All language subtitles for 11. Using a Veil and a Full-Skirted Dress

So we've actually worked together with Lisa and

Dylan for all the posing demonstrations that we've

done.

And I deliberately did not use the veil

or a full address so we can see

her body type and her shape and understand

posing from a different level.

Let's do it.

So first of all, I'm going to look

at Lisa.

So again, she's basically facing me perfectly.

I personally, I prefer, as I've said from

the beginning, I actually prefer that if your

weight was distributed either one way or the

other.

So if you can just push your hip

that way.

Do you see how, even though she's actually

facing me straight away, there's a little bit

more finesse with what's going on.

So that really works.

As far as the veil is concerned, then

either you get it perfect or you create

an organized mess.

So with this particular one, often what I'll

do is I'll get the bride to hold

her veil and then I'll get the bottom

part of the dress and I'll stretch it

out like this and just sort of let

it go a little bit.

Now, sometimes it can work with one swoop.

I think it's probably a little bit too

big to do that, but maybe, who knows.

If I bring my hands out wide enough,

let's see what happens.

Bring it up and then just drop it.

Then I bring this around.

Love that.

Frames her beautifully.

I get that.

Frames her beautifully.

And now I get this.

And usually I'll do it either in one

go or sometimes I just grab one side

and I just lay it all out.

Now, because that tulle is blending into the

veil, I'm actually, you can hardly see it,

but you can see it on her arms.

Now, this is a very important point, guys,

that a lot of the time that a

bride, even though that she's got a great

figure and her arms are slim, one of

your best friends will be the veil.

So this is where you will bring the

veil over.

And she can even hold it very gently

like this.

Good.

Let's have a look from this perspective.

Love that.

You sort of see how her arms aren't

perfectly on a right angle.

They're slightly a little bent.

I quite like that if we can just

hold that little thing like that.

Perfect.

Chin up a little bit there for me.

That's stunning.

And that works.

But of course we said that shooting her

front on, we're not gonna get much shape.

So a little bit of an angle is

gonna serve us very, very well.

So what we're gonna do, because she prefers

that side of her face, we know that

if we turn her body this way, good,

and now point your toe towards me.

That's it.

Slide the heel back in, bend the knee,

shift your butt away.

Shoulders back, lean forward with your chest.

Slightly turn this way.

Good.

Now turn your face that way a bit

more.

And do you see straight away how much

more finesse that has.

And now we've just got that dress catching

on the bottom of her feet.

So just be careful of that.

Gorgeous.

Beautiful.

And the veil still looks great.

If she was plus size, and let's say

there was a lot of gather here, or

perhaps you just, you know, we put the

veil over, but it's so sheer that maybe

she looks a little bit heavier in that

area.

What I would do, I would do something

like this.

I'd grab the veil and I would bring

it over her arm.

And because what's happening now, guys, is that

this arm is being hidden by perspective.

We can't see her arm.

And this is just a glorified excuse to

soften her arm.

And it looks beautiful.

Now, if we could see the other arm

or there was still an issue, of course,

you just bring the flowers in the front

and life is good.

But this is a really, really cool way

of doing it.

And if you wanted to get the groom

involved in this shot, let's do that.

So Dylan, if you can come around this

way.

What I normally do is I'll either get

the groom to shuffle his feet under the

dress, or I'll bring the bottom part of

that shawl and just get him right in.

And then just give her a cute little

cuddle from behind.

Let that sort of drape nicely.

And now turn your faces in together.

Relax that shoulder.

Good.

Okay, slightly bend that knee.

Give me that toe.

Bend the knee a little bit.

Beautiful.

And I don't want this tulle to interrupt

the moment.

So I bring it back and I want

the skin touching if we can.

That's gorgeous.

And yep, there is a very, very beautiful

shot.

And I love the way that the actual

material in the bottom of the tulle is

framing them.

Of course, it's a bit more curved here.

It's looking a bit flat here.

So I'll pick this up and just let

it drape down again like that.

And again, if she wasn't plus size and

you wanted a little bit of that beautiful

moment there as well, let me just bring

that tulle out on this side.

And then we can come back here again.

Just have a little bit of a loose

piece of material there.

So the finesse.

Keep on going there.

Gorgeous.

Beautiful.

Fantastic.

And this could be a very beautiful full

length traditional shot and pose of the bride.

Again, shift your weight back a little bit

there, Lisa.

