've got it contrasted with a lighter space.

All I simply did was change my angle

so that it disappears into that darkness, so

you see how this shot and this shot,

completely different effect.

Make sense?

Now, here's the thing, you're probably watching at

home and thinking, man, I have to worry

about lighting, posing, exposure, composition, cropping, and pay

attention to these details.

Well, yeah, absolutely, it's really got to be

something that we're dealing with.

So, just be careful of those things.

Now, let me show you another way.

So, again, now this guy hasn't got, you

know, pronounced ears, not a problem, but here's

something that can look a little bit weird.

You can crop on a bit of an

angle and have a little bit of his

ear visible, and it looks weird.

I'm saying, even if someone does not have

pronounced ears, what I believe you should do

is either, again, if they're not pronounced ears,

that's totally fine, do that, but the minute

you turn the face left or right, get

rid of the ear, otherwise it looks like

a problem.

And you can see how the angle makes

a difference.

Do you see how that's an awkward angle

on him?

It's a little bit awkward.

I've got rid of the ear, but I'm

a little bit higher.

Here, I'm a little bit lower, and turn

his face to the right, I get rid

of one ear, and then that's not a

problem.

Make sense?

All right.

So, practice is the absolute key.

Melissa, do you have any questions or thoughts?

I love those tips on eyes and ears.

Like, that is awesome, that if you have

a smaller eye, turn it closer to the

camera and how to minimize ears.

It's really good.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

All right.

So, let's talk about a nose.

Let's talk about the nose.

Okay.

There's quite a few things that we have

to deal with here when it comes to

a nose, because if someone has a more

pronounced nose or a crooked nose, they're usually

very, very conscious of it, wouldn't you agree?

So, we actually have to pay attention to

that.

So, here's the thing.

I often say that you actually have to

photograph with the empathy of a saint with

a technique of a master, because if you

think that, oh, everyone's a child of God,

everyone's absolutely stunning and beautiful, no matter what

you are, what you look like, then you

will pay no attention to what bothers that

client.

Certainly, a more meaningful portrait is the most

important thing, but people's insecurity is going to

be apparent.

You can convince a bride all day, no,

your nose is perfect, it's not a problem,

and then you photograph her profile all day,

then she's going to have a problem with

that.

She'll be upset, she won't buy the photographs,

no matter how great they are.

So, we have to pay attention to these

things.

So, in fact, I am going to do

a little demonstration with Melissa here.

So, baby, I'm going to come nice and

close behind the camera, so I know what

the camera is seeing, and then we're going

to do something, a little demonstration.

So, all right, let me do that.

So, all right, we're right on Melissa.

So, baby girl, so if you're looking right

at the camera, what we want to do,

as far as the nose is concerned, is

never, ever have that nose, if it's longer

and more pronounced, actually have it cross the

bridge of the lip or the cheek.

So, baby, if you can just bring your

face out a little bit and then chin

down, chin down.

In fact, I might go closer to you

here.

All right, now, what I want you to

do is lean more forward and a little

bit lower with the chin.

Now, do you see her nose?

There's a clear gap between her nose and

her lips.

If you bring your chin down, baby, keep

on going down, stop.

Do you see how now it's tickling the

upper lip?

If the shadow of the nose or the

nose itself crosses the line of that lip,

your nose is going to cross it and

that little piece passing, so passing that lip

is going to look very pronounced.

So, keep on going now.

So, there you go.

Do you see how now, she's got a

cute little nose.

I love her nose, but now we can't

really see her lips.

Keep on going now, chin down.

Now, we're seeing just her nose and no

lips.

That's making her nose look bigger, and it's

actually making her forehead look bigger.

Thank God Melissa can actually have her head

look bigger because this is not fair for

the rest of us poor people.

Now, come up again.

What I want you to do now is

lean forward again and chin down a little

bit.

Stop there.

Now, turn your face this way.

Stop.

Do you see how her nose is just

within the line of that cheek?

Now, you may have heard this before, but

I want you to understand why.

The minute that nose crosses that line, just

do a little bit to the right.

Stop.

Do you see how the nose looks more

pronounced, and sometimes the eye, her right eye

in this case, can look a little bit

beady.

So, my suggestion is when that nose crosses

the line of the cheek, go complete profile,

and that's basically it.

Same, go the other side.

So, again, so go slowly, slowly, slowly.

Stop.

Tilt this way.

Stop.

Chin down.

That's it.

Lean forward, darling.

So, it's a little bit closer.

Great.

Now, do you see again how that nose

is within that line, and we can see

her eye?

Now, looking at where my hand is, you

see how sometimes that also, that rule affects

the eye.

You can hardly see her left eye.

So, it's going to differ on everyone's face.

Now, go complete profile, and there you go.

And by the way, I want you to

know something.

Come back a little bit, baby.

So, the same thing.

So, lean back a little bit.

Lean forward, chin down, and go complete profile.

Do you see how Melissa's looking straight ahead?

Okay.

So, look straight ahead, baby, and get a

bit wider eyed.

Okay.

Do you see how we can see the

whites of her eyes?

That's an issue.

So, whenever you're doing a profile shot, anyone

in that shot who's being photographed will have

a tendency to look completely straight, but all

I'm seeing is white.

I'm not seeing beautiful color and pupil.

Now, I get her to keep her face

there and look a little bit to her

right.

So, look.

Now, it's a profile shot, but I can

see her beautiful green blue eyes.

So, there's another little tip there when you're

photographing a profile.

Get the person to look a little bit

to their right or left so you see

more color than pupil.

Thank you, baby.

You're welcome.

So, let me show you a few examples

here.

Let me show you a few examples.

Now, she's a gorgeous girl, beautiful features, and

you would say that she has probably a

little bit of a pronounced nose.

You see how it's just tickling the lip,

and you would say it probably looks a

bit more pronounced.

Now, I sacrifice perfection for emotion because she

looks beautiful.

She's got a gorgeous smile, and I made

her laugh as we were doing it.

Now, don't forget here, guys, that as you

have softer, flatter light on someone, it sort

of blends in your features.

Okay?

It blends in those features.

This is a perfect example.

Do you see how there's soft light coming

on her?

Her nose is nowhere near a profile.

It's nowhere near crossing the line of that

cheek and nowhere near crossing her lips.

If you get someone with more pronounced nose,

and you shoot them from up high, and

they lean forward, then that's always going to

appear longer.

See, when you have one light source coming

from this way, causing a long shadow of

the nose, that will also be an issue.

Now, here's the thing.

Guys, most of us, maybe at home, if

you shoot near a window light or if

you're shooting at a studio, my advice to

you is you should determine your main light

based upon the nose.

Now, you might say, what, Jerry?

All these years, I've walked into a studio,

and X marks the spot.

This is where my main light is.

This is where my fill light is.

Can't be that way.

It's got to be based upon the eyes

and the nose.

Let me explain.

If someone has a crooked nose, which could

very well be the case, and you have

your main light in the direction of that

crooked nose, that's going to make the nose

look more crooked.

Okay?

More crooked and longer, even though the shadow

as well.

If you have the main light, let's say,

against that crooked nose, think of it, it's

like a hammer snapping it back in place.

Okay?

So, let's say, for example, this is the

camera right here.

Okay?

The close-up one, Joe.

And then we have a window here.

Okay?

We have a window here, and the quality

of light is great this way and great

this way.

So, I have a choice to photograph in

different, basically any way I want.

We might just go for the obvious perspective.

But let's say, for this, for example, if

I have my nose, the main light's coming

this way, and my nose is crooked this

way, that's going to make it more pronounced.

So, then what I would do is, I

would turn around the other way.

Okay?

And then it would go against it.

So, remember, whenever the nose is crooked like

this, your main light source should be coming

over here.

And that way, we are going to correct

the nose.

Also, if organically, do you see how she

brought her chin up a little bit?

