Original subtitles

I've been teaching posing now for my whole

teaching career.

It's been what, 18 years since I've been

teaching and I've been talking about posing.

I'm obsessed with posing and I break it

down into a fine science and then simplify

it for those who want to learn it

very, very simply.

And although you may have come to my

workshop before, you may have seen me talk

about hand posing and I'll cover some of

those points again, but I've gone a lot

deeper today and I will go a lot

deeper because there is a, hands can be

such a beautiful thing.

They could make a photograph, they can break

a photograph, they can be expressive, they can

be, they can just be a nothing, as

in they don't really make a positive message

or negative impact, they're just there.

As I was going through photographs and I

realized that I've actually, I practice what I

preach.

I'm really content on making sure that every

part of an image helps express what I'm

trying to say to the viewer of the

photograph.

And here's the thing, I want to talk

about this thing right now because we're talking

about rules, okay, rules.

And when we say rules then everyone gets

a little bit funny about it thinking, well

can I break them?

And we all know the old adage that

you have to know the rules before you

break them and all that kind of stuff

and there's certainly truth to that.

But here's the thing, I like to think

of rules more as guides and common denominators.

In other words, I've been photographing now for

so long and I've made so many mistakes,

probably more than I've got it right and

all I can say is that after this

many years of shooting I believe these, what

I'm about to share with you now, are

the common denominators on what works most of

the time.

Now you might say, well what does that

mean most of the time?

Well there's no absolutes because what one will

perceive as a negative or wrong, it could

be quite expressive.

So we really have to understand that as

well.

So, and here's the thing, and I hate

to say this, but I can do this.

You can judge a photographer's skill based upon

how well they pose female hands.

Most people don't really pose guys hands, normally

we get him to put this hand in

his pocket or cross his arms and we'll

talk about that at another live broadcast but

I'm telling you now that I know someone

who pay attention to detail based upon hands

because like I said they either, photographers dismiss

hands as all too difficult or perhaps they

don't know what to do with the hands

therefore they'll get the bride to hold the

flowers all day, maybe one hand around the

groom or whatever it may be and I'm

telling you now that it's important that we

understand that hands can be extremely expressive and

we just have to know what to do

with them and I'm going to break it

down considerably, more than I ever have, I'm

telling you now I've broken it down into

different sections and I'm going to give you

these common denominators to what I believe is

the best way of doing it and you'll

see how it goes.

Now I want to remind you that emotion

beats perfection because quite simply in real life

even the way I'm gesturing right now it

may not be perfectly the way I would

pose a guy because quite simply in real

life we do certain things and obviously for

a guy there's probably different common denominators, guides,

for girls there's also different ones and quite

simply there are many things that we want

to do but I'm just saying is emotion

beats perfection.

What is wrong with this photograph?

The first thing you see, oh my god

it's in Paris, how beautiful, fantastic, we've compressed

the background, we've got rid of all the

actual all the crap in the foreground, we've

shot down low, up high, beautiful expression, nice

hands there, all that kind of stuff but

what is wrong?

What is the weird thing about this photograph?

Let me talk about the left hand which

is actually really really beautiful.

The left hand in this image there's a

slight little bend in the wrist, it's committing

to what's happening, it's engaging without being forceful,

it's soft and it's tender and it's really

beautiful.

Now here's the problem, I pose them beautifully

and you might say well what happened?

This arm wasn't even visible, then what happened

is in the heat of the battle and

making them laugh she pulled her elbow back,

I caught the expression and unfortunately it looks

really freaking weird, you've got like this big

big man hand on this girly arm so

to speak.

Now there's a couple of things, obviously if

I was to redo this and try to

maintain the expression I may not get the

expression but have the hands perfect so I

took the photograph, I forgave myself and certainly

I can just crop that crap out and

you wouldn't have a problem but if I

was to redo it and I can maintain

the expression, that hand here and you would

often hear me say that a groom's hand

should not cover up the thinnest part of

the waist because it's a waste of a

waste.

You want to see that beautiful curve, that

beautiful small of a back that us guys

are obsessed with with women so thank you

so much for that.

So that hand, now what did I say?

Now usually you've heard me say that good

lighting, good posing is either flattering and or

it helps communicate the message that you're trying

to convey to the viewer.

In this case you wouldn't call it as

flattering because we're not really showing off the

thinnest part of the waist but what it's

communicating is he's drawing her body close to

him and that's where he wants to put

his hands and that's therefore that's fine but

to the letter of the law his hand

probably should go up and arguably at least

we get that line, that bend off his

hand and or we get that elbow in

a little bit and or we get rid

of it.

So they're the kinds of things that we

should look out for and that brings to

that point that I just explained to you.

A good pose is either flattering and or

it helps communicate the desired message from the

artist to the viewer.

Now what is art guys?

Art is a form of communication.

It's either music, it's dance, it's painting, it's

sculpture, it's anything that communicates a feeling.

So if you communicate more effectively with what

you do with female hands, guess what?

You are more of an artist and that's

what I'm getting at is if you want

to be more artistic you are wasting this

beautiful expressive digits of a hand and in

my case I have nine and two-thirds

and that's why I'm so particular in posing

fingers and for those of you who don't

know, yes I am missing my left index

finger or at least part of it but

and I did that so I can help

me remember to pose fingers more effectively but

you want to be more of an artist,

you want to be more of an artist

so you've got to communicate better.

So guys next time you shoot a wedding

or a portrait or whatever, say something with

those hands and it doesn't have to be

much.

Sometimes it could just be delicate, it could

be soft, it could be forceful, it could

be strong, it could be romantic, it could

be sexy.

Pick one.

What do you think of the hands here?

Would you call that traditionally beautifully posed hands

and that thumb coming out of nowhere?

Well it's funny when this model came into

the studio, I think she was about 15

and she was like a little mouse or

a little stray mouse and any little sound

would just frighten her away and I ended

up using that because I'm like how am

I going to break this girl down?

How am I going to make her comfortable

and relaxed in front of my camera?

And I thought I want to use that.

She's an awkward teenager that doesn't really know

herself yet and it's funny ever since I've

been following her on Instagram and it's weird

because she just has that wildflower, what do

you call that?

Wildflower type of personality.

She's just finding the world right now and

she's just awkward but it makes her beautiful.

So I wanted her to like act as

if she was crying and she's a little

bit angry and I said just grab your

elbows very just strong or awkward or whatever

I said.

I can't remember what I said exactly but

that communicates something therefore that's nicely posed hands

because I'm actually executing my desired result to

you the viewer and that's the whole idea.

And as I pretty much implied already that

after the eyes the hands are the most

expressive part of the body so use those

hands.

And so what you'll see in quotes are

pretty much my common denominators because I find

that you know I can just be very

loose and just give you some general advice

but I find that especially if you're starting

out at home you might not really understand

or know where to start and maybe these

common denominators that if you take them a

little maybe more literally at least to start

off with I think that'll be a good

guide and start for you and then as

you go along in your journey as an

artist you'll understand that when it's okay to

do something like that because it expresses something.

It doesn't always have to be flattering because

not every image is supposed to make the

person look beautiful and feel beautiful.

It could just be about expressing something.

Like in this case you see how her

hands are an extension of the wings so

it's all fluid it all just flows up

very very beautifully and there's a very beautiful

softness to those hands.

So I guess what we're saying guys is

this hands should be engaged.

Engaged means you're you're doing something with them

it's not just doing nothing and even free

hands doing nothing as in just loosely by

your side can express something which we'll show

you later on.

I want them purposeful because I want you

to say something with them and be relaxed

but never stiff.

Now it's tough because what we're saying is

that we're clashing cymbals with our knees, we're

playing the harmonica, we're banging the drum and

all that kind of stuff.

Can we coordinate all this and make make

sense?

At the end of the day let your

gut and instinct be your guide.

If you think something looks a little bit

weird something's not quite right well trust your

gut.

Something's probably not right and then you can

go for it accordingly.

So in this case you can see how

that proves my exact point.

It's engaged, it's purposeful.

The inspiration behind this shot was my grandmother

who most Greek grandmothers would wear that sort

of that she's a widow and she was

a widow of course and then she would

wear that black little granny thing that you

often would see and the inspiration behind her

pose was actually Mona Lisa.

If you have a separate tab without getting

out of this broadcast just double click it,

do a google on Mona Lisa, look at

an image of the Mona Lisa and you'll

see how quickly how many similarities there are

to that to that particular image as well.

Before we go on with some common denominators

and then showing you many examples to back

what I'm basically saying up is that I

actually want to show you some general principles

with Melissa and then we can actually prove

our point like I said with some imagery.

It's pretty cool I guess what you're stressing

here is that you know there are rules

and then there are rules but in art

there's never any absolute rules and although we're

talking about principles the thing to remember throughout

this whole seminar is that these rules are

not absolute they're more like just guidelines that

you should follow and there are reasons why

you will sometimes break those rules so so

never be too inflexible that you can't experiment

and express yourself in different ways.

Love that never be too inflexible that's awesome.

All right baby girl coming this way.

Hope you got a manicure recently.

All right all right isn't it fun that

we're in the same camera view every every

blue moon we're in the same camera view

so all right guys so when we talk

about hands are we in the right position

Joe?