You see again, straight away that actually works

a lot better.

Fantastic.

Okay, so now Dylan, take a break again.

We're gonna go back to Lisa.

So whenever you have a dress that, like

this dress could easily have a part in

it.

A part, gonna have a part in the

dress.

So straight away, Lisa knew what I was

alluding to.

It's giving us an idea of basically what

to do with the hands and how to

pose.

So what I'd like you to do is

point your toe again towards me.

Bend that knee, slide the heel back.

Push it that way, good.

Now your hands, I want you to sort

of part the red C so to speak,

and then slightly bend your elbows.

Gorgeous, that's it.

Lean towards me.

Beautiful.

Turn your chin to the outer shoulder there.

And this hand, just like this.

Gorgeous.

Nice and soft.

And the key to posing really well, guys,

and in fact any artistic or creative endeavor

is not to go too fast.

You can sort of see how I'm quite

slow and methodical, and of course I wouldn't

be teaching on a real wedding day.

But in this case, I'm slow, taking my

time, and she looks good.

Now from this perspective, her right hand looks

good.

What's a problem here is her left hand,

her fingers are pointing right back away from

the camera, doesn't look as nice.

So we keep her right hand there, and

even though that that's mirroring each other, I'm

gonna do this.

Beautiful.

And relax the hand a little bit.

Good.

Perfect.

Remember what we said about the hands?

We said when the hands are lower than

the waist, it's gonna look actually quite beautiful

when the hands are up and when they're

above the waist, down.

Now in this position, she's actually doing the

exact opposite with both hands because it actually

looks good.

All I need to do is let the

air out a little bit on that right

hand.

There you go.

And then just stretch it out a little

bit more.

Beautiful.

And then bend the elbow.

Shoulders back, last little minute, arch it in

the back.

Gorgeous.

She looks amazing.

I love that.

Now from now, of course, we haven't touched

the veil yet because we're focusing on the

other part.

This is where this will go slightly over

if we want it to and if we

feel like it.

We can do something like that.

Remember the dress will always tell you what

to do.

So there's a gorgeous traditional shot.

And of course we could add Dylan right

in there.

In fact, let's do that really quickly.

So Dylan, just come on this side there

for me.

So now we haven't really done this kind

of a shot where we're shooting slightly over

his shoulder in traditionally full length.

So just turn your body this way.

Good.

Now bring your body a bit closer towards

hers.

Hashtag hump in a little bit.

There we go.

And now, okay, so now let go of

the dress.

Beautiful.

And then bring that arm like that.

Stunning.

And now just lean back a little bit.

That's it, perfect.

And Dylan, lean towards her, mate.

Yeah, love that.

You see how he's automatically bending his knee

and this is really the first time that

I've shot sort of Dylan fictitiously with a

suit.

Last time I shot you, mate, you had

your top off most of the time.

Lisa, embrace his leg with your leg but

make sure your toe touches the ground.

Love that, isn't that beautiful?

That really works.

And again, we're focusing more on the bride.

We're shooting over the shoulder of the groom.

But now we can do a traditional shot

of both of them looking into the camera.

So he's looking over his shoulder and her

chin is up.

And that's a really beautiful traditional shot as

well.

If we wanted to see the dress, then

of course we grab the flowers.

Remember what we said about the dress, we

wanna see the beautiful detail.

So she's gonna hold the flowers off her

body.

That hand's gonna be in the pocket.

If you just come a little bit more

this way, Lisa, so that you can see

more of you.

Shift your butt there.

That's it, beautiful.

Slightly bend the elbow.

That veil slightly over.

Gorgeous.

We wanna expose the flowers there.

We come back.

Now, do you see how you're a bit

like this, Lisa?

Just sort of, you hump it a little

bit there too.

There we go.

And bring your knee into his.

Yeah, there you go.

Now bring the flowers up a little bit

higher there for me.

Gorgeous.

And then just nice and tall.

Gorgeous, beautiful.

There's a traditional full length portrait of the

bride and the groom.

Love that.

That works out really well.

All right, Dylan, take a break again.

Now grab the flowers if you want.

That'd be awesome.

Another shot that I like to do that

is really cool, that the veil just gives

you the perfect idea for is this.

Point the toe, bend the knee, all that

stuff that we normally do.

And I want you to grab the opposing

veil.

So this hold there and this hold there.

Elbows out.

Gorgeous.

Shoulders back.

Let's have a look at that portrait.