We distort and we shorten the length of

the nose.

Does that make any sense?

So, for example, if...

I wouldn't know how I would actually even

give an example.

So, let's say, for example, my hand is

here.

Okay?

It's this long.

When I point it towards the camera, you

see how the length is shortened?

We call that foreshortening.

And that's just a concept of a pose

as well.

That's a concept like, we don't really want

to point a body part into the lens

of the camera because we're going to shorten

it.

Perfect example.

Let's say if a bride is holding flowers

and she's doing this, and the flowers come

out of her elbow, it looks like she's

got kangaroo arms.

They're so short and small that those flowers

come out of her elbow.

We want to stretch that arm out, never

keep it straight, and we want to bend

it slightly.

Now, certainly the foundations of posing, there are

so many common denominators, as I call them,

but we'll cover that in a different episode.

Today's more about corrective posing.

But you see how less pronounced her nose

looks when her chin is basically up.

This next shot of her, I was very,

very excited about it.

If you look at it, it actually reminds

you of something.

Hopefully, it reminds you of something.

Now, anyone at home, if you're watching this

and you haven't seen me talk about this

image or teach about this image before, I

want you to tell me what painting does

that remind you of?

What painting does that remind you of?

Now, here's the other thing, guys, is that

when you are posing someone, you need to

actually have a tone of voice that evokes

the energy that you're trying to convey.

For example, if I want to make someone

look and feel beautiful, technically, I might be

doing things that are corrective posing, for example,

but I might soften my voice and ask

you to lean forward and tilt your face

and turn your face that way and close

your eyes on the count of three, open.

What I'm getting at is sometimes what I'm

saying is actually just a very mechanical instruction,

but the way I'm saying it evokes the

energy.

Sometimes what I'm saying, it actually evokes the

emotion and the energy, but sometimes it's just

the way I'm saying it.

Certainly, that's going to be a whole different

episode in terms of evoking emotion.

Those of you who've seen me before, you've

actually heard from me before, you know that

that's a big thing that I like to

do.

Posing without expression means absolutely nothing.

People ask me, how did I think of

this image?

She was wearing this shawl and it looked

quite old, like vintage.

I basically said to the bride, I go,

does that mean anything?

Is there anything special to you?

What is the meaning behind this?

She goes, it was actually my grandmother's.

As soon as she said grandmother, I thought

of my own grandmother who I loved absolutely

dearly.

She's my favorite woman in the world.

Then Melissa has taken over the mantle.

She was such a beautiful woman.

If you think of a Greek widow, grandmother,

she's always got that little black thing and

looking really cute in wool, wearing all black.

That reminded me of maybe that will be

a cute little pose to make it look

a little bit more unique and theatrical.

Then she just reminded me of Mona Lisa,

so I even posed her hands somewhat paying

homage to the painting.

I love the fact that we've got the

beautiful warmth in the eyes and you might

even ask me, Jerry, well, how do we

get the smize?

How do we actually get warmth in the

eyes?

Now you can say, give me warmth in

the eyes.

Sometimes I do that.

Usually I'll make someone laugh.

I'll make someone laugh and wait till the

end and that's when I get that beautiful

expression.

You might make someone laugh, click, before they

go passive.

Make sense?

Also, have you ever photographed someone with a

very gummy laugh with all due respect?

You've got big teeth, big gums and they

laugh like this.

I photographed a bride and every time she

laughed, she did this.

She covered her mouth the whole time.

I'm like, it's a shame that she doesn't

actually appreciate her beautiful smile.

Even though at the same time, I could

say, what's wrong with you?

You're beautiful.

Don't worry about it.

You're gorgeous.

How do I approach a bride on the

day with all sincerity and respect and not

make her feel silly by saying, don't cover

up your mouth.

You're ruining the moment.

At the same time, I don't want to

bring attention to the fact that she's doing

that.

I thought, okay, how do I do it?

I said, we're having an absolute great time.

It's such a joy to see you laugh

and carry on.

I noticed that when you laugh, you cover

up your mouth.

Please don't do that.

Look, I think you look absolutely incredible but

I personally, I prefer the end of the

smile so that warmth is retained rather than

shooting at the peak of your emotion.

I carry the warmth at the end and

then I show her a photograph of what

that looks like.

I'm not photographing at the peak of the

smile and the gummy laugh and smile.

It's that end and then that way, I

get that beautiful warmth and I said, I

prefer, I don't say you will look better

by doing it this way.

It's a very, very important skill.

Certainly, empathy and tact and sincerity and respect

is something that's hard to teach but you've

got to just do your best to understand

that you are not photographing a client who

gives you money.

You're photographing a human being, a bride, a

girl, a woman who's actually getting married.

She's someone's soulmate, someone's best friend, someone's daughter,

someone's granddaughter and so on.

So, treat everyone that you photograph with respect

and speaking of respect, someone I respect most

of all is Melissa.

Talk to me, girlfriend.

So, this is a little bit off topic

but since it's up on the screen anyways,

I just wanted to just deviate because what

you said is so beautiful and that definitely

helped to capture that soul in that image.

I appreciate that.

I'd like to tell you that this is

like a four light setup but this was

just what God gave us through a window.

So, just beautiful window light coming through and

turning her face into the light source is

a very, very important thing.

Just to remind you guys that when you

photograph a girl front on, you're photographing her

at her widest.

I'm not saying she's wide, certainly but if

you photograph a girl at her widest, my

encouragement to you is have the light come

from the side because the side lighting will

give you that texture, depth, dimension and form

where the angle is not.

Then I turn her face into the light

and then now I've created the short side,

the narrow side, the shadow side, the sexy

side, pick one and she looks beautiful.

The warmth in her eyes, I think from

memory, I think I did talk about how

much like how that reminded me of my

grandmother and then that warmth that came from

just that connection between me and her and

that shawl, I wanted this for her so

she can look back at it and she

has this perfect memory and this beautiful image

just paying homage and respect to her grandmother

and I and her grandmother are forever connected

with that moment.

So, nothing fancy, just one window light.

If you want to practice with window light,

what I want you to do is don't

think that window light is the same no

matter where you look, no matter where you

are.

In other words, it's not like you go

to an extra window, it's just perfect every

single time.

There is a direction of light and there

is a quality of light that comes through

that window.

So, when I'm, let's say if this was

a window, okay what I will do, I

will put my hand over here and here

and look for the iridescence and saturation of

my skin tone and then I will shoot

that way if my skin glows more in

this environment.

Does that make sense?

So, it's not just well, I walk into

a bedroom, that's the bed, logically I'll just

pose her there.

No, look at the light because you might

have, you'll have two choices and you simply

again photograph in the direction where the skin

is more iridescent and saturated.

Don't always pick location.

Guys, it's lighting is the number one.

Again, that's a totally different seminar but lighting

will be the, could be the death of

the image, it could be the life of

the image.

So, all right, let's just show you a

couple of shots here.

This happened organically, can I just say.

They were just dancing around, I decided to

actually go over here and photograph them and

again, can I just say that am I

going to never photograph a profile shot of

a bride or a groom with a pronounced

nose?

Well, of course I will but that will

be more, you would say, of the photojournalistic

images.

When I can direct an image, I'm going

to minimize those weaknesses and amplify those strengths.

So, this is what happened.

Organically, they did that on their own.

I usually always prefer the bride to kiss

and her nose on the outside.

Then they put their noses together but do

you see how her nose looks more pronounced

in those two shots?

Then I walked up to them, guys, I

love what you're doing but I think I

love it the other way better.

Then they turned around, we made them laugh

and you see how you would say that's

more flattering and again, I'm not saying it's

tough.

So, don't think that, I don't want to

get all pedantic on you because I'm focusing

on these things but you just have to

pay attention to them and you can see

when we did the reveal, usually I ask,

I like the bride to be on the

outside but this time the groom's on the

outside and you would say that softened her

a lot better and like I said, she's

a gorgeous woman, beautiful figure, beautiful face.