Yeah okay okay so when we talk about

hands we can't really avoid talking about forearm

arm and shoulders and so on so the

first thing that we've got to do especially

with the female form is you want to

bring the shoulders back when you bring the

shoulders back what happens the bust becomes more

pronounced and also we eliminate those little pinches

of skin that hang over the breast little

ticklish there I'm touching her because I can

all right shoulders back are really really important

also you never want to have the arm

directly on the body so if the arm

is directly on the body if she was

hidden let's say there's flowers in the way

or there's a the guy's jacket in the

way or perspective or cropping or shadow that's

okay or if she's really really skinny and

even then you'll find very rarely even skinny

girls with really thin arms are happy with

their arms not looking big but they're looking

flat so that's that's a bit of a

no-no so girls watching at home you

know what I'm talking about you hate that

when your arms look flat or big and

that's just a fact so we got to

know that so give her an excuse to

do something with her arm off her body

if we're talking about a wedding then what

we want to do is give her an

excuse as we said we can actually get

her to hold the groom's arm like this

we could hold hands we could put the

hand on the hip we could actually have

hold the flowers hold a champagne glass hold

earrings we could be touching her veil adjusting

her veil holding the veil out in the

air and so on and so forth so

give her an excuse to be doing something

with her hands is what I'm what I'm

getting at and I'm going to show you

many many many different examples in a moment

about how to pose hands and things like

that as well okay also what we want

to do is we never want to basically

be able to see this because this is

a flat part of the body and it's

wider you know when you talk when I

talk about posing you just simply want to

show the thinnest part of any body part

of a woman think of it like that

so this is going to be thicker and

flatter we don't want that and we also

don't want this I don't know how much

we can see there Joe but we also

don't want to basically see that bit so

if we have a choice and if you

can and whilst not ruining the emotion you

want to basically shoot on that angle and

also you want to bend the wrist either

forward or back and we'll talk about some

principles that I'm going to give you about

that as to which way to do it

and when and how or this way okay

so you basically just want to leave it

on an angle now whether you're bending the

wrist up this way or this way also

hands you don't want them to get like

you don't want fingers together you don't want

them flat like that it just says absolutely

nothing and also you don't want them to

too wide as well they just have to

be completely relaxed and again I'm going to

show you some more principles here's one way

of remembering how to pose a hand hands

so what I want you to do baby

and if you're watching at home do this

with me and a few of you have

done my workshop probably watching right now you

know what I'm going to do and that

is this let's put your hands flat like

this and then put your hands flat on

your biceps and lower the elbows there we

go otherwise we'll look like I dream of

genie and then just blink it so hands

like this hands on your biceps now roll

the wrists around mirror what I'm doing back

at home if you're watching right now so

you see how they go like this and

they do this now you might say well

Jerry that's okay for that pose but that

doesn't teach me how to pose hands well

it actually does let me explain come over

here for me are we still in frame

Joe so you see how this hand has

done this I can grab this hand and

hold the groom's face that is the correct

way to have a bride hold the groom's

face it's not flat there's a bit of

we're caressing do we do this where the

where it's the fingers are between here no

we want the four fingers behind think of

it like God made a bit of a

gap between the actual thumb and the fingers

so that we have a place to place

the hand here as well okay also when

you have a bride's hand hold a groom

you see how that's just straight and flat

that says nothing if you want to say

I love you with the hand because our

faces are kissing and they're in love and

all giggly but if her hands on her

side holding her flowers and my hands in

my pocket that says absolutely friggin nothing so

you do this and guide it down that

says I love you there's more tenderness there

there's more nurturing there that says nothing that

says I love you so that's the way

for example if she was to point her

toe bend her knee shift her weight back

if she was holding my forearm that's what

she'd be doing if she was holding my

bicep she'd be doing this now if my

hands on the hands on the chest you

can never have the fingers together completely with

no gap between them that's weird so now

just let the hand breathe a little bit

and then and basically you go from straight

and then just relax think of it like

a little bit of air can go between

the fingers and underneath here the traditionally the

Jerry Guirness of 30 years ago said do

this up to a point no one does

that naturally then you might say well no

one just poses hands naturally like that either

what we're trying to do is make hands

appear natural but also flattering and communicate something

at the same time so putting the hand

on like this is just silly putting it

like that is silly but just relaxing it

that could could and often does happen and

if you're guiding a hand on a face

there's a tenderness there and so on and

so on okay so you might say well

how else does that teach me how to

pose hands well watch this let's say this

was the actual stem of some flowers so

do your hands like that again all right

so keep that hand exactly the way it

is and then bring it over here and

that's exactly how you hold the flowers so

get get a bride to hold the flowers

that's how you get the bride to hold

flowers make sense let's do that again let's

say this was a champagne glass that's exactly

how you get basically pose a bride's hand

so that's what i'm getting at guys is

whenever you forget how to pose hands and

that's how you pose a hand a bride's

hand on her face and so on and

so on now everyone watching at home and

Melissa with me i want you to do

this this is how you pose a hand

so i want everyone to extend their hand

out like this and do you see how

now without you even knowing if you're mirroring

me right now your arm and your your

forearm basically are holding the weight of your

hand but what you're doing is you're actually

extending your hand you're actually exerting your hand

to go flat now what i want us

to do is completely relax the hand so

now our arm and our forearm are holding

the weight of the hand see how floppy

it is do you see what's happening with

the hand so what is actually happening in

fact what we'll do baby you go back

i'll talk more about this and then you

can look at some questions and then we'll

talk a bit more about it so me

doing my hand like this is this camera

catching me here joe sorry here and then

down so right now i'm actually leaving my

hand limp i'm not exerting it at all

but do you see how my hand goes

up to a point and gradually goes down

and this little pinky goes up a little

bit just a little bit there's air between

my fingers that's really really important to understand

because if i was actually and you see

now by me actually just doing this by

me bending this up the palm my hand

up do you see how this is going

up this little picky is up that little

index finger is up forward that just happens

naturally i'm not even doing anything to do

that i'm not thinking about it that is

a natural way the hand will move that's

really really important to understand now if you've

actually uh ever gone to the ballet um

you'll actually look at this what they do

is this will this pinky will go up

the index finger will go up the pinky

will go up without being a tea party

it'll just be up a little bit and

it's just very very gentle air between everything

and that's the way it works so when

you when you forget how to pose hands

what i want you to do guys is

do this do this and then you start

to understand where to put those hands let's

show you some more principles and then let's

get into a little bit deeper so fingers

should never be touching straight curled or in

a fist so when i said what do

i mean when i say that fingers should

never be touching they should never be just

let me just take off my ring there

they should never be like this okay it

looks weird there's two i'm exerting myself to

do that if i just relax it it's

soft um they should never be straight like

pointed out really really straight they never should

be curled like you're holding a tennis ball

um and you should never be in a

fist unless you're trying to say something with

that fist obviously if you're doing like a

an editorial type picture if you're doing like

a corporate ceo a female ceo that you

want to say something that's when we break

the rules i'm talking more about weddings um

but it's certainly these principles apply with almost

everything that we're talking about so if you

look at these hands for example you see

how delicate they are that are applying the

principles of exactly what i'm basically saying if

her left index finger was all the way

out it would look weird in the context

of her holding the back of her dress

therefore there is a little bit of curling

there with her left hand but it actually

makes sense for what she's doing and you

see how that left index so her right

hand her right index finger is up and

then you've got the separation of fingers so

the wrist should always be bent and at

least slightly in other words if you look

at your hand like this for example okay

so there's your arm and there's your wrist

you never want that straight line at the

absolute minimum you just want that little bit

of a bend here or a little bit

of a bend there and now you might

say when would you exercise uh those differences

and i'll give you some understanding very very

shortly i'm giving you the principles first and

then i'm going to prove them with many

many examples in fact this is a great

example of bending the wrist if you look

at the figure on the left hand side

you see how it's slightly bent slightly bent

downwards it's then she's actually grabbing her own

hair so to speak of course it's a

composite look how beautifully delicate those hands are

how delicate those hands are how it's bent

up this way bent up this way it's

slightly bent this way and this beautiful beautiful

hands there as well so you see that

if those hands were not posed correctly how

awkward this shot would be and how important

it is that we pay attention to all

those little intricacies because it's all in the

details just to reiterate what you were saying

how you want the hands to the fingers

to look a little bit natural you don't

want them to be too close together and

you don't want them to be too far

apart like spider hands we were having comments

about um spider hands and the in the

thing so you want them to be somewhere

in the middle somewhere a little bit more

relaxed and more natural yeah and that's the

thing is that when you talk about posing

hands it's a posing hands naturally is an

oxymoron it's a contradiction but let's think about

it like i said just follow along with

me here i'm not posing my hand at

all but i'm already doing what i want

to how i want to pose hands it's

just very delicate you naturally never put your

hand together like this unless you're slapping someone

you never do this unless you're catching a

ball just in everyday life your hands will

be usually always have air between the fingers

they'll never be straight they'll always be up

into a turn into the index finger and

it's almost effortless so what i find is

that when photographers don't get it right is

because they're trying to over pose the hands

and it starts to look unnatural and here's

another common denominator here correctly posed fingers should

rarely point to the same place now what

does that mean see how my hand over

here for example these fingers will like they're

literally pointing to a different place that's going

to hit that way that'll hit this way

this is further down it's they very rarely

will dissect either so if i draw an

imaginary line between my fingers let's if pigeon

toe if pigeon toe was possible with pigeon

fingers um it would never cross the same

particular line because as i was diagnosing posing

hands the last couple days preparing for this

very seminar i was looking at i'm like

wait a second yeah look maybe these ones

if you draw an imaginary line maybe these

two would cross but the other ones wouldn't