Yeah, that's stunning.

And I love the fact that we can

sort of see her engagement ring.

This also works well front on.

So let's just turn your body towards me

and a little bit this way.

So if nothing else, guys, if you got

her to stand flat footed, so stand flat

footed, perfectly straight.

So in this case, you find that that's

quite regal.

It works really well.

It almost looks like she's holding her wrists

almost in a majestic kind of a way.

But I do feel like if we break

the monotony of that by simply shifting her

hip that way.

Mirror, other way.

Beautiful.

That's gorgeous.

Then chin up.

Turn the face this way.

Turn the face that way.

And again, do you see how just her

hip and her face breaks the monotony of

her just facing me perfectly?

So I love that.

I love the fact that we can play

like that.

And remember that with the veil and the

tulle, you can do so many things with

it.

So if she's got a big dress, the

dress will give you an idea.

So turn your whole body that way.

Keep going and look back over your shoulder

back at me.

Gorgeous.

In fact, do it the other way because

we can expose the favorite part of your

face there.

All right.

So again, let's just fluff this out.

Let's assume we did that perfectly.

All right, holding that dress and then looking

over your shoulder.

Perfect.

See, again, from this position, do you see

how her left arm is contained in her

body?

Now your right hand, Lisa, bring it up

a little bit higher.

Good.

And a little bit more in.

Stop.

Even though the tulle is there, you can

definitely see a gap between her arm and

her body, which is basically gonna give her

a beautiful silhouette.

That works really well.

Okay.

So now I wanna show you a shot

that a lot of people get wrong that

I wanna help you get right.

Now, Lisa, I want you to pretend there

are drapes in front of you.

Okay?

So I think you're standing in your dress

a little bit there.

Just hop off the dress a little bit.

There we go.

Again, it's always easier when you get the

bride to hold her own veil.

In.

Hang on a second there.

All right.

There's a bit of gather here.

This is my dress, so not my dress

personally, but I use it for teaching purposes

so I can do that.

All right.

Let's grab this.

And again, we're gonna drape it nicely.

Okay.

So Lisa, I want you to pretend like

you've got drapes in front of you.

Put your hands up really high and then

just part the drapes.

Stop.

So I often see this kind of a

shot.

Take a micro step to your left.

Stop.

Maybe a bit more to the right.

Yep, there you go.

So this just doesn't work.

It looks like she's celebrating a triple back

somersault in the gymnastics of the Olympics.

It doesn't work.

So what we need to do is to

soften those straight arms and the hips.

So what we're gonna do is kick your

hip to the right.

Bring your hands closer towards you.

Like higher.

Higher, higher, higher.

Now turn your face to the left.

And then chin up a little.

Yep, and then bring your left hand a

touch higher.

And right hand a bit lower.

Beautiful.

So now we have a little bit more

finesse.

Drop that left shoulder a little bit.

Beautiful.

So what we're doing is we're actually getting

the viewer of the photograph to view this

photograph from top left to bottom right.

Her left hand is higher.

Her right hand is a bit lower.

She's shifting her weight to the right and

we're exposing the left hand side of her

face or her left face on this side.

So everything flows rather than it being static.

Go back to where you were before.

Flat footed, straight.

It just doesn't work.

Okay, now I want you to turn.

Give me a 180 degree turn.

So face me perfectly this way.

Okay, beautiful.

That's a good point.

Did you see what she did with her

veil?

Often I'll get my brides to just play

with the dress a little bit and have

a little bit of fun because this is

just begging for it.

What I want you to do, Lisa, is

just give me that little bit of a

foundation pose that we often do.

Turn your hips this way.

Now I'd like you to pick up the

dress and I want you to sort of

lift it up and then drop it.

And then as you're doing it, I sort

of want you to have a bit of

laugh and a giggle, looking at your man

there a little bit, have a bit of

fun with him.

You sort of see how beautifully that floats

and it just makes her laugh.

I just love that.

So bring it up again.

Bring it up nice and high, nice and

high.

Keep on going, keep on going.

A bit of finesse with the body and

then just sort of drop it a little

bit.

Beautiful.

You see how that can work with filmmaking,

with a slow-mo, that can just work

with photography, but also this can work with

the grooms.

Let's get the groom involved.

I want you to hug her from behind,

mate.

This is where you wanna actually give them

a little bit of playtime or freestyle.

Give them a little bit of room to

breathe.