I just simply want to minimize something that

maybe she might feel uncomfortable with.

You might be asking me the following question.

So, do you ask a bride what she

doesn't like about herself?

That's a tough one.

What I do is I don't normally ask

someone, I usually will look at someone as

a caricature of themselves.

What does a cartoonist do when they draw

a picture of you?

So, if a cartoonist drew a picture of

me, what are my features on my face

and what would they do?

They emphasize everything.

I've got a big ass forehead so they're

going to frigging make my head go on

forever.

Makes sense?

So, what I do is they pick up

on any kind of little thing and totally

exaggerate it.

So, I picture myself as a caricature, a

cartoonist and I look at someone and whatever

a cartoonist would exaggerate, I would hide and

soften with the way I'm dealing with things

as well.

All right, let's move on.

Lens compression.

So, depending on the lens that you choose,

of course, you are going to make someone,

their features look a little bit different.

I personally favor the longer focal length.

I think, personally, people just look sexier with

a longer focal length.

If you want things to look more real,

well, reality is the way we see with

our own two eyes.

The closest focal length to our own two

eyes is 50 mil.

50 mil is the closest thing that we

see.

We, of course, we see practically 180 degrees

almost.

Okay, let me show you now all the

different compressions and see what happens.

Okay, there's blessings and curses here.

I deliberately use, again, a beautiful face, beautiful

girl here.

200 mil is what I prefer.

As we go down, 170, 135, 105, do

you see how pretty much once you get

to 70 mil and beyond, we start looking

a little bit different.

What do you notice?

So, blessing and the curse is this, if

she had really big ears, you could shoot

at 24 mil and hardly see them.

The problem is then her freaking nose looks

bigger.

Here, you sort of see again what happens

with the compression.

I'm saying I like to stay usually on

this side.

When I'm shooting at about 70 mil, 24

mil over here, my subjects are further into

the actual frame.

I have more negative space around the frame.

If you put any kind of body part

on the corner of a 24 mil or

28 mil lens, it's going to be distorted.

So, if I had to choose a bride

or a groom to be in the corner

of a frame, it'd be the guy.

He's wearing a black suit usually, not really

an issue.

If it's a bride, you put her leg

or a foot on the corner of a

wide-angle lens frame.

Her foot, compare it to the size of

her head and it will be bigger.

So, you must make sure when you're shooting

at 24 or even 14 mil, like I've

got a 14 to 24, I usually put

my subjects in the middle.

I don't normally like center composition shots, but

I'll normally go a little bit wider, bring

them in the middle and do it that

way.

So, I can't tell you which one you

should do.

I'll just tell you that I like to

stay up here, but you can see it

all looks, you know, fantastic.

I believe 50 mil is where it obviously

starts to look a little bit different, but

you can see even though that she has

those little, you know, the side hair sort

of covering up her ears, you can sort

of see how we can hardly see that

on this side.

Now, here's the other thing though.

Lens perspective and compression can communicate a message.

How are most comedians photographed?

Think about it.

If you've seen a promotional photograph of a

comedian, how do you normally see them?

You see this big head, it's wide-angle

like this and the body goes into nothing

like a little stick figure.

That is a form of ridicule.

So, for a comedian, that might be the

right way of photographing them.

Does that make sense?

Now, here's the other thing.

Soon, we'll talk about plus size and many

of us might photograph, let's say, with a

higher camera angle and shoot down low, but

many of us will be photographing a longer

focal length.

I find that when you photograph a plus

size bride at a wider focal length, guess

what happens?

Her head stays a certain size and the

body disappears.

So, let's say if you had a plus

size girl, I mean, most plus size girl

or guy, couple, whatever, their face will only

remain a certain size, but the body will

grow more than the face.

So, if you have a wider angle lens

on a plus size bride or groom, the

body starts to shrink a little bit and

come more in proportion with the face.

So, most people don't know that tip and

I strongly encourage they use that tip.

Don't go to 24, you want to hover

around this area here.

If there's something really obvious about someone, let's

say they could be in a wheelchair, they

could be pregnant, like there might be a

married couple, a couple getting married, but the

girl's obviously eight months pregnant and she might

not want to show that she's pregnant or

you're missing a limb or something like that.

My suggestion is you should address it with

all sincerity.

For example, those of you who don't know,

I'm missing a third of my left index

finger.

I don't really care.

I totally ignore it.

I did it when I was four years

of age and it doesn't worry me, but

something like missing a hand, you might ask

with all sincerity and respect, would you like

me to show or to minimize showing your

left hand or the right side of your

body or whatever?

I would tend to just use the, how

do I say, I would probably tend to

just go through that motion a little bit

and I'll probably find out the answer without

even asking that question.

If you feel like you're at that point,

like I don't really know whether she cares

about it or not.

I find with talking to someone, if they're

always minimizing their hand and always putting it

further away, then you know they're conscious about

it.

If they're talking to you and let's say

she was missing a hand like this and

she was leaning forward, whatever, I would say

that wouldn't be a problem.

So I think I'd pick up on those

little telltale signs and insecurities.

And if I still didn't know, I might

ask that question with all sincerity and respect.

And quite simply, you can easily pose someone

with the bride, the arm around the groom,

the flowers being in a certain way, cutting

with shadow and things like that.

And we'll show those examples later on today,

not so severe perhaps, but we'll show that

in a particular way.

I think that there's many, many photographers that

perhaps lack a bit of confidence.

They get to a wedding day and then

they literally have no time.

The weather is bad.

They don't really have time to create.

Or they've just started in photography.

A great way of actually getting the pressure

off a little bit, getting to know the

couple, is to take the couple out and

go have some fun and play.

And then you'll work out those issues.

If you don't work them out with a

conversation, don't work them out when you're photographing.

The bride will look at those photographs before

the wedding and then she'll bring attention to

the fact that she does not like this

about herself.

Then great, you can minimize it.

And certainly, obviously, we'll talk about some other

reasons why that's very, very important with a

conversation with you, of course, later on today,

about how important is it to develop that

relationship, whether it's through conversation in person, whether

it's via Skype if you have to, because

you can't physically get to see them.

And the absolute best case scenario is actually

do an engagement session beforehand and get to

know them and their issues.

Quite simply, we want to be in the

habit of exceeding expectations.

To do that, we need to know what

they are first, and that might be the

best way of doing that.

All right, tall, short.

Have you ever photographed a really tall guy

and a shorter girl or vice versa?

What do you do?

Well, I'm going to show you probably a

couple of golden denominators, common denominators or rules

as we call them.

Let's show you some examples here.

You can see how he's practically a foot

taller than the bride here, okay?

And then you can see then what we've

actually done to minimize it.

So here's the thing.

If you do have a groom that's really,

really tall, more often than not, a bride's

going to certainly wear heels, but I would

make sure she's wearing heels, because some girls

will say, I just want to be comfortable,

I'm wearing flats.

You might say, bring your flats, but the

heels are really important for those traditional shots

that we want to bring in proportion, things

like that.

Yes, you can bring obvious things like a

step ladder and so on, but we're going

to show you freestyle, I guess, on actually

how to actually make those heights look a

little bit better.

Quite simply, if you're dealing with a really,

really tall guy and a really short girl,

that's just who they are.

At the same time, I believe it's more

aesthetically pleasing if you get them a little

bit closer to the same height, so there's

a bit more of a connection physically.

So right now, they're standing flat-footed right

there.

Now what I've done is I get him

to stand about a foot behind the bride,

literally a foot, maybe even a foot and

a half behind the bride.

So we stand there, although you can't see

my feet in this situation, we lean forward,

and then I tilt my face.

So now what I'm doing is, not only

am I parting my feet, never say spread

your legs to a guy or a girl,

it's the worst thing you can say.