so i'm trying to give you principles that

that you don't have to remember every single

one of these because almost like each of

these independently will help you understand how to

pose hands and if you remember two of

these three of these four of these like

oh my god how do i pose that

girl's hands oh yeah wait a second how

do i do that and so on so

if you look at this for example you

sort of see how it comes up to

a point there's breathing space between them and

the fingers are not pointed to the same

place yes her hands close to her body

but if you brought the hand out for

example it is pointed to different parts and

that's what it's all about so arms should

never touch the body unless the subject's arms

are thin or not visible so in this

case i think she gets away with it

but she still might not even like that

of herself because the the pose itself was

it's sort of like all it's almost vulnerable

so she's bringing her hands into her body

obviously she's covering up her chest so there's

a vulnerability and what did i say good

posing good lighting is either and or it

helps communicate the message that we're trying to

convey now she's thin so she gets away

with it so it's already flattering is she

might say it does look a little bit

flat but what i'm doing is i'm using

the arm against the body as a form

of communication of vulnerability the fact that she's

half naked and it's supposed to be a

soft vulnerable but sexy sort of kind of

look and feel um so you have to

actually understand when it's the right time to

break those rules my encouragement to you is

don't be freaking lazy and say well jerry

said this is all about communication therefore i'll

just won't pose any hands let them do

what they want then you look at your

photographs overall and you think oh there's something

missing there's a bit of soul missing there's

a bit of energy missing there's romance missing

there's a feeling missing it's because you didn't

actually pay attention to the hands at all

just know that pay attention to this stuff

go out of your way to to communicate

with those hands and if your gut says

something's not right it probably isn't okay avoid

posing a subject's hands close to the camera

than their face this is a great example

but i did soften it in certain ways

let me explain her hand her right hand

is slightly closer to the camera than her

face it is a bit in shadow and

we have the brightest part of the image

which is the whites of her eyes and

her beautiful contrast of the eyes and the

hands are posed quite beautifully but i was

bordering on actually making the hands quite prominent

now that being said if you remember seeing

this video on jgbt this was a jewelry

shoot so this was actually all about the

jewelry so i sort of broke my own

rule here but it wasn't really that much

of a problem regardless and if it was

it's okay because it actually is about the

jewelry more than her so to speak so

again i'm trying to give you those subtleties

to really understand because i believe the difference

between a good photographer and a great photographer

are these subtleties that not many people pay

attention to and i'm telling you this is

a way that you can separate yourself from

the competition because if you add hands eyes

face body contrast composition cropping all the things

that we teach on jgbt you multiply that

by four four five things are going to

be done differently on a thousand images at

a wedding tell me tell me you don't

stand out better than the next person you

will okay here's another one avoid posing both

arms and hands in the exact same position

evens often look odd now what the hell

does that mean all right so have you

ever actually photographed say two people and you've

got a vertical frame horizontal frame there's two

people there it's it's even something looks a

bit odd it's even numbers but it's odd

the minute you introduce a third person now

there's a hierarchy there's a triangular composition there's

a there's a feeling there's a it's more

aesthetically pleasing when you have threes and fives

rather than your twos and so on so

when it comes to body parts try to

avoid mirroring a body part exactly unless you're

trying to communicate something let me give you

some examples so in this case do you

see how she's got both hands on her

hips but one hand is slightly above the

other this was shot on only a few

days ago out of camera no retouching so

that right hand is a little bit taller

because our eyes read from top left to

bottom right so if i can i'm going

to get this hand higher this hand a

bit lower so then we have that beautiful

nice flow that's triangular composition there's a beautiful

flow this again do you see how i've

got one hand on the hip and then

one hand actually holding the veil so in

this particular case there is a nice flow

and and it actually works now this exact

shoot this very very shoot i i went

against that common denominator that guide or that

rule that i just gave you a few

moments ago and that is this so if

you look at this shot her hands are

perfectly mirrored they're very symmetrical when you think

of symmetry you think of strength when you

think of something strong it's it's bold it's

in your face what is she saying she's

basically singing i am woman hear me roar

she's on a ladder she's larger than life

she appears strong beautiful and just she owns

it therefore those hands communicated exactly what i

wanted and it actually worked so in that

case again you got to use what i

just said as a common denominator but know

that when you're when it helps communicate something

great when it takes away and you think

oh my god it's just too symmetrical it's

too predictable why would i do that let's

change it up and then and that's that's

when you should any questions baby no just

soaking it in all right all right awesome

okay there's a couple of things here people

have asked me well jerry when do i

bend the wrist up and when do i

bring the wrist down okay here is what

i believe is is the right way of

doing it raise the hand as in raise

the hand people say bend the wrist i

suppose it's a it's an anomaly because you

can't really bend a wrist the wrist is

here your your the hand is raising so

let's turn i were talking last night well

how do we even communicate this what's the

proper grammatical linguistically correct way of explaining this

but let's say raise the hand when it's

lower than the waist so in other words

let me come over here so if a

bride is actually standing there and she's holding

her veil out when when you raise the

hand when it's lower than the lower than

the waist so my waist is here so

if she's holding out the veil the hand

would be like this this the common denominator

is that that will not look good as

often as this will so my suggestion is

do this okay let me show you some

examples so if you see that you see

how delicate is we've got this sort of

slight bend of the elbow that's important too

you don't want to actually have that straight

slightly bend the elbow slightly bend the wrist

and in this case the hand is lower

than the waist therefore the hand is raised

slightly and you see how delicate and beautiful

those hands are now look at the difference

when she actually brings her hand down or

pretty straight now she's gorgeous it's a beautiful

setting but it's fairly straight and if anything

it's bent slightly in although there's still a

beautiful softness and charm about that photograph i

would dare say that photo on the left

hand side looks a lot better would you

agree now again looking at this shot again

it's underneath the waist the wrist goes up

it actually just feels and flows a bit

better so when do we actually lower the

hand or drop the hand or bend the

wrist down and that is this we lower

the hand when it's higher than the waist

so so the minute my hand goes above

my waist that's when this will make more

sense this can sometimes work well but it

depends on what the person is doing again

these are no absolutes i just look back

at my work over all the years when

i started teaching and this is just something

that i thought you know what if i

was starting to shoot and i didn't want

to go through the growing pains that jerry

did well what is the common denominator and

that's basically it is that when the when

the hand is lower than the waist it's

up when it's above the waist it's down

so let me show you some examples of

this very common denominator so this one so

you sort of see how her hands are

down they look really beautiful and it could

be also you see how the hands are

on a banister but they're still above her

waist so it still makes sense could you

imagine her doing this well it's not going

to hold anything it'll look a bit weird

now this one this actually just happened i

was just having some fun with her i

posed her quite perfectly per se when i

say perfectly as in i executed my desired

result and that's what i call perfection in

photography so this hand stayed where it was

in the heat of the battle and laughing

and pulling her veil off her face she

exposed the the thickest and widest part of

her wrist and therefore it's not what i

wanted to do but because the emotion was

so great i still love the photograph so

that's what i'm trying to say is that

if the emotion the emotion will be perfection

if the emotion of the hands mirror what's

happening on the face and everything is good

then life is good as well so this

for example do you sort of see how

what i said is that when the hand

is above the waist it sort of makes

sense that the actual we lower the hand

even for a different kind of a pose

even sitting down so you see to see

how you know both hands are really above

the waist down down and it actually looks

natural because that's the way it will just

naturally fall and flop and it's funny because

you may remember this following picture remember this

picture this was from the d850 campaign she

is a trained ballerina of course she is

she can freaking balance on on a bottle

on two bottles of champagne it's quite ridiculous

but it proves my point as soon as

i saw this i'm like oh my god

i'm validated here um this hand is lower

than the waist it's up that one's higher

than the waist it's down could you imagine

the same grace if this hand was down

and that hand was up perhaps it would

look nice and maybe if you didn't see

anything different or no comparison that you might

feel that's okay but i'm telling you now

guys it makes a difference like i said

i can't tell you enough but after the

eyes the hands are the most expressive thing

you see what i'm saying to you now

i'm begging you to understand what i'm saying

if i just put my hands on my

side it probably wouldn't have the same impact

um and ultimately use this rule if it

looks good damn it shoot it so you

can throw every rule every rule that anyone

else has ever said or written you can

break all my rules all the common denominators

but if it looks good trust your gut

don't don't strive for like clinical emotionless perfection

because in rawness in imperfection there comes beauty

so it's up to you to decipher if

i just said here if i and you

might say well jerry why would you be

teaching all this stuff if if really this

is what you're trying to say well if

i gave you no common denominators no guides

no rules no nothing then you would just

shoot and be lazy and loose and and

perhaps your your art won't be as effective

because you're not communicating effectively with those hands

whether it's romance whether it's sexy whether it's

delicacy whether it's tenderness whether it's the warmth

of a mother's hand on the on the

cheek of of her son so we have

to understand that it's such an expressive part

of the body that we have to use

them all right there's my foundation and the

foundation was actually already 40 minutes so um

here's what's going to happen i'm going to

start to share with you all these ideas

common poses that include arms and hands okay

so we're going to talk to you about

arms being crossed including variation so how do

you cross a woman's hands and variations of

that like one arm like one arm sort

of crossed or behind the body or or

so on what are the what are good

examples of that hands on hips well how

do you do that what what's the what

are the the guides there that we can

look at hands on face like how how

do you put a girl's hands on her

face and there are so many ways that

you can do that right so how do

we do that hands on head so apart

from the apart from the actual face where

how do you actually put the hand on

on her head hands on body so if

she's just resting her her hand on top

of her chest if she's putting her hand

on another part of her body what do

you do free hands literally hands doing nothing

they're just floating by her side or they're

resting on a on a sofa or something