So I'm gonna do this so he's got

somewhere to go with his face.

Now, you're gonna look into her as she's

giggling and you're gonna do the exact same

thing.

Give me that knee a little bit more.

Push the hip away.

As we're doing it, okay, I want you

to have a little bit of fun.

So that's it.

Beautiful.

So pick it up and just throw it

away.

Gorgeous.

Love that.

Now, do it again.

You're gonna throw it up and then as

you throw it, your right hand's gonna drape

on his face.

Okay, ready?

So ready, throw it.

Go for it.

Beautiful.

So there it is.

Do it again.

Do it again, do it again.

Lots of giggles, lots of laughs, lots of

fun.

Beautiful.

Throw it in a little bit.

Gorgeous.

Beautiful.

I know, see, that's more of an organic

way to do it because I'll often see

photographs with brides where there's a gush of

wind on every single photograph, like where an

assistant has done this and just dropped it

and ran away.

That's okay, but it's becoming a ridiculous cliche.

Why not get the bride to do it?

Then it looks a bit more real.

It looks like they're having fun and having

a good time and it's just, it becomes

a little bit more organic.

I mean, yes, it's not organic per se

because we constructed it, but we're giving a

little bit of room to play.

Think of it like we've got a recipe,

but now they're adding their own spice to

it.

All right, fantastic.

So now, another thing we can do is

you can actually hold your veil out and

have a little bit of fun with it

without being a little bit too traditional.

Does that make sense?

So you can just keep on holding it.

So in this kind of a way, I

find if you just make like sort of

circular motions to it and have a little

bit of fun, I'm gonna get you to

basically, yeah, like up and down, left and

right, little bit, beautiful.

And again, this is all about timing.

This is all about timing.

I would go click, click, click.

It's almost like the extremes.

Beautiful, love that.

Okay, relax.

So again, the dress will always give you

an idea.

All right, Dylan, you take a break again.

I love also the idea of getting the

veil, although this is just one piece of

veil, I love the idea of placing it

directly over her.

So pardon me for a second.

This can be very beautiful, and I find

it's one of the very rare occasions that

I don't mind the bride being quite static

and stationary because it is one of those

quiet moments that any kind of pose or,

you know, if the figure is just too,

I don't know, it's just too curvy or

something, it sort of just breaks the moment.

I feel like I just want a quiet

moment.

Let's get the flowers.

And this is a very, very beautiful shot

that you can do with the bride, maybe

just before she's about to walk out of

the house.

Maybe it could be backlit as well, but

she's holding the flowers.

Remember with the veil, you try to want

to at least get the creases off her

eyes.

And this is where you would just do

this and give yourself every opportunity.

So this is where your chin needs to

come forward and down, bring the shoulders back,

that's it.

And now chin down a little bit, chin

forward and down, and then just your eyes

down.

Beautiful.

Looks a little bit awkward from the front,

but let me see if I can fix

it.

Yeah, so you're probably leaning a bit too

forward.

Now just stand up a little bit straighter.

See, this one I find actually works perfectly

straight.

Chin up a little bit.

So you can go for a very sophisticated

look, chin right up.

Beautiful.

Or you can just look off to the

distance.

Love that.

Eyes over here where my hand is.

Gorgeous.

Or simply just looking at your flowers, just

contemplating that beautiful moment just before you're about

to get married.

I love this.

I think this could work really well, obviously

with the father of the bride, it could

work in many contexts.

I find when, as soon as the veil

is over, it's either extreme.

For me, when a veil is over a

bride, it's either a soft and serene moment,

or we almost feel like the veil has

blown on the bride and she's just giggling

and laughing because of it.

But go with the mood, go with the

flow, and it would work really, really well.

So guys, don't forget, remember, whenever you have

a bride with a certain kind of dress,

just don't running to the house or the

apartment or wherever you're going and just start

shooting straight away.

I want you to slow down.

I want you to look at her face,

look at her hair.

I want you to look at the back

of the dress, look at her body type,

her shape, work out what's gonna flatter her,

what's gonna make the dress look beautiful, what

angle, perspective, all these things are gonna make

a difference.

Because don't forget that we can talk about

posing all day.

Remember, without emotion, a pose is just a

pose.

When you add a moment, as in you

add emotion to a pose, now it becomes

a moment, not just some static robotic pose

that everyone does every week.

So remember, just practice, experience, and repetition will

always be your best teacher.