You lean forward with the front foot, and

then you lean forward and tilt the face,

which will drop more inches.

Now here's the thing, the only way that

you will hide that awkwardness of the groom

is when one leg crosses over the other.

If you actually, if I shot him from

an angle, that's what he's doing, that's exactly

what he's doing, but I'm shooting that angle

over there.

So again, although yes, they're not exactly the

same height, I don't think they should be,

quite simply, but it's much more minimised than

that, wouldn't you agree?

We're not, it's more for communication, it's, reality

is, hey, he's a lot taller, but in

terms of communication, that's a lot more intimate

than that.

That's why I'm, for many reasons, I'm getting

sick and tired of those shots where the

bride and the groom are looking expressionless into

the camera, let alone the height difference is

a problem, but that says nothing to me.

Even though that's a traditional photograph, just the

pure architecture of what they're doing looks emotional,

let alone if we get, got an expression

out of them.

Let's keep on going.

If we are over here, you see how

in this situation, he's standing flat-footed and,

but now, if I get him to lean

forward and tilt his face, we minimise that

problem.

And again, let's do it again.

We're standing quite straight, he leans forward and

we do this.

You can never see a gap between the

guy's legs, that's when, because then you will

not be hiding the fact that he's leaning

forward on the front foot and his feet

are about a foot or perhaps more wider

than what's going on.

Now guys, I want to tell you, I

had probably the most extreme example that I

think I've ever heard of.

I photographed a seven foot two groom, seven

feet two, marrying a five foot two bride.

I looked at them, I'm like, I mean,

I'm six two, I'm a tall guy.

I felt so vulnerable.

I told him, I'm like, oh my God,

you could just crush me with a little,

like a little punch.

But let me show you how I dealt

with it, because there's only so much you

can do with that height difference, two feet

difference.

So in this case, now I'm showing you

the behind the scenes, but his right foot

was way, way, way behind and at least

it's not ridiculous.

In a moment, I'm going to show you

some shots during the ceremony of how severe

that height difference was.

It was quite ridiculous, but you know what?

Odd height couples fall in love as well.

You're not going to say, well, you're two

foot taller.

No, you know, but the way I crop

it and the way I come in, you

will not know that there's that much of

a height difference.

Let me show you this image.

You can see how much taller he is,

but what I'm actually doing here is in,

this is a behind the scenes shot.

So I underexposed the sky.

I grabbed that, a speed light there, an

off-camera flash.

I lay down on the ground, put my

camera next to the puddle.

He was a little bit further, but do

you see the height differences that not that

much difference compared to the actual reality because

he's further away and she's closer.

So I minimize that height difference.

Let me show you, I'm six foot two.

Let me show you behind the scenes photograph

of me with the groom on the left

hand side, but you could see how much

taller he is.

So quite simply, I got her on a

bench and you wouldn't know, you would swear

that was just, if I showed you that

photograph, you would not know there was a

height difference.

Then I got him to pick her up

and again, you would not know that there's

actually an issue there as well.

That was a tough wedding.

This is great.

Talking about different height couples is really helpful.

What happens when you have a bride and

groom and you may want to answer this

a little bit later, Jerry, but what happens

when you have a bride and groom that

are very short, but the rest of their

bridal party are tall.

And so how do you make it not

so that it doesn't look like they're little

children in front of their whole bridal party?

Do you have any other suggestions that might

be helpful in that kind of scenario?

Yes, absolutely.

So let's just reiterate, you've got a shorter

couple.

My dad calls short people down to earth.

It's just a nice way to call them.

They're closer to the earth.

So down to earth couple.

And then we've got a really tall bridal

party.

Well, yes, you can do a basically a

photograph where the couple are in the foreground

and everyone else in the background.

That's a great way of doing it.

But what happens if you want sort of

everyone in focus?

Well, if you have them all standing, standing

sort of like in a row, like that

traditional bridal party shot that we all do,

then there's going to be a height difference.

Would I get everyone to step back, even

girls, if they're all tall?

Yes.

Their back foot would be right back.

They would be about a foot apart.

The girls would actually point their toe and

bend their knee.

Usually what I do is, guys, just to

reiterate, when I photograph a girl, a female

full length bride, full length, I will start

by pointing the toe towards the camera, putting

all the weight on the back leg.

I slide the heel back in, I bend

the knee, I bring the shoulders back, lean

the chest forward.

The difference with if you've got a really

tall girl and a shorter guy, or in

this case, taller guys and girls in the

bridal party and shorter wedding couple, then I

would actually get the bride to separate and

part, or the bridesmaid to part her feet.

And this time, you've got no other choice

but to put the weight forward on the

front foot, as long as, again, those legs

don't have a gap between them, and then

you'll know that there's an awkwardness there.

Put one leg over the other for the

guys and girls, obviously in a less feminine

way for the guys, and that will be

great.

But more importantly, I would just use a

beautiful triangular composition.

Of course, if you know that triangular compositions

are very pleasing to the eye, so you

could have the couple standing, then you can

have the best man and matron of honor

on stools, then you can have a chair

with maybe two couples, like let's say a

bridesmaid and a groomsman who are an actual

couple, get the groom to sit on the

chair, get that bridesmaid who's a fiance of

that groomsman to sit on the lap and

so on.

So now we have this little beautiful hierarchy.

We can even have one of the guys

kneeling on the ground, the girl sitting on

the ground, and now we have this beautiful

little hierarchy.

So just know that there is a way.

It's not going to happen the whole time,

but there's going to be some shots where

we can minimize it, and that will not

be a problem.

I know that when I was photographing the

wedding, there was times where I wanted to

glorify it because I thought it was quite

fun to show, I call this evolution, to

show the height differences.

But when it comes to the guy and

the girl, you don't want to him look

like a Neanderthal and this cute little bride.

It just doesn't work.

And that's why there's some times where you

can glorify it and have some fun with

it, but even with the groomsman, that was

probably the only time that he ever looked

short compared to his guys.

So in this case, I've used the groomsman

to frame him, but then when you get

it organically, you just see how tall he

is, and he doesn't want to look awkward.

So sometimes it was quite funny.

So during the ceremony, I sort of almost

had to capture it in that kind of

a way, and then you pull back a

little bit.

And here's the thing though, during a photojournalistic

moment, whether it's at the reception or the

ceremony, you've got no choice.

You really can't do much.

But let me show you, there are things

that you can do.

So let's say for example, I can't go

to them as they're walking down the aisle

and tell them to pose a certain way.

Hey, can we have the bride walk closer

to me and the groom further back?

That'll be an obvious way you can correct

that perspective.

So if you are doing a walking shot

with a tall guy and a shorter girl,

have the guy up close and have the

groom further back and shoot more bias to

the bride.

That's the way you'll actually get it better.

But if they're walking down the aisle, and

they've got literally three, four feet to walk

down, and you've got no space to work

with, what on earth do you do?

Well, you can also crop and angle your

picture.

Watch this.

If you angle the picture bias to the

guy, you're going to make him look taller

again.

But if you actually angle it the other

way, it's an illusion that I'm creating that,

wow, what a difference an angle makes.

This way, they look more proportional.

This way, it looks even worse.

So I'm suggesting, if they're walking down the

aisle, get a shot that's symmetrical, perfect symmetrical

to the church and all that kind of

stuff.

But then just angle it to the bride,

angle it to the person that you want

to make taller, and then you will get

a bigger.

I have to move on.

All right.

And also, sometimes, you can't have his head.

This is a photojournalistic moment.

They're getting in the car to go to

locations.

I couldn't get his head in the shot

to be quite close and intimate to get

rid of the distraction, but I got it

in the reflection.

Then when we went on location, you wouldn't

know that there was a height difference here.

Of course, you can get him to sit

down.

You would not know there's a height difference

here.

You would not know there's a height difference

here or here, let alone in this situation,

the vineyard, because I underexposed the vines there.