what do you do there um hands together

if the bride's got her hands together what

do you do how does that work and

so on and so forth um so arms

crossed i duplicated that so there's my mistake

for the day i've got i've got to

add a mistake every single every so often

um actually is it humanly possible that because

what i'm saying now won't be broadcast for

another minute can i sort of somehow suspend

the present and uh i miss that i

cannot i'm owning that i'm so excited about

how arms can be crossed i'm going to

share with you twice um hands on partner

so for example if if a bride is

holding um her partner where does she put

her hands what what are the guides and

common denominators and effective use of hands in

that situation how do we do that and

also holding things like on detail um a

bride holding her own hair flowers jewelry glass

veil ear earrings a banister um of a

staircase all those things and more we'll cover

right now um so let's start let's start

together now so how how would we actually

pose hands together and arms cross because essentially

some of these things cross over so let's

uh let's show you those things as well

do you see how in this particular case

obviously got window light coming through and she's

just putting her perfume on she sprays her

perfume and you can see how delicate those

hands are the slight bending of both wrists

the um the separation of the fingers the

fingers not pointed the exact same place and

there's a delicacy there so you sort of

see how this hand is pretty much that

and again i'm not posing or thinking about

my hand in any way shape or form

this one if i just let my hand

go you see how naturally my fingers sort

of come back in not too curled like

claw like just very delicate and that's how

we do it hands crossed over again if

you're leaning on something it's just very soft

this is very delicate it's just nice and

nice and soft there um let's say when

you've got legs crossed and you just want

to place them over the legs there again

they're just draped over it's effortless sometimes we

overdo it where it looks forced where if

the bride or model or whoever you're photographing

is exerting uh energy to actually pose those

hands arguably it's probably posing correctly this one

if you look at the hands crossed does

that remind you of the exact pose that

we did at the start of the presentation

today with melissa of course it does so

exactly it wouldn't be like this okay so

it wouldn't be like this it roll the

wrists around that's how we do it there

as well this one the hands are a

little bit stronger they're still delicate but they're

a little bit stronger what am i trying

to say she's a queen therefore a queen

would be poised she would show poise and

she would show strength this one it's almost

like a moment between a moment you can

see how we've got a big gap between

the arms there and a smaller gap there

what did we say try never to have

the hands completely symmetrical and they're the exact

same thing otherwise that'd be predictable and boring

and and too structured unless you're trying to

say something like i did in terms of

exuding strength and so on this is quite

delicate um and you know she captures the

spirit of marilyn monroe and so on and

um uh this shoot we haven't shared yet

but parts of the shoot of nicole mero's

beautiful model that i've with uh we'll be

sharing on future episodes of jgpt um this

one obviously i'm strategically hiding the naughty bits

uh you know with her hair and her

knee um and her arm and there was

times where we you know we we exposed

um her body and and all that stuff

and gorgeous girl beautiful inside and out all

that kind of stuff uh in this case

the hands even though they're actually showing the

flat part of the hand and not the

thinnest part it actually just wasn't quite natural

i i i said to her i posed

them perfectly and it didn't feel right so

i said to her look just bring your

hands back and just cross them over the

way however it makes you feel just cross

them over just gently gave her a loose

direction i looked at it overall that just

it feels just soft and beautiful and it

and it just worked so i was happy

to not make it perfect per se in

this case obviously i've got the hollywood light

there as before per se but in this

case she's standing it's very strong she's quite

confronting but you can see how she's just

draping her elbow back and the hands are

just very delicate and they're engaged without being

forceful and a bit too stiff like we're

saying you see how this we're taking that

strength a little even further you see how

although at first sight the hands look like

they're mirrored exactly this one's bent a little

bit further smaller breathing space here than over

there and the hands are quite delicate as

you can see they're very very soft and

they always almost do this the exact same

thing effortless relaxing of hands another great way

to remember posing hands guys is this now

if you've actually seen me at a workshop

you probably remember me doing this kind of

demonstration but it actually really really helps makes

helps you remember it think of blowing up

a balloon and blowing up too far you

need to let a little bit of air

out so watch this that's what you want

to do guys let the air out of

the pose if it looks stiff if it

looks like you blew up a balloon and

it's all wide and stiff then you've gone

too far just let the air out of

the pose the shoulders can be stiff everything

can be stiff just relax everything and i'm

telling you it will look better in this

case typically i wouldn't normally have the arms

like that and straight i was playing around

with some ideas and posing and i don't

know she just had this way about her

she was very long limbed there was a

bit of there was sort of like this

vulnerability but confidence coming out and that pose

seemed to give me that look and feel

that confidence with that vulnerability and i and

i let it go and that's what i'm

trying to say guys is this is an

important thing i'm about to tell you if

we start talking about posing and rules and

guides all day long the next time you

shoot you might just go for clinical perfection

and totally lose the emotion which means that

you'll be worse than when you started so

don't be don't go into a shoot thinking

you know what if this was going to

be edited into competition it would get a

74 guys you have to remember that your

clients are number one your clients are what

pays the bills awards trophies all that kind

of stuff and and getting a good scoring

competition because hands have to be posed a

certain way it's not all about that guys

yes if you can get posing hands and

emotion out of them and have it beautiful

and and conducive of getting compliments from someone

like me and judges fantastic but remember that

it's really about the emotion it's really about

being meaningful with those hands and expressing something

so whether and that's just a general comment

a blanket comment whether it's it we talk

about lighting whether it talks about composition if

you feel a certain way and it's more

meaningful to shoot a certain way and it's

not lazy but it's a it's intentional and

deliberate to communicate a message screw the judges

screw what jerry thinks and make sure that

is all about the feeling and it's all

about the emotion that image actually evokes i'm

a little bit greedy where i go i

go to the nth degree where i want

emotion and perfection and when often you'll hear

me say perfection and let me remind you

because i mentioned it earlier today perfection in

my mind perfection in my mind is this

it's communicating my desired result executing my desired

result in other words i wanted to do

this this is what i wanted it was

very deliberate and i executed for me that's

perfect the perfect effort perfection in art is

is is a is a fallacy it doesn't

it's it's not real there's nothing as perfection

that's like saying what's who's the perfect singer

who's the perfect song what's the perfect movie

it's all subjective so communicate effectively and you'll

be totally fine this one believe it or

not this is the same girl with a

change of outfit with a change of lighting

with the softness of those hands just playing

um with those chains you see how different

this girl looks and feels and again i'm

communicating very different things with this to this

to this to this even with her eyes

like you know giving a half squint with

the eyes add a bit of mystique the

lighting being fairly flat goes with her skin

tone goes to what she's wearing and then

that tentative nature that moment between the moment

that we've captured actually makes sense with those

hands this uh this girl i was photographing

her and it was more like she looked

like a performer she looked like jennifer lopez

like there's glimpses of her that look like

jennifer lopez and i'm i actually said to

her i just want you to arch your

back pretend like you're clapping to a you

know like a salsa beat or something like

that and and it's amazing that when she

did it she outstretched her fingers and then

i said just relax your hands let them

fit into each other like a glove and

like a puzzle and then we got those

beautiful fingers so although that left hand is

quite straight and flat it's that right hand

that's breaking the monotony of that left hand

and that's what i'm getting at is that

how much how much more emotion am i

getting you can almost hear the the the

music with this particular photograph let's have a

look at this one you see how that

shoulder comes up obviously the hair adds to

the emotion but imagine if those hands were

just dead and flat and straight it just

wouldn't look nowhere near as basically good as

this is going on as well so that

delicate hand there that bringing up of that

particular dress the wind again this is making

me feel like it's a it's a moment

between a moment and we just caught her

she's almost surprised but she loves the fact

that you're looking it's sort of almost like

an acknowledgement of a voyeur type of feel

how about this one there is those hands

although delicate you can see they're actually quite

poised and strong well she's a queen this

was like a game of thrones type of

look and feel so for me i wanted

her to be strong i wanted her to

feel that way and it just it just

worked it just worked this one um you

remember i've showed a previous shot of this

girl as well she's crossing her arms over

um her arm is looking a little bit

flatter she gets away with it because she's

skinny but those hands are actually and those

wrists are photographed on the thinnest part of

her wrist it's quite delicate so you see

how this isn't as vulnerable yes she's covering

up the naughty bits so to speak but

she's actually got a chin up now looking

off to the light she's just she's being

modest but she's got confidence as well so

it actually works um this one same girl

just different lighting situation here window light still

but just me from a different angle but

you see exactly those arms that we did

before with melissa that's exactly how i pose

those hands then what i did is i

brought those shoulders forward and then i brought

her chin out we call it the turtleneck

so just bring that chin out and then

sink the chin in i quite like that

look when you bring the shoulders in and

then you sink and there's this beautiful energy

and movement with the body but she's actually

quite stationary and serene it's quite beautiful is

it okay that the curled fingers at the

bottom of the hand um make it look

like it's a little bit cut off is

it this one yes yeah so this one

she's grabbing her dress so so for me

it's totally fine there's a you know she's

grabbing a dress she's pulling it forward if

she if she was doing that in real

life this is what would happen now could

that pinky be extended a little bit it

could but i think if you were grabbing

it it's almost like saying i'm going to

show you my body i'm going to expose

my legs there is this again that that

voyeuristic feel that i was referring to before

it feels to me like she's covering up

but it almost feels like this hand could

be showing off her shoulder next this hand

could be exposing her legs and all of

a sudden i'll give you what you want

to have a look at i mean you

make a story in your mind and have

some fun with it but i have no

problem with that for me if it if

it's fine if it communicates what i want

i'm totally cool with it's never laziness it's

it's very very deliberate and if it's not

deliberate and it happens organically with a model

doing what they're doing and it feels right

i'm gonna let it go and be happy

with it yes baby um and then if

you go back to where we were um

with the bridal boudoir photo this one yes

that one and the one that we showed

before of her did you pick that photo

because she's topless would you do that pose

