Original subtitles

Welcome guys, posing can be a really difficult

thing to master, but we all get intimidated

by it.

Often we're at a wedding, or perhaps we're

photographing a portrait of somebody, and they're right

in front of us, and we just don't

know where to start.

What I'm here to do is actually give

you the street smart of posing, so you

can just be absolutely fearless, get in there,

and totally understand what to do.

Now, more importantly than just flattering someone and

making someone look and feel beautiful with the

poses that we do, what we're gonna do

is actually make it a form of communication,

because quite simply, all brides, grooms for that

matter, will actually consider posing as very robotic,

very static, and it almost implies a feeling

that, oh, I'm not gonna have a good

day today.

So we have to take charge, take confidence,

and slow down when we give our direction,

make it very clear, very concise, and as

you master posing, you'll just get to the

destination a lot quicker, it'll be a lot

more fun and efficient, and it doesn't have

to be stuffy.

Now, really, really important, a bride will often

tell you, I just do not wanna be

posed.

I just don't wanna be posed, that's just

not what I want.

They see these fleeting moments on Pinterest, they

see these fleeting, beautiful, effortless moments where everyone's

interacting, and they assume that all of these

shots are just captured photojournalistically, and arguably, it

may be the skill of the photographer, as

in, I've just captured that, I was in

the right place at the right time, as

this bride did this, and that's great, but

I believe it's the energy that you bring

to the table, I believe it's the direction

that you give to your brides and your

grooms and your families that make the difference,

because if I photographed a wedding totally photojournalistically,

well, people being natural don't look that great,

that's just the difference.

So do people stand in the good light?

Do people stand in a way that flatters

them?

Do they push their hip towards a camera

that makes their butt look bigger?

Does the bride just sit like this, and

then we have these little pinches of skin

hanging over a dress?

Does she have a double chin?

All these different things that we have to

consider.

At the end of the day, some brides

and grooms and families don't want to be

posed, but they should be.

So how do you actually convince a bride

that she should be posed, and she doesn't

want to?

I simply say, as beautiful as you are,

I can make you shine brighter than ever

before with a simple direction.

Would you like that?

Now, the way I ask, no one is

gonna say, no, make me look uglier than

I already am, please.

No, no one's gonna do that.

They're all going to welcome that.

So rather than use words like pose, I

would use words like prompt and direct, even

though that it is actually posing.

Posing is quite clinically the best word to

use in a sense that it describes what

you're going to do.

But prompt and direct arguably are the words

that you wanna use.

And really, if you tell the brides and

the grooms basically why you're doing what you're

doing, then it's going to be okay.

You see, we underestimate what women will do

for beauty.

Ironically, some brides say, I don't wanna be

posed, but they will spend two hours on

hair and makeup.

They will literally just wax their legs and

rip out the hair by the roots, do

all these crazy painful things for beauty, and

then all of a sudden, well, I wanna

look natural.

Well, that's, it's almost an anomaly.

It's an oxymoron.

Like you're spending all this time to look

natural, but you're not gonna be getting married

in sweatpants.

You're going to get married in a beautiful

dress, hair and makeup.

We wanna bring out the best in you.

So we need to basically mention to our

brides and grooms and couples that we are

there to bring out the best in them.

And really, brides don't care what they do

for beauty as long as they know it's

gonna be a great result.

Yes, there's gonna be some people who maybe

would lean towards maybe a more organic style

of photography, but you are gonna need to

know how to pose people.

What I'm here to do with you guys

is actually explain the street smart of posing.

Don't get too scientific about it, but the

street smart to actually get to the destination

a lot quicker.

We're gonna teach you foundations of posing with

the female form, the male form, couples, and

really get to the bottom of some foundation

poses that we can start with, because often

you might all be gung-ho and you

might be with me right now and think,

Jerry, I'm with you.

I believe in what you're doing.

Great, and then you stand in front of

a couple and you don't know where to

start.

So I'm gonna give you those foundations and

knowing where to start, but I'm not gonna

teach you posing by just showing you poses

after poses.

This is not basically memorizing poses, although certainly

I'll show you many.

It is understanding the specifics of what will

bring out the best in people using those

principles that we can apply to pretty much

anyone.

Now, the easiest way to pose someone is

mirroring, is literally get them to mirror what

you do.

So there's been weddings that I've actually photographed

overseas and internationally where the bride actually doesn't

understand a word of English.

So I find someone who understands English and

say, hey, can you tell that bride to

simply mirror exactly what I do?

And it's amazing how that works.

So we're gonna show that to you as

well.

After a while, with repetition, experience, and practice,

you will just get to that destination a

lot quicker.

You'll get to, you'll find out easy words

to understand that gets you to that pose

quicker, and that comes with experience.

But I'm here to give you some success

stories that I've had over the years and

say, hey, this is what's worked for me,

and also this is what hasn't worked for

me.

So we'll work that out.

So now what we're gonna do is we're

gonna introduce our models, they're actually a real

couple, but Lisa's gonna come in, we're gonna

talk about mirroring and exactly how that works.