This was actually a very hazy day.

By simply underexposing this shot by five stops,

I got that beautiful sky.

I made everything black.

His feet were parted by almost two feet.

Can you imagine?

He spread his legs almost two feet.

Then I took the shot, but the silhouette

hid the fact that he was awkwardly standing.

You would swear that was, again, not a

height difference.

Again, even in this case, it's not a

problem.

You just don't know.

Like I said, we can't perform miracles, but

if you looked at that wedding, I could

cherry-pick some images and you would just

simply not know that there's a problem.

What happens if the bride is very pregnant?

Do you do anything different with that?

Also, what happens when the bride is shorter

than the groom?

I know we've just shown a bunch of

examples when the groom is taller, but what

about when the bride is taller than the

groom?

Let's talk about the pregnant bride.

That is when I would obviously ask, would

you like me to hide the fact that

the bride is pregnant, like that you're pregnant,

or would you like me to just photograph

organically?

Some couples would love to show that off.

Probably the best advice I can give is

when I'm talking about plus-size brides, it'll

be practically the same advice that I would

give if she was pregnant if you want

to minimize it.

What are the obvious things?

The obvious things are bring the veil over

the shoulders and over the body.

Bring the flowers over.

You can use cropping.

You can use shade.

There's all these things you can do, which

I'll be showing you very shortly on how

to minimize someone who is pregnant who does

not want to look like it.

Obviously, if I do profile shots, if I

do silhouettes, I'm going to crop a little

bit differently, so I don't get the silhouette

of the body.

Here's the thing.

If we had two bodies close together and

two faces close together, and I was photographing

a silhouette, the bride's belly could actually overlap

the guy, and you underexpose enough, it'll just

blend into black.

There are so many ways you can do

it.

It's quite logical when you think about it.

It's just a matter of working it out.

If the bride is taller than the groom,

you asked that maybe, is that right?

If the bride is taller than the groom,

he's probably very rich.

No.

It's probably true, but anyway, let's stricken that

from the record.

It's the exact same thing.

Let me reiterate it.

I talked about the bridesmaids being taller than

the bride and the groom.

How would you make a girl look shorter

than she actually is to be more in

harmony with the groom?

Let's just reiterate this.

What I'll do is I'll get the bride

to stand about a foot, foot and a

half back.

She brings her front foot right out, then

she slides it back in and causing a

bit of a bend in her knee.

When she bends her knee, she'll bring her

butt away from the camera.

See, the more I push her butt and

hip away from the camera, the shorter she's

becoming.

Then I'd turn the face this way and

tilt.

You see, now that's the bride, for example,

then the groom will stand up nice and

straight.

That's how I'll minimize that problem.

Let's talk about a delicate subject and topic

that we sometimes find it very difficult.

That is how to photograph a plus-size

girl, plus-size guy and a plus-size

couple.

Let's go through it.

Again, I wish there was a better word

for plus-size.

I know that some people say curvy and

some people say plus and heavy or I'm

trying to find the most sensitive words to

use.

I deeply apologize if it's not sensitive enough,

but I think it's in a common vernacular.

Curvy, I don't think explains it.

I know plenty of girls who are very

thin, who have a shapely bust and a

butt and things like that.

Curvy is not the best answer.

Then some plus-size girls, for that matter,

they may not have curves.

They may be a little bit boxy.

She's a beautiful girl, gorgeous features, gorgeous face.

She's a little bit fuller in the body.

How do we minimize it?

Quite simply, there are many ways.

If she has longer hair, I'll usually place

the hair over her shoulders.

If she has a veil, I'll bring the

veil over her.

Quite simply, we can make our girls shine

absolutely beautifully bright with simply cropping, softening, whether

it's with shade, whether it's with veil, whether

it's with our lens choice, but it's amazing

what we can actually do.

Now in this case, for example, I'm actually

hiding one arm with veil and then one

arm you can actually hardly even see.

Even this one, for example, you can't see

her left arm.

I brought all the bulk of the actual

veil, brought it over her right arm.

I bring the flowers up as well to

soften her.

I mean, she's a busty bride as well,

and that's not a problem, but sometimes I

might just want to keep her attention on

her face, soften her body, and that's basically

it.

So again, if we turn the body away

from the light, turn the face back in,

in this case, her left arm's being hidden

and softened by shadow and veil.

The right arm that would have been visible

now has the flowers over it.

This is a beautiful girl that I photographed

several years ago, and you would ask, what's

her strength?

Well, obviously her eyes and her smile, she's

absolutely exquisite, and quite simply, depending on the

way we photograph her, we can bring out

the best in her.

Sometimes I even use a, it could be

a tree, it could be a wall, I'm

softening parts of the body because no one

is going to look at that image and

say, well, where's her left arm?

It's effortless.

It's in a way that I'm sensitive to

it, but I'm also going to amplify her

strengths.

Well, again, be sensitive, soften, soften those insecurities,

and then amplify those strengths.

In this particular photograph, what I ended up

doing, this gives you a few different lessons,

actually.

This is partly the idea that I got

for the Omega Reflector 360.

If you don't know what that is, it's

the world's first 15 in one reflector.

What it basically does, there's basically a hole

in the reflector.

The idea is that you have one light

source behind the subject.

It hits the reflector, in this case, the

building of the house around them.

It softens this beautiful light there on their

faces, and then I'm shooting through the hole.

So what I've done here is a couple

things.

Because they're a mature age couple, the light

bounces behind them, hair light, back light, hits

the actual house, painted white, softens their mature

skin, and then I bring the veil over

her and shoot through, and now we have

this beautiful shot.

Makes sense?

It's pretty cool with a few little techniques

there that we can use.

Now, this girl I was actually photographing at

a workshop in Melbourne.

A lot of my students, I've got to

say, I was really disappointed because my students

said, I don't want that girl.

I'm like, what's wrong with that girl?

She's stunning.

Now we're trying to allude to the fact

that maybe she's a little bit heavier set,

and how would we deal with that?

I said, well, that is the exact reason

why you should be photographing this girl, because

that's what we're going to photograph this weekend,

more than a mannequin model type thing.

So I took a shot without posing her

at all, then I deliberately shot her on

the broad side of the face and square

to the camera, and you would say, she

looks heavy in that shot.

But turn her face, tilt it towards the

ground, chin up, and now look how stunning

she looks.

I'm saying to you is that not only

it's your perspective, your lens choice, and all

those different things, and your angle, it's also

shooting on the short side of the face.

In this case, when it's overcast, we all

think that we can shoot anywhere because it's

like one big softbox and the lighting is

the same everywhere.

That's not true.

Quite simply, there is a direction of light

and a quality of light depending on where

you are.

In this case, I know that all light

usually comes up above.

So if I bring the chin up, well

great, now I've got better light on me,

but no one does that normally.

That's not really an usual thing to do.

But tilting is one of the signatures to

my work.

Why?

Because that's the way we love someone.

You endear to someone like this, you hug

someone like this, you kiss someone like this,

you whisper in someone's ear like this, and

it just looks softer and sexier.

Because in an overcast environment, she's tilting her

face down and chin upwards, the shadow of

her face is being caused by being parallel

to the ground.

The ground's cutting away light, therefore we create

the short side, the narrow side, the sexy

side.

And if you compare them, there is no

comparison.

That, that's the one that you want.

Alright, how about this one?

Here, we actually get the girl's arm right

underneath the guy, and then we get harsh

light hitting her face and that strong shadow

underneath her chin, and you would not know

perhaps that this was the same girl.

I'm saying to you that, here's the thing

guys, I've got to say, I want to

be honest with you right now.

When I was younger, my version of beauty

was just what most version of beauty that

when you were like a, you know, 18

or 19 year old boy, you just picture

that Scarlett Johansson type of type of picturesque

shape and all that kind of stuff.

So almost like basically a mannequin.

That was my version of beauty.