even if she did have a top on

oh absolutely absolutely obviously if if she was

wearing something that you know you ruined the

detail or you squished detail um it'd be

it'd be a problem but no that'd be

fine i think it'd be beautiful i think

that if she was wearing something sheer obviously

it suits it because you know if you

want to if a bride wants some boudoir

shots without showing too much information but she

wants to be quite strong and powerful and

and so on not to show too much

this is perfect for it and this one

as well you know you can't even see

her bust at all but you know that

with a backless part of it and if

that was actually you know if that was

mirrored like that on an album for example

then that's modest but it's clean and it's

beautiful at the same time so yeah all

is good all right let me show you

some more things here let's talk now about

hands on hips how do you do it

what's the rules about hands on hips and

by the way guys everything that i'm sharing

with you today no one has taught me

this is just what i believe after 25

years of photographing that after 25 years of

shooting this is what i believe will work

most of the time and for these reasons

hands on hips let's talk about this actually

baby can you come here for a second

might not be i mean you're wearing pants

because it might not be perfectly for what

i want but i think we'll understand my

advice is this so that now what's beautiful

about a woman curves this is what we

love love the bust love the waist love

the hips fantastic so the thinnest part of

her is this so if a hand covers

up the thinnest part of her waist to

cover up the thinnest part of your waist

right so you're that is not right as

far as i'm concerned because you're you're missing

that beautiful valley think of it like peaks

and valleys mountain range and valley and so

on so what you want to do is

that this part this part here that whether

you've got both hands on hips or whether

you've just got one hand you want to

find the thinnest part of the waist okay

which is about there and you want this

little webby little webby bit this piece is

to just bring your attention to the thinnest

part of her waist bang that's where you

want it as opposed to something like a

little bit higher you see how we see

that beautiful curve here a lot better than

this one now you can go down so

but i think it depends you could go

down if maybe the the actual hips of

the girl are a little bit wider and

you want to soften the hips so you

expose the thinnest part of the actual hips

and then you actually cover up the thickest

part of her hips um that's fine so

again use your gut but just the golden

rule is just don't cover up the thinnest

part of her waist let that line of

the hand just guide you up to it

and life is good thank you baby so

if you look at this girl for example

you see you see how those hands are

just delicate and effortless you see how that

that here runs your eye right into the

thinnest part of her waist beautiful now this

girl i've gone to her a little bit

lower because she had this really long legs

it just looked a bit weird when she

had her hands up the fittest part of

her waist was here and it looked a

little bit weird so depending on the body

type you can't really follow these these guidelines

perfectly because it just won't work with every

single person um like joe for example um

you six two like me we're the same

height so we're both six two joe has

a shorter body and longer legs like his

legs go on friggin forever um so he's

going to look a little bit different he

might look taller than me just purely by

just the way his body looks so it's

all it's all perception at all it depends

on the way we look this girl for

example you may have seen this uh only

recently on jgbt this is all done with

ice lights and i turned her body so

this wasn't completely on uh on on the

side of her hips there there but when

i turned her you're not she's not covering

it completely um but it actually works and

those hands are quite delicate and they're quite

poised but they're sort of they're more hollywoody

they're more staged it wasn't meant to look

natural per se this one what am i

trying to say with those hands she's obviously

got attitude look at her face her chin

is up she means business um but have

a look at this for the actual threat

of not being perfectly mirrored this hand is

a little bit higher this hand's a bit

lower which hip looks thinner would you say

baby what do you think so look at

those two hands which which looks more curvaceous

would you say the one her left hand

yeah yeah it shows the curve more yep

so that shows the curve more that one

she's gone a little bit higher so i've

remember earlier today i said try never to

have anything mirrored unless you want to show

strength or a different particular perspective or a

different emotion so i so in this case

i brought one hand up one hand lower

so i broke that but then i didn't

break that rule i went with that rule

but then i've broken the hip rule that

all the the guideline or the condom that

i've given you because i've covered the thickest

part but because i see at least one

and she's thin already and got beautiful curves

i'm totally okay with it let's go to

this one you see how now we've got

her shoulder up um which i think is

in this case very beautiful because we've got

the shadow there and it cuts right in

the hand on her hip is brings your

attention to the thinnest part of her waist

typically is right up here just the nature

of her pose because she's lifting up her

shoulder like it's almost like that arch and

that rib cage is going up a little

bit higher but here i still get that

curve um and you know her body type

was totally fine too if you're going back

to this particular photograph um she needed more

curve you can sort of see how she's

quite thin and the hand almost acts like

a curve if you look at it closely

then some people say jerry when do you

when do you actually do let me show

you so jerry when do you do say

like some people just do this it looks

weird it's non-committal it's not engaging that

looks weird bend the wrist down so there's

one way of doing it or you might

even do this this is a rarity for

me if it actually works it communicates a

different feeling let me explain to you look

at this girl there do you see how

it almost has a different sense of attitude

now we can't see all her fingers so

typically i don't like this pose because you

only normally see a thumb but somehow it

suited the fact that she was very confident

she's peering off to her left there's almost

like this sort of bitchy sort of look

and feel to her um this confident sort

of almost uh menacing look but it actually

just works that's what i'm trying to get

at guys is that posing is a form

of communication you must say something with your

posing there we go speaking about saying something

how exactly do you communicate what you want

to do when you're posing hands because sometimes

just saying relax your hands doesn't always work

so what is what are some of the

language that you sometimes will use or how

do you get that pose just right with

the hands see when it comes to posing

i believe hands arms and shoulders of let's

say of a guy to a girl and

a girl to girl is a safe place

to touch so if you've developed trust someone's

booked you it's almost like i don't really

have to ask permission to basically hold their

shoulders arms and hands any other part of

the body you would say is a bit

of a no-go zone unless you develop

trust unless there's a friendship there unless something

but usually you want to you want to

ask permission with hands i normally touch i

normally guide so let me show show melissa

so you stay there baby girl we'll cut

to you so if i wanted to pose

melissa's hands on her own zap you totally

zap you so i can just grab melissa's

hands like this right nice and nice and

delicate and then i can just guide them

on her face and then i can get

a rest on her elbow and then i

might just say just relax your fingers a

little bit so i often you you basically

know guys that when i pose people i

get them to mirror me so if i

basically come right right over here and just

uh let's just do this hand so we're

mirroring so just outstretch and uh see i

might extend the fingers so it's obviously and

overtly wrong so she can see just copy

me and then now it becomes more amplified

with how relaxed i want the hands to

be and then i might just drop drop

but you can sort of see how that

hands just have to be softened have to

be guided and if i for example i

wanted the bride's hand on the groom's face

then again what i would do you sort

of see how easily with my my bird

finger and my thumb i can just i

literally can move that hand anywhere i want

so what i do is i grab the

hand on the face and i grab guide

and it's almost sometimes what i do is

i stroke the wrist basically i'm basically saying

i just want you to relax just relax

the hand without saying a single word so

hands i normally touch and place and guide

almost all the time wouldn't you say yep

all right okay let me just keep on

showing you some more stuff here you sort

of see how um we've got both hands

on hips and then this she needs shape

here because she's very very thin she's very

very young and then we've actually got that

hand going right in this is giving her

a little bit more curve as well so

this is actually going to work for her

and you see also the fact that i've

turned her body towards me for example and

that makes her look almost like she's got

more of a hip more shape easy beautiful

and and again you see how it's actually

going to the thinnest part of her waist

this is guiding you in this should be

the thinnest part and again some body types

it might look really awkward because you're going

up really high that's not going to work

so be careful with that and again right

over here this is actually the thinnest part

of her waist so sometimes it just needs

to lead right in and if ever you're

actually feeling a little bit weird about it

not knowing where to put them just ask

the girl to put her hands on her

hips on her own and then get her

to mirror you and bring that bring their

hands down and then then you might look

at and go slide the hand up uh

up down okay love that perfect trust your

gut it's just going to look better at

one particular point depending on the body type

of the person that you're actually photographing so

guys i just want to let you know

that there is so much more content i

can't even tell you and for those of

you who've seen me actually teach posing and

posing hands before you know this is all

new content and i've sort of diagnosed it

and systemize it in a little bit different

way very very powerful portrait that i photographed

of a family recently where i can't even

tell you that the difference between the direction

that i gave in the beginning of this

particular session and then a few words that

i said and how much the hands not

only were powerful but that was so emotional

and really highlights the importance of the fact

that you can never forget hands when you're

posing or when you're photographing any kind of

human being because they are so much more

powerful that you actually realize we set the

foundation we talked about a lot of principles

behind posing hands female hands specifically and just

make sure you go back and if you

have time today watch it today so it

all actually makes sense because i don't want

to cover things sort of again i mean

there'll be a lot of repetition with what

i'm actually doing but i'm very specific to

a part of the body and all those

different things we covered the foundations of posing

hands we talked about how to pose female

hands together so putting them together arms cross

different ways we can do that in combinations

of those things and also hands on hips

and there's many different principles behind those as

well today most when i say most likely

because of questions and q a and all

those kinds of things sometimes we'll do more

than what we anticipate sometimes we'll do less

almost certainly the posing female hands will go

over not only today and also next week

as well so i'm almost certain it'll be

three parts possibly even four we don't don't

know but i'm pretty certain it'll be that

so at the moment we are going to

talk about hands on face and head it

was funny because if i said we're just

going to be talking about hands on head

then it's going to be like when you're

a child right so face is part of

your head of course but i'm going to

talk about how how to actually put your

hands on your head as well and that'll

give us a really good idea of how

to do things too now i'm going to

walk you through quite a few photographs of

these particular genres within the overall genre that

we're talking about to give you some confidence