Now that I'm 44, and even though that

you might say, it's easy for you because

you're married to a beautiful woman.

What's most beautiful about Melissa is her heart

and her soul.

That's what's most beautiful about her.

I'm telling you though, that if you photograph

with judgmental eyes, you will never see the

beautiful person that they are.

So apart from just knowing these techniques, it

means nothing without empathy.

With if I did not make her feel

look and feel beautiful, do you think I

would have gotten a shot like this?

She's looking at me and she's feeling beautiful.

First of all, she is.

Second of all, it's glowing.

It's radiating because I'm looking at her a

certain way.

And trust me, I'm telling you brides, your

subjects can tell whether you're just doing it

for the money or you truly believe on

who you're photographing is absolutely sincerely beautiful.

And again, in this case, I would normally

do this shot with the girl's arms beyond

the guy.

So normally in this kind of shot.

So what's happening here is that he's part,

they're both sitting on the ground.

He's parting his knees.

She's sitting between his knees on the ground.

Normally I'd get her arms on his arms,

his arms almost form a platform to put

her arms in.

But because perhaps she's a little bit thicker

and a little bit bigger, I actually brought

it underneath.

And then now I'm getting that beautiful curve

of her bust and you don't really see

the thickest part of her.

And he creates a shadow on her side

of the face, creating that short side.

So we've got, everything's working for us in

this picture.

Okay.

Gorgeous girl.

She didn't pose for me.

That was basically her ready to rock.

And I saw her for the very first

time.

You can see her body language.

She's looking a little bit awkward.

She's standing square to the camera.

Now she does have longer hair.

She does have a veil.

I'm going to use those all day.

So what I do is I bring the

actual hair over the shoulders.

I turn her body on a bit of

an angle.

I bring the veil over her arms.

I point her toe towards the camera, slide

the heel back in, bend the front knee,

shoulders back, lean the chest forward.

And now we go from this to this.

How beautiful does she look?

Not only that, I was shooting with a

wide angle lens.

If you shoot with a wide angle lens

and your subject stays like this, they're look

like that in the picture.

So you need to get the actual subjects

to lean towards the camera and that corrects

your perspective.

So now you don't know that I'm lying

on the ground and she's leaning forward, but

it's amazing what you can do with a

simple perspective.

Speaking of perspective, I told you earlier today

that if you shoot with a wider angle

lens from up high, that the body disappears.

This is photographed at 40 mil, 35 mil

from memory.

First of all, one arm I soften with

the actual curtain.

So if you can imagine I'm sitting, I'm

actually standing on the windowsill.

So I'm actually softening one arm with the

actual curtain.

Again, she's a gorgeous girl.

I photograph her like this.

Her body, you see how that it distorts

in a good way, but I did not

put her face too close to the corner

of a frame.

Otherwise it would be a problem.

And I have her hair over her shoulder

and her arm in shadow.

How beautiful does she look?

Will the bride appreciate this of herself afterwards

in photographs?

If she has an insecurity, Hey, you know

what?

I'm confident.

I'm a beautiful girl, but I may look

a bit fuller in photographs.

Would I love if Jerry Pat had said

to that?

Of course I would.

Will it make me buy more photographs?

Well, of course it would.

But you can see though that I can

simply use my environment and you would not

know, perhaps maybe her size.

I can use the veil.

Later on, we're photographing the couple.

He's a thinner guy.

And again, she's a little bit heavier, but

again, look how beautiful she looks with a

veil over her arm.

I can even crop it.

This was actually in France, this wedding, by

the way, you probably already told, can tell,

but you can sort of see what I'm

doing with the veil and how I'm using

the groom's body.

Even how the perspective, I'm deliberately foreshortening her

arm here where you can't see one arm

because of the way he's escorting her down

the stairs.

And then the other arm is actually got

the veil over.

So it works really well.

This is in Paris as well.

And if you do have to photograph a

full length figure and you don't have much

control over what they're doing, if it's further

away, it's not so obvious.

So it works a lot better.

Whereas normally you might get a shot like

this with the bride's hands over the chest

or like this, then underneath the arm with

a veil over, not a problem.

And again, if you go further away, I'm

still actually pointing at her, bending in there,

shifting her weight back, bringing the veil over

her arm that her beautiful hair is on

her shoulders.

You wouldn't think that she was plus size

or even in this shot or even in

this one, she got sick of wearing her

shoes.

She goes, oh, screw it.

I want to take them off.

Again, in this case, considered usually a mistake,

I've foreshortened her arms.

I don't want to see the arm.

It's going to maybe detract your attention.

Her other arm, you can hardly see it's

in shadow and she's further back.

We bring it in proportion.

That's what we've got to do guys.

Like I said, you've got to shoot with

the empathy of a saint, with a technique

of a master.

You actually put those two together.

I'm telling you that your shots will be

better.

You'll be more confident.

It'll breed more confidence.

It'll breed better work.

People will book you for the very reason

that you can do these things.

I'm telling you now, guys, I would much

rather photograph, say a bride who's not confident,

then photograph an overly sensitive, it's all about

me, narcissistic bride who's looking at her iPhone,

taking selfies all day.

Quite simply, I can give an extra gift

to someone.

I'll give it as in the pretty people

have got photographs of themselves, plenty of photographs

of themselves they like.

Someone perhaps is not that confident or is

plus size or maybe have a feature that's

a bit obscure and they think, I wish

you would soften it.

Now, they can actually look incredible and you

give them an extra gift.

I'm telling you, take emotion aside, you will

sell more to that kind of bride.

All right.

I want to show you a before shot.

Certainly, this was not included in the bride's

proofs, but we had a little bit of

an issue, right?

Gorgeous girl.

You'll see in a minute, she's got beautiful

features, but I need to soften parts of

her.

Now, the sun was going down.

This was at Pasadena Town Hall and there

was sliver of light going to the town

hall and shadow.

I'm like, perfect.

Let me use the veil to cover up,

soften one side of the body and let's

use shade to cover the other.

You would swear that was a different woman.

How beautiful does she look there?

That is the behind the scenes of me

photographing her.

Then I thought, while I'm there, let me

add the groom's shadow.

Why not?

It's amazing what that can do.

Also, guys, my strong encouragement to you is

this.

If you're at home, let's say the bride

says to you, you can just tell me,

Jerry, you're using the hair and the veil

to soften the bride.

Great.

What happens if she does not have longer

hair and doesn't have a veil or whether

she just needs a little bolero jacket?

How do you ask or say it to

the bride in a sensitive way, but in

a way that will help you on the

day?

You might say, hey, are you wearing a

veil on the wedding day?

She goes, oh no, it's just a bit

done.

It's cliche.

It may be cliche, but it's actually cliche

for a reason.

It's beautiful.

There's lots of things you can do with

the veil.

One, it can keep you warm if you're

cold.

Two, it can just add a bit of

softness to your picture.

It can frame you in different ways.

It can blow in the breeze.

It'll be beautiful.

What do you think?

Never mention that I'm going to hide and

soften your arm or your body or anything

like that.

I'm actually selling her what I can do

for her.

Also, hey, have you considered wearing a cute

little bolero jacket?

That'll add a little bit of finesse to

what you're wearing.

It can change the look dramatically in one

little pinch.

And it's cute.

And also, if you're cold, you can wear

it.

And guess what?

Listen to me.

She wore a bolero jacket.

It actually made it a lot easier for

me to photograph her.

Now, sometimes I took the bolero jacket off,

and in a simple photograph with her daughter,

this is actually her daughter, you see how

I'm actually hiding one arm right around her.

One arm, I've got the veil over and

I've cropped in, but she's stunning.

Never confuse plus size, dare I say it,

with being ugly.

They are two totally separate things.

Quite simply, you know, it's a separate issue.

We might have challenging things to photograph with

a nose or a crooked nose or odd

shaped eyes or rough skin, but never confuse

it.