to go ahead so now we're talking about

hands on face and head now this particular

photograph you might recognize this particular girl as

the cover shot on our home page of

jgpt in this case she's somewhat boudoir so

in a sense there's a little bit of

implied stuff but i got the actual dress

and brought it up and why do i

mention boudoir because it's sort of like she's

almost praying or in a solemn moment so

it's almost like a sexy prayer should we

can we call it that i have no

idea but it somehow works do you notice

how we've already mentioned last week how the

fingers are slightly parted so there's a gap

between the fingers it's very very soft hands

should be organic they should be natural they

should just be easy and free flowing and

certainly this is a good idea now can

you imagine if we're looking at a profile

shot so on the big camera here if

if i put my fingers together and did

this it it just would have it wouldn't

have that appeal that we're looking for so

think about it put the hands together and

just don't think about it too much get

the model to relax her fingers like this

and then just give a bit give me

a bit of breathing space a bit of

air between the fingers and you'll find that

will actually work now this photograph now if

you see how she's actually doing up her

hair at the back there a little bit

this is somewhat of an editorial photograph as

you can see while we're here i want

to talk to you about the complexity of

this photograph above and beyond hands because it's

actually quite deep now although it looks like

a simple photograph now generally center composition you

would say is pretty predictable and some some

would say almost boring in this case though

the bride makes it makes it asymmetrical so

if you look at the gap between his

arms it gives him a silhouette if you

look at the gap beyond his arm and

her body it mirrors her beautiful curve and

a beautiful shape certainly we have the sun

coming from the side and we've got beautiful

detail on her back and that little shadow

in the small of the back on the

spine and then she's just doing basically the

back of her hair and then of course

her arm leads leads you right into into

the groom and of course his nose does

not cross the bridge of the cheek wouldn't

you say there is so much that goes

into a somewhat simple photograph but you look

at it it actually is quite complex when

it comes to posing of it and all

those different things as well so just so

you know this wedding actual wedding was actually

photographed in greece in a beautiful island the

image that you're showing right now that was

actually taken in a day after session but

a lot of people will ask about you

know when you're shooting in a bright sun

situation where you don't have access to anything

that's shady what do you do and that

this whole shoot was done at noon on

the beach with no covering at all so

it'll be really really cool to see also

i want to just mention something to you

we don't really want to see the palm

or the other side of the hand there

as well the way she's actually putting doing

her hair there a little bit it i'm

sort of sacrificing the perfection per se for

the sake of it actually being real in

other words if i was to turn around

here and do this or delicately it just

wouldn't make sense so that's when it just

has to has to look real posing for

it to look effortless it has to look

organic and as if it as if a

bride or a girl happened to be doing

that at that particular time so just remember

that as well all right let's go on

to the next oh by the way do

you do you know do you see where

the actual horizon is as well i've often

said the horizon or any strong horizontal line

or crop really has to be below the

chest and above the elbow so if you

can you can squat down go a little

bit taller depending on where you are at

when you're photographing try to do that as

well do you notice how she's also pushed

her booty to the right which basically means

that we're creating shape as well so every

so often i'll talk about hands but if

there's complexities to the so-called simplicity i'll

also want to share that with you too

okay so this girl here now we're lying

down on the ground and you basically see

how we're creating that gorgeous s curve um

with that with her arms and not only

that it's repeating quite dramatically you'll see that

triangles um are very very pleasing to the

eye they're very aesthetic they're very very beautiful

so make sure that you know that the

more triangles that we have the the the

more curves we have the more everything will

be amplified so in this case beautiful catch

lights in the eyes there as well you

sort of see how we've got the beautiful

softness of the wrist and that beautiful softness

of the wrist the hands don't look forced

got gorgeous catch lights on the eyes and

life is good same girl um this time

such a different look right if you look

back at this photograph all their hair is

out she's like a tiger like a mane

beautiful hair out and then we tighten up

the hair there as well and you can

sort of see how very delicate we're actually

holding those hands rather than it be forced

if you're going to do that and rest

the chin right on the palm there you

just want to relax those fingers a little

bit rather than have them like this or

just have them delicate like that and then

it's quite passive it's very gentle hands are

a form of communication they're not just the

pose after the eyes the hands are the

most expressive thing in my humble opinion so

if you're not using hands to actually pose

you're losing a valuable source of communication in

this case the lighting you see how the

lighting here is a bit harder now we

have soft hands but it's quite strong and

dynamic you've got beautiful curves but you've got

this strength and she's framing her face with

her hands in this one it's quite soft

there is a little bit of a gap

between her arm and her body and even

if i pressed up against the body you

would find that she's quite slim and she

gets away with it but that delicate hands

are important you see how she's turning her

face up to the light and we've got

some gorgeous caps lights there as well let's

have a look at this pose so don't

forget we're talking about hands on face and

on head certainly we've got a combination here

this hand is strategically placed so that we

cover up the naughty bits in this case

do you see how beautiful and delicate those

hands are here we're actually selling jewelry and

we're selling luxury so that's why you can

imagine we've got the fur coat there's we're

not really embellishing with different clothes and colors

we've got the coat for luxury there's a

sliver of body making it very sensual and

luxurious and we're selling jewelry to beautiful housewives

who stay at home and just with the

absolute luxury that's the sensibility of the shoot

in this case the hand you can sort

of see how delicate that hand is and

how you pose a hand to a face

you actually don't even pose it let your

arm and your wrist actually hold the weight

of your hand and then all of a

sudden it'll just work and then as you

tilt upwards so you tilt up you see

how those fingers automatically go up like that

and then what's happening is that that little

index finger is just causing a little bit

of a support for the face not that

she's needing it to support her the weight

of her face but that's how it works

there's a couple of variations that as well

you can sort of see how that goes

very delicate beautiful curve up there as well

and then you see that sort of come

down so very slight little differences and that

works some people ask well Jerry is it

okay for an arm to go in and

out of a frame in this case it's

only coming in we don't really see where

it comes out i would say you want

to try to avoid that but if you're

cropping up close you are going to get

that like you're going to get maybe a

close-up of face and hands coming in

that is no problem whatsoever i find that

when it becomes an issue is when this

part of the arm goes out of the

frame and then we come in that may

be an issue and i'm saying is try

to avoid that but it's not an absolute

and Cathy and all our new members when

i talk about these things there is no

absolutes they're common denominators yes some people call

those rules but if i say it rule

it means they can't really be broken if

we call them common denominators it means that

this will work most of the time with

this kind of a girl with this kind

of a face and that kind of light

and so on and so forth so just

be wary of that okay so same girl

and this is a great shoot to show

jewelry off do you see how we've got

that beautiful delicate hand over here like this

and then this one is just very gently

sort of coming over the top and again

do you see how the hand is just

flowing if someone thinks about it too much

it will it will destroy the picture it's

overposed hands need to just be soft and

delicate and effortless as we have it here

think of like the arm and the wrist

is doing all the work the hand is

just relaxing the wrist is just relaxing relaxing

okay this one as well again i'm showing

off excuses to show off rings here right

so uh in this case i've chopped half

the face i love that beautiful shadow on

the eyelashes uh the shadows are on her

face but then we've got the beautiful delicate

nature of that hand sort of going up

do you think this would have the same

appeal if the bride just did this it's

like she's being she's pulling herself away or

something like that so we've got to be

really really careful and again you never want

to see straight fingers the only time that

i feel like you want straight fingers uh

well at least slightly straight is when you

put the bride's hand on the chest of

the groom and then just relax they they're

somewhat straight but there's a little bit of

a curve as you can see so just

make sure that that's one of the only

times where i'm okay with having it like

that baby girl just on that subject because

you have that image up for when you're

shooting a wedding or even an engagement session

you know sometimes the bride would like a

shot of her engagement ring showing off the

diamond but then you're also showing the back

of the hand but if you go to

the side you're not really getting a clear

shot of the ring is there a solution

to that or do you just try to

balance that out somehow well i guess i

mean unless i miss i misunderstood the question

if she was wearing engagement ring right now

would that not show that that engagement ring

perfectly in this particular case is that is

that what is that yeah yes it would

yeah yeah so so you can still turn

it and then just have it absolutely so

in this case like if she's doing this

or on something then the engagement rings there

it may be perfectly if it's perfectly in

the middle of her finger it may actually

be incorrect when it comes to the angle

that you're photographing so don't be afraid to

just pose the hand and then just move

the actual ring rotate it a little bit

so that it's actually visible from your perspective

no one's going to say well that's been

rotated looks a bit silly so just right

in this case they're very big so it's

almost like one way to wear it um

so yeah does that answer the question yes

all right wonderful um same thing here as

well so if you've got rings then that

that's a great way of actually photographing an

engagement ring for example if you just put

it down onto the actual wedding ring finger

that'd be great and you've if you've heard

me teach before and about detail shots i

will always reference detail shots with a heartbeat

which basically means that we are we want

a suggestion of the human form now yes

often these blogs and and all that stuff

anything you see online pinterest where we promote

selling the jewelry so to speak and all

the detail shots not in the environment that

they use in other words we have a

ring and it's just sitting on a table

um i believe it's a lot nicer when

you see it on the person's hand it's

a lot more emotive a lot more beautiful

a lot sexier and so on so i

encourage you that when you're doing ring shots

that do it in a way where you

see a suggestion of the girl so you

could crop that really tight for example imagine

actually cropping that sort of just there can

you imagine like that that shot as a

vertical and cropping it just there wouldn't that

be a gorgeous a ring shot all right

let's uh let's keep moving on uh in

this case you sort of see how there's

a very delicate little join there um the

way she's just going up to a point

and then she's framing her face now one

might argue that that right arm is actually

looking a little bit flat to the camera

i find that when i'm doing these kinds

of shots if it feels right when it

goes against that particular rule that we may