Now, don't forget too, there are some cultures

that celebrate plus size.

So you've also got to understand that if

there's some cultures that celebrate plus size, and

you don't show that juicy booty, so to

speak, then that's on you.

In fact, right now in our culture, probably

because of the Kardashians, it's popularized the fact

that big butts are in, big boobs are

in and all that kind of stuff.

So don't forget that it's a lot more

celebrated than it used to be.

What if the bride is maybe plus size,

but very happy with her figure?

Would you still try to minimize it and

try to do some of these posing tips,

like you've mentioned here?

So I guess it perfectly follows on with

what I just said, but I would do

a bit of both.

I would basically, I would amplify the shape

and the curves, but if it just looked

unflattering, period, then I would soften, I would

do a blend of both.

I wouldn't be as pedantic as what I'm

showing you now.

So it'll be a combination of both, but

I would celebrate the curves, celebrate the bust,

celebrate the hips, and all those kinds of

things.

So, and again, if I'm photographing like three

of them, you see how that veil is

covering up the arm and the other arms

around, and it ends up just being a

beautiful thing.

Even when we're photographing the whole family in

the way, do you see how, I think

son or nephew or something, but basically in

the way, and again, you can hardly see

her, beautiful light falling on them.

If anyone's ever, if anyone's asking right now,

this was just one window light, a huge

window on the right hand side.

Now, I know a few of you have

actually watched me and seen me teach before,

you probably know this following story, but it's

funny for those who haven't.

This bride, I know that if someone's insecure

about something and I can see it and

feel it, and it's obvious, then that first

photograph that I click of that particular bride

or groom, anyone for that matter, has to

be amazing, and I'll show it to them.

That way it builds confidence and it builds

trust, and then they're going to just let

you do whatever you want for the rest

of the day.

So there I was, I photographed one shot

of this bride.

You could tell that she was a bit

anxious about being plus size, and what do

I do?

I show her the photograph.

She starts bawling, like tears flowing freely.

Now, I tease photographers who totally forget, even

though I was one of them many, many

times, that you totally forget you're a photographer.

At home, you guys here, have you ever

totally forgotten you're a photographer?

As in you're there, a beautiful moment's happening,

like someone's crying or laughing, and your camera

is down to your hip, and you're looking

at the photograph or the moment and going,

oh, isn't that beautiful?

Oh, and then you take the photograph.

So I tell this story, and there Melissa

was with a camera to her hip, watching

me hug the bride as she's crying, and

I'm like, looking at her with my eyes,

I'm like, take a freaking photograph of us.

Finally, a minute later, even though that it

subsided, she was still emotional.

Check this out.

Tell me, guys, what we do for a

living, like, isn't that just worth it right

there?

You can not only immortalize moments for families,

but also bring out the strengths of people,

but really, this could be a gift that

keeps on giving.

She may not ever see herself as beautiful

as we can make her shine in our

photographs.

We do that consistently with relationships and moments.

That is a gift that keeps on giving,

let alone the fact, put emotion aside, will

she buy more?

Yes, of course she is.

Now, this is a bridesmaid.

So we can't just also totally ignore every

single person.

We have to be sensitive to every single

person in that bridal party.

In this case, I brought her behind, put

the two slimmer girls on either side and

framed her.

I've got the shadow of one of the

girls shaving her face a little bit.

And again, you would swear that that wasn't

an issue.

And you look at this group photograph, and

there she is right there, you probably wouldn't

know that she was plus size, or at

the very least, the size of her in

that photojournalistic moment when she was coming down

the aisle.

All I care about is everyone looking and

feeling beautiful and being sensitive to everybody, to

everybody.

All right, let's keep on going.

Plus size guy, guys at home, it's not

just the women who want to look and

feel beautiful.

Guys are even more, have more insecurities.

When you go photograph a guy, what happens?

Usually he's standing in front of you like

this.

And he's got his hands over his crotch.

Basically, when a man is uncomfortable, he will

hide the most sensitive part of his body.

We have to know, probably men are more

insecure than women when it comes to looks.

Men, it's a funny beast.

I find that it's just one of those

things.

Now, I photographed this guy, handsome guy, but

this was just him turning and laughing and

he turned his face.

But watch what I do and how I

can soften him and chisel him and chisel

his features.

So remember this, you can open up the

blinds and it's all soft.

But then when you close them, it's going

to be sharper and contrast you and the

shadows will be deeper.

Look how sharp he looks in this picture.

Look how sharp he looks.

He looks incredible.

Then I change my angle.

He doesn't move one inch.

And then I take a complimentary photograph, my

profile.

Now again, how sharp does he look?

Don't forget, this is the same guy.

But even if it was in more light,

that's still better.

Now I'm looking at this picture, I'm like,

Jerry, you did not do what you preached

before.

I'm going to tell you, I made a

mistake.

What mistake did I make here?

Chat roll, baby.

Let's see if someone who answers it.

I made him look slimmer by the way

I posed him, but what problem did I

create?

The fact is, his eye is bigger than

the other and I put it closer to

the camera.

I totally screwed up.

I can't believe I did it and let

alone I'm exposing my problems live right now.

I should have, and maybe to be honest,

I may have seen it, but maybe I

sacrificed his eye because the light was not

good on the other side.

I don't know.

Quite simply, I could have done that exact

same shot.

Let's say him turn around the other side

of the window and turned his face in

and had the small eye to the camera.

I say to you that I would much

rather better light and this eye being bigger

than worse light and bringing the eyes in

proportion.

It's only because I'm actually really close to

this eye that I actually saw it.

What else did I do?

Remember those shots of the bride, of his

bride?

Now that you know they're actually married, of

his bride in those little slivers of light,

I needed a shot of him to go

with a shot of the bride, but how

chiseled does he look?

Look how much better his eyes look.

Damn it.

I'm upset with myself, but it's all good.

What about this guy?

Okay, so this guy was an attendee at

one of my workshops where I was photographing

live and I wanted to photograph him.

Now he's a big guy.

There's no two ways of saying it, but

what can I do?

What I did was he was leaning forward

about this much.

He brought his chin out as much as

possible and turned his face.

Then we lit him this way with a

shadow on his face and you would say

that, I mean, that's a pretty big difference.

Pretty big difference.

It reminds me to tell you guys, you

are not going to make everyone look picture

perfect and everyone look like Brad Pitt.

It's not going to happen, but we need

to bring out the best in who we're

photographing.

Now what happens if you have a bigger

guy and a smaller girl?

Because we've seen the opposite, a bigger girl

and a smaller guy.

Well, there's really only a if you have

this big belly guy and the girl looking

all petite and draping on him, it's not

going to look good.

So really we have two choices.

One, we hide him a little bit behind

the bride to get her in front so

it's more proportional because look at it, geographically,

architecturally, she occupies the same as him.

Make sense?

So I can hide him or both, crop

him, hide and crop.

You see how she's close to the camera,

he's further back, I bring them more in

line with proportion.

I've turned his body on an angle and

got her body flat.

I give her more geography, so to speak,

and him less like this.

I crop him, I crop him, I crop

and hide and I love pretty flowers and

that's why they're in the foreground.

There is always a reason behind everything.

Guys, we can't ignore this.

This is reality.

I'll be honest with you, nine out of

10 brides and grooms, we're having these challenges,

probably more to be honest.

And that's what I'm saying is that's what

we're going to do.

Now, minimizing arms.

Okay, because you might have, let's say a

bride who is got no other issue, except

for that her arms are a little bit

heavier set.

Now, if you're watching at home and if

you're a girl, I want you to put

on the chat roll and just say yes,

if you hate the size of your arms

being a bit larger.

If your arms look large in the photograph,

say yes, and trust me, you will hate

that photograph no matter how pretty and small

you look, all that kind of stuff.

You will not like it if your arms

look wider.