be suggesting then just go with it go

with your gut don't do it out of

laziness or ignorance well ignorance it's a bad

word for saying well i don't know any

better if that makes any sense i'm suggesting

that my common denominator is that that that

hand and that wrist could be a little

bit more delicate by being twisted but think

about it this way um i might actually

go around over here joe so in front

of that tv screen so if you look

at this hand at the moment right she's

putting that leg up and she's sort of

doing this i could turn it and it

might look a little bit forced it almost

looks like there's a bit of stress on

the arm so that's when i'm saying all

right i get that delicate nature by the

finger being pointed and you can you can

almost feel the bend in the wrist even

though it's towards the camera but just trust

your gut if this looks a little bit

weird which is what your inclination would be

then i'm saying just relax it and then

do the best you can and go with

your gut for me that felt right under

the circumstances and that's why i was happy

to accept it also guys don't be so

concerned now of course we're focusing on hand

posing all right we're focusing on hand posing

which means that you know you might go

to see a uh a movie about spiders

and then you're going to be itchy for

the next week in other words the next

time you pose hands you're going to be

so pedantic about them that you might lose

emotion in the face and everywhere else and

and and totally forget about it i would

say this has got to be a a

slow progression of mastery in terms of the

way we understand the way hands should be

but if you're so particular with them you

might lose energy somewhere else so be careful

that we're not losing everything for for the

sake of hands being perfect but because we're

focusing on it you might over focus on

it next time you shoot so um that'll

be great all right let's keep on going

if you look at these hands on this

particular side now that left hand is a

little bit stronger as you can see what

she's wearing the way she looks her makeup

it's a bit edgier it's a bit stronger

so therefore i'm i'm sort of running the

fingers through the hair or about to that's

why those fingers are a little bit curled

in more than i would normally like and

then this hand is quite soft as you

can see where she's framing her head and

that hand is very very delicate you see

how it always ends up being onto a

point like that and that's how that works

okay in this case we've got this beautiful

hands uh covering up part of her face

they're very very delicate um you know the

lips are coming through there as well and

it's very very soft we can see the

thinnest part of her wrist there as well

so this next shot was pretty much like

uh i what i wanted to emulate here

was doing a fashion shoot she wanted some

body shots and i'm thinking maybe we can

do like a burlesque dancer having a cigarette

break um and that's basically why we pose

her like that she's just resting her arm

and then as you can see the hands

are very delicate that was when smoking was

glamorous back then if we're talking about you

know burlesque shots from a bygone era or

something like that then smoking was cool back

then she blew out some smoke and that's

basically how we did that shot for those

people asking about how that was lit that

was photographed with a profoto b1 with a

five foot octabox all right let's keep on

going this one here in particular as you

can see we've got a little bit of

a gap here between her bust and her

elbow so that's that gives us some breathing

space we've got one foot in front of

the other which is really cutesy the lighting

is very flat so it goes with basically

what the way her pose is and even

her smile the hands are very delicate sort

of in there as well and we're resting

the elbow on here too so what happens

though guys when you're looking for emotive hands

that aren't meant to be perfect they're not

meant to be pretty and that's why i

always say that good lighting or good posing

is either flattering and or it helps communicate

the message that we are trying to convey

to the viewer of the photograph would you

call these hands pretty would you say they

break a few of the rules that we've

been discussing well yeah they are breaking some

rules they're a bit heavy-handed they're a

bit rough and they're a bit raw but

if you look at her she's we're emulating

with the makeup that she's been crying she's

an angry teenager or something like that and

that's why that's a perfect example of i

mean they're still delicate to a certain extent

because they're curled in they're so strong then

that's why we are communicating with those hands

so but now you can see now let's

contrast this photograph to something like this look

at how delicate that is now she's it's

implied nudity right so you can you know

you almost see the naughty bits so to

speak the you've almost got like a bodice

that some somewhat could be seen in like

an in a mad max film so there's

almost like this oxymoron going on here we've

got hard light hard hard highlights hard shadows

really edgy particular bodice but the way we're

posing her is quite soft and it's quite

delicate i love the contrast and i want

to thank um probably my biggest inspiration in

photography her brits for really giving me this

inspiration when i was a child he was

probably the first photographer first famous photographer that

i that i knew about and i knew

of and it was wonderful to grow up

with him unfortunately he passed away many many

years ago but he made it he made

photography so simple it was so complex in

execution but so simple in the result and

i i i know that his work has

rubbed off on me because he used to

shoot in the bright californian sun and white

backgrounds and do that hard edgy contradiction with

softness going through and uh it it's beautiful

so it's fun that every so often that

you know i said yeah my god it's

so it looks such like a herbert's photograph

um this one as well you sort of

see how with we've changed the bodice and

we've got hard sunlight again we've turned her

face and then now we've got that her

both her hands are very very soft and

delicate framing her face and we've got that

beautiful gap between her chin there we've got

the gap between the arm there as well

um leg over as well is really really

important when when you look at these photographs

guys by the way i i have no

problem with busts i have no problem with

butts either guys or girls um i just

never really show the naughty bit below the

belt so whether it's guy or girls um

i usually will try to pose it out

and if organically with the shoot that i'm

doing i can see maybe a little hint

of crotch from from a guy or a

girl then and when i try to hide

it with shadow opposing but if it can

be seen a little bit then i'm going

to shave that out or crop that out

um because you know we want to keep

something sacred for for for the for them

um and that's basically it all right but

you see how delicate those hands are very

very soft hands coming right over both hands

you see the gap between those fingers the

gap between those fingers the graduation of that

hand sort of coming up um is just

exquisite and it's just fun i find it

very beautiful it's people find it very daunting

but i find it's an art form posing

female hands is actually as it i'm trying

to simplify it for you but it's it's

quite scientific when we break it down like

this but remember trust your gut gut don't

overthink it just communicate with those hands and

it'd be beautiful what about something like this

it was funny you know um i was

looking at this model and i don't know

she was thinking about something and it and

it felt to me like she was she

had a secret i don't know what it

was about her look there was just something

about her that made me feel that she

was thinking about something else in a in

almost a promiscuous kind of a way so

i almost like i sort of said to

her okay let's pretend like we were just

having a conversation and someone was about to

come and we're just trying to hide you

know what we're trying to say and very

gently what happened was we just i said

interlock the fingers very gently and just put

your finger up here as well um and

that's what we did i i don't believe

we actually filmed this particular shoot um so

that's why i'm discussing it in more in

more detail okay let's keep on going now

this gives us a great example of if

you don't over pose a hand but it's

out of focus and a little bit in

shadow it doesn't really matter so let me

explain a little bit more detail you see

how we're resting the chin on the actual

palm there as well and then we have

breathing space and those fingers come up but

then you would say somewhat that that hand

her left hand going on her body flattens

out a little bit it's flat and i

basically have said in the previous conversations that

we should really hide the you know try

not to photograph right flat onto the actual

forearm on the back side but because it's

got a shadow and because it's out of

focus this is photographs at 1.4 you

would say that you don't even look at

it really your eyes right on her face

on her hand it's framing her beautifully her

arm is somewhat against her body as you

can see the shadow on her bust there

as well but because she's so slim she

gets away with it so that's why you've

got to be really really careful when when

you look at all these different things okay

the next one all i can say is

the next model was very very inappropriate with

me after the shoot that's all i can

say um you may have seen this before

this was uh how beautiful does my wife

look this was uh a part of her

40th birthday present her shoot and you can

see this is a very very very classic

pose that we all have done sometimes we

tend to miss one of those hands uh

in terms of what it is but this

one's framing her face really it's all about

her expression and her face this is a

very very standard pose we discussed this before

right like the way you remember how to

pose female hands you grab the hands put

them on your bicep then roll the wrists

in and that will remind you on actually

how to put hands on a bicep but

roll them in roll them around and we

get those beautiful shots lisa one of our

closest friends she's a gorgeous girl we've grown

up with her we've literally seen her a

blossom from a i think a late teen

would you say baby from the first time

we shot her late teenager just raw stunning

beauty real curves all that stuff and we've

photographed her frequently so she came back she

was traveling through la we were shooting there

at the time we got this beautiful gown

and we put it basically over her face

i almost wanted her expression is quite overly

dramatic i sort of wanted a little bit

of pain in in the in the shot

and i want to say pain not painful

as in a painful pose almost like a

the madonna you know uh being saddened by

an event or something like that and there's

some beautiful hands coming sort of back in

framing her face we've got the beautiful curve

in her body and life is good also

now this next shot you may remember this

is from the nikon d850 campaign and you

see how delicate those hands are so because

her hair is quite tight in that particular

photograph i couldn't put her fingers through her

hair like i did with the other girl

with stringy sort of curly hair i put

it on top of her head and then

we grabbed the other one on top and

then there's a beautiful softness you see the

fingers that have come down how important is

it that there's a gap between her elbows

the more highlight shadow highlight shadow you see

in any kind of an image the deeper

and more three-dimensional it basically looks if

you look at this closely to look at

that beautiful little sliver of light um on

the other side on the right hand side

of her cheek which i think is just

exquisite and we've cropped her face perfectly in

the middle and life is good beautiful curve

standing up straight chest out um and she

looks stunning same model um same d850 campaign

this is a different location you see how

we've pointed toe bend the knee we arch

the back we've got the right hand on

the actual chin very very delicate on her

face then we've got that slight little bend

of the elbow and that slight little bend

of the wrist there as well and there's

this beautiful flow again always when you think

of posing when you think of lighting i

often reference posing and lighting to to just

water it flows organically it's effortless it's beautiful

um and it just works any questions or

thoughts maybe everyone's good yeah we're soaking it

all in here i think that one of

the most interesting things in being able to

see all of these different examples is seeing

different people different body types different poses different