Now, I can do my pointing the toe,

bending the knee, shifting the weight back and

arm off the body and there's a gap

between her and in shadow, her arm looks

a little bit thicker.

Quite simply, you never want to bring an

arm of a bride, whether she's skinny, whether

she's a little bit heavier, you never want

to bring an arm right up against the

body or squishing it up against the groom.

But quite simply, I can hide it.

You wouldn't even know that her arms being

hidden purposefully.

Now, this is a problem that most of

us do is we squish the arm against

the body and it looks a little bit

thicker.

But ultimately, the bride will only ever see

something like this or I might get her

to be covered like this.

And here's the thing, most of us will

do the same shots week in, week out.

I'll always do a shot of the back

of the bride on this angle.

I'm not going to do a shot like

this of this bride on this angle and

give it to her.

It will just be cropped a bit differently.

It's pretty obvious that sometimes we develop a

muscle memory and we actually don't look at

any other way.

How beautiful does our bride look here?

You would not know that she had plus

size arms, nor am I deliberately sort of

softening or hiding them very deliberately.

Or this one, or this one, or this

one.

How beautiful does she look here?

One arm is cropped, one arm is being

thrown up by the perspective of her body.

And even this, you can see how I've

used the idea of hiding her arms or

softening her arms for an idea of the

pose.

Maybe she's cold, maybe she's got her arms

right up in the jacket and that creates

a bit of communication, let alone it softens

her arms as well.

Even this shot, the fact is that you

can't see her arms.

What about a very, very quick snapshot of

a family picture?

She'd bring her arms on either side.

Usually I would get the bride one of

the shoulders in and then bring the bride's

arm around.

In this case, bring arms around and you

can't tell.

You can't tell here.

Even the kiss of the ceremony, you can't

tell.

The signing of the register, you can't tell.

Yes, am I going to include her full

body?

Yes.

Usually it's going to be full length and

that way no one will know what's going

on, I'm telling you.

This bride, she did not tell me anything

about her arms.

Quite simply, if I was her, would I

be conscious about my arms?

Yes, respectfully.

And would I love to soften them?

Yes.

She didn't tell me anything.

She didn't expect anything.

When she saw the photographs, you could tell,

oh my God, oh my God, oh my

God.

Wow, they're all amazing.

She didn't expect it, so we can over

deliver very easily.

All right guys, what about if both of

them are plus size?

Both of them.

Well, we can use similar techniques, but I'm

going to show you how we can work

with it.

Quite simply, if it's a choice between the

king or the queen, I would choose the

queen, for various reasons.

Also, because most guys are wearing a black

suit, it's more forgiving.

Most girls are having exposed shoulders and things

like that, but you wouldn't know that this

couple was plus size because we have air

between the body parts.

Now, this is a shot that I did

not direct.

This was the reveal between the bride and

the groom.

Beautiful couple.

They're close friends of ours.

We even went on a safari together recently,

last year actually, in South Africa, and it

was absolutely exquisite.

But bringing her shoulders back, her arms off

her body is really important.

I also said, hey, bring a bolero jacket,

and she did.

But you would not know that arguably, there

were some challenges there.

Photographing her, let's say from a higher angle

and shooting at 1.2, 1.4 in

her face, you could tell that that would

soften her.

Now, he's a big guy too.

It's more forgiving for a guy, but I

would hang his body, turn his face, and

I'm shooting him on the shadow side.

Now, this is the reveal, just before the

reveal when they saw each other first as

a bride and groom before they got married.

And they cuddled up to each other and

having some fun.

We had them leaning forward, chins up, veil

over.

We could soften with a pillow, for example.

We could also get the pose, the groom's

hand on her face that softens those problem

areas.

We could get the veil over as well.

So it looks effortless.

This is not very predictable.

You're obviously photographing this way to do this.

You look at the photographs and you look

at the fact that I'm shooting on the

shadow side of the face.

He just looks sharp.

He looks cool.

How did I get away with a plus

-sized girl in a wide-angle lens leaning

towards me because I shifted her butt away

from the corner of the frame?

And you just don't know.

She was leaning forward like this and my

camera was like this, parallel.

And again, you do not want to put

the butt in the corner of the frame.

Otherwise, there'll be some problems.

When they're standing full length, you can get

him a little bit forward, her a little

bit back.

Rather than hugging with the arms over the

top, that can be underneath.

Leaning forward, chins up, light hitting her, shade

chiseling her jawline a little bit.

And you can use parts of just different

things to crop and hide and soften.

But it's amazing how things like this will

actually work.

And to be honest, this wedding, I heard

these fireworks going off and I'm like to

the bride and groom, I go, did you

organize fireworks?

They said, no.

I said, well, run.

So we ran to the edge of the

lake on the golf course.

The wedding across the lake had fireworks so

we had them for free.

So I get my flash organized as we're

running.

Melissa's grabbing it out.

I said, put it on here, put it

on there, get the exposure.

I lay down, they lean forward.

I take one shot, the fireworks stop and

we get that beautiful shot to finish off

with.

But it's amazing how we can do those

things and it just works.

This is a really good pose to do

because you can hide the actual one arm

or soften the one arm with veil, bring

the other arm underneath, bring their faces upwards

and we get beautiful light.

And again, if she's got the luxury of

that veil softening her, then I can crop

into him, for example, and it's great.

Then that same couple from before, remember she

was wearing a bolero jacket.

I had them nice and close together.

We got that beautiful shadow on the wall.

In this case, I had the sun behind

the couple, hits them from behind, hits the

wall, hits their faces and now we get

this beautiful soft light on their face.

And you see how she's stretching her face

out and same with him, but now we've

got that beautiful quality of light.

And sometimes not only can you use a

hand to soften part of a cheek or

anything like that, it also communicates, they're in

love, there's warmth there.

But because his face is a little bit

rounder, that hand will soften everything.

But ultimately, when you look at the family

shots, again, it's leaning forward, chins up, veil

softening, see how I'm biased to him.

So I've got them parallel to the camera

and I've turned their bodies, her arms right

underneath, they're leaning forward, chins up, lights up

high, causing that beautiful shadow underneath the jaw

here.

And this was shot with an ice light.

She kind of looks like Adele there, don't

you think?

So one light up in the top, shot

down, she looks stunning.

But it's amazing that we photograph, you know,

they're a very handsome couple, they're a beautiful

couple, but I want to chisel them a

little bit more.

The hand on the face not only communicates

soft and warmth, but it also softens his

face.

Beautiful catch lights in the eyes, leaning forward

and so on.

My advice to you is, don't be overwhelmed

by this, you have to master it.

The more you practice what you do for

a living, the easier it'll become, it'll become

effortless, you'll get quicker at it, you'll have

more fun with it, you'll please your clients,

there'll be more job satisfaction, they will buy

more, you'll make more money, you'll have more

choices, you'll have a better life.

So anything that you avoid, you will just

never get better at.

Quite simply, if I've shown you some things

today, arguably that you've never really understood, then

the best way is to jump on this

video and watch it again and again and

again and again.

Build that muscle memory of how to do

these things.

And how do you practice?

Get your cute cousins, perhaps who are plus

size, go out there and photograph them.

Get your Uncle Bob who has a crooked

nose, then have the light actually on the

opposing side and photograph some portraits.

Get your crazy auntie with one eye bigger

than the other and turn her face and

get that small eye close to the camera.

Maybe photograph Uncle Jerry with a big ass

forehead and actually bring the lens a little

bit further down.

Maybe photograph Melissa and I with Melissa a

bit more forward and me further back and

so on and so forth.

Quite simply, I think it's because of our

differences is why life is so beautiful.

It's our anomalies and our so-called imperfections

that make us beautiful because if we're all

the same, it would be ridiculously boring.

Quite simply, these anomalies add character.

Like I said, you have to be sensitive

but you also have to bring out the

best in whomever you're photographing.