environments and it it does it makes it

look so easy and i know that it's

not so the key is definitely getting out

there and practicing and and trying out and

seeing what feels good and what doesn't feel

good so can't wait to see some of

those practice sessions awesome now so brain surgery

to a brain surgeon is easy right so

think about it anything can seem complex when

you don't know it but if you ignore

it you'll never master it so the fact

that you guys are playing and trying and

you're trying to improve and you're growing with

me i love that so there was a

lot of new examples i'm going to show

you a handful of oldies but goodies as

i call them um this one you can

see how delicate that is just framing the

face just beautifully and then you've got the

same girl with her wrists together framing her

face as well and then she had such

long limbs um she almost looked like a

swan and basically i needed to add some

curves so we put her booty towards the

camera and then we actually did this and

framed her face there beautifully and even in

this case you see how her hand is

very very delicately right around her hair i

deliberately pushed um her elbow right her arm

and then push her bust out because gorgeous

girl she's got a beautiful figure but she's

got quite a modest small bust and i

wanted to add a little bit of cleavage

so i deliberately pushed her um up against

her bust and sort of did it that

way as well and there's so many ways

that you can frame a face with hands

i mean it's it's absolutely endless the gaps

between here and here that beautiful s curve

in both ways it's almost like infinity symbol

um being able to just rest one of

the arms on the knee bring the knee

up so it's easier bring that elbow right

on um on that on the forearm and

then of course we sort of soften there

as well and you can even almost pretend

like you're trying to hide light you know

when you sort of look to the sun

you're sort of doing this for example um

that can often work even if you're doing

detail shots um you know this one here

it almost looks like she's adjusting her earring

and she's just putting her arm down this

is a slight little sort of bend there

as well speaking of lisa um this was

photographed during a workshop and i literally put

her in a pocket of sunlight on the

ground yes on the ground and again we

see a different way of framing the face

here as well all right i i we

could go on you sort of see how

many like you sort of see what i'm

talking about guys i've been i was breaking

down hand posing and looking at all these

new examples and breaking it down so much

so that we give you enough examples to

work with and not only showing you specifics

but giving you the principles behind all these

different things as well we're talking about hands

for detail hands on detail like what let's

say if the if if the bride or

the girl the model is holding something let's

say she's holding some jewelry uh different parts

of her dress and things like that um

because many times it might feel mechanical to

the model the subject and it might actually

you feel like you're directing it mechanically what

you've got to do is like sometimes i

just get my my subjects to pose their

hands in their own way but posing hands

i will almost always go up and adjust

hands i relax i relax fingers i relax

hands i i might shake the fingers out

and then guide them on a part of

the body um and so on and so

forth so in this case this is a

beautiful wedding uh chris mark and christine right

yes this is also a wedding so this

is a wedding we photographed in rome love

the way she's got her half her face

hidden by her hair and then now we've

got a somewhat boudoir shot and this is

a great way of uh you know nice

little sexy shot but showing off the ring

perhaps which would also help with the understanding

of in terms of posing organically with hands

with rings and things like that look at

how beautiful her hand is here holding her

veil and she's resting her elbow it goes

back in again it's effortless we don't even

pose the hands that just drops hands will

never do that because there's tension in your

hands you just got to relax it a

little bit and think of reasons to bring

the arms off the body this the arms

on the body but her bust is hard

in that issue and then that is a

beautiful softness there beautiful little um beautiful background

there this is the uh the spanish steps

um and i wonder if in spain they

have the italian steps that's what i'm saying

all right thank you for laughing my jokes

baby i appreciate that you're welcome yep all

good now in this case what we have

is this is photographed with the ice light

by the way do you see how her

elbows right out she's stretching it right out

now what can happen is if you're having

a bride rest like this the shoulder can

go right up and it can look really

weird you've got to rest on the elbow

but just relax that shoulder and if you

can't relax it by pure nature of the

pose even what she's wearing in her hair

over her shoulder can soften that as well

and that hand goes back in what do

we say give her an excuse to do

something with her hands very very beautiful the

same shoot that we showed you before but

if you actually look at this when talking

about hands on detail that's very very soft

it's very delicate and what am i doing

now guys repetition is the key when you're

learning anything repetition experience and practice is what

we're doing right now the more you see

things the more it'll go in here and

you'll have these photographs burnt in your brain

and hopefully you'll never forget to pose hands

all right now this one you see that

we're giving her an excuse this arm is

up against her body so just to show

this arm is against her body and then

she's just doing this with her hand now

again if i had a second shooter for

example and they photograph from that angle you

know the angle that's completely unlike that it

wouldn't look as good and that's why i

don't really among many reasons i feel like

a second shooter is almost superfluous because you've

got so many different angles of a story

that you already know that you're getting and

don't get me wrong at the ceremony reception

life is good for having second shooters and

so on but i find the rest of

it it's you should be photographing you yourself

as an individual be photographing for the wedding

album or for the portrait album and it

should be nice and easy and effortless okay

let's have a look at this shot you

sort of see how we've got that very

delicate hand over here that very delicate hand

over there as well and that's a beautiful

s curve whether it's an inverted s or

whether it's the it reads correctly but um

it all is very very beautiful this shot

what are we trying to say in this

photograph now look at what she's wearing look

at her posture is so perfect so what

i'm trying to do here is this is

really really meant to be royal we're saying

that she's royal without her cape without her

um you know without the uh the embellishment

of this uh i don't know lion mane

or whatever whatever you want to call it

but um you can tell that she's missing

missing her cape in some kind of a

way so these hands they're delicate but her

posture is so royal that left knee is

bent up so remember that usually the knee

that's close to the camera is the one

that you want to bend that's going to

create the most amount of shape and how

important is that little triangular little piece of

gap there that little light traveling through shot

with the profoto b1 with a softbox and

usually when i'm shooting with a profoto b1

with the softbox um i'm usually shooting um

with a reflector of some kind on the

other side and for those of you who've

just by nature of what we're doing right

now if you've asked me what kind of

modifiers do i use although i use profoto

strobes i actually use westcott reflectors westcott softboxes

and everything they're more affordable they're just as

strong and durable if not even stronger and

they're fantastic now people talk about v flats

and things like that um so westcott have

a cool scrim gym cine and what it

is is basically a bracket that holds a

four by six scrim a four by six

glorified v flat and and you can you

can tape things on there like you can

tape a silver reflector white reflected diffuser whatever

and if you're looking at any of those

make sure as a member in case you

don't know jump on the members discounts page

not now you don't want to interrupt the

broadcast right now go onto the about section

the menu and then click on member discounts

and once you've actually uh logged in a

promo code will reveal itself and you can

get 10% off anything off that store

so check that out all right let's keep

on going this one here of course what

i'm trying to do is the elbows and

the arms are probably pressed in a little

bit more than i would normally like she

gets away with it she's very slim but

what i do is i push up i

want to hide basically her nipples i don't

want to show her nipples in this case

so it's implied nudity and then the arms

are pressed up to cover up her bust

and then the actual hands are framing that

beautiful frame on her face there as well

this too do you sort of see how

we've got she's very slim and she's wearing

uh she's covering up her arms so putting

up her arms against her body wouldn't be

a problem for her but you can see

it now the form of communication there's this

sort of softness almost uh dare i say

it a vulnerability but a little bit of

sexiness too it's sort of that that voyeuristic

little peep out and and her expression certainly

doing that but her hand is helping that

expression so just be wary of all those

things and make sure we follow along as

well so hands-on body is such an

important thing and also hands-on detail part

of me this is uh probably my favorite

bride that i've ever photographed um and so

rather than get a bouquet of flowers that's

just a bit too pretty for us and

for melissa um don't get me wrong melissa's

i wouldn't call melissa pretty i would call

her beautiful and sexy uh so and edgy

so i wanted something to really to enhance

that so we bought her an alexander mcqueen

clutch we thought wouldn't it be cool to

actually show off um the clutch with this

kind of shot resting her face and her

chin on there and then framing her face

with the engagement ring here now you see

how it's more organic the the actual diamond

ring is sort of facing where her her

fingers facing i probably could have just turned

that ring a little bit that way um

to see a little bit more but i

was too obsessed with um her eyes and

pretty much all of her to to pay

attention to those small details in that particular

photograph uh in this case you see that

shooting at 1.4 is just so delicate

and so beautiful and then if you look

at all of this what's going on it's

it goes in from soft to to a

little bit a little bit more a plane

of focus a little bit deeper here which

is just beautiful but you see that nice

little triangle that little air between those hands

and the forearm and the elbow and the

shoulder and the hands are repeating and repetition

is harmonious and it can look quite beautiful

adjusting these things so this is a perfect

example of how i like to do detail

shots um where you're seeing the detail in

the environment that it's in you're seeing the

ring the bracelet the earring much nicer much

more beautiful much sexier than just having it

sitting on a table um in my opinion

that's why i do not show the deep

kind of detail shots that i do not

want to do on my website i want

to show the kind of detail shots that

i want to do um no problem within

my albums and all those different things and

and therefore i get those kind of clients

that want that kind of stuff there as

well all right so have a look at

this how beautiful are those hands how beautiful

is that hand how delicate it is hands

in everything that we've been doing so far

wouldn't you agree that the hands look natural

like it could have literally happened exactly the

way we've been doing it what how would

she have held this naturally she would have

held the top of the actual uh coat

hanger she would have held the dress maybe

flat underneath you probably wouldn't even seen her

hand so what do i do i pose

in the hands in a way that is

quite effortless and delicate yes i pose them

but it looks organic it looks natural and

then we get the reaction if you want

to see abby in action luke and abby

is one of our favorite weddings that were

photographed if you go on to jgpt look

at episodes at weddings click on luke and

abby you would see this entire coverage as

well uh this is also a shot that

we took uh you know having been married

for many many years i i know how

most girls put perfume on some people do

the spray and then walk in like and

then so you're gonna make the sound that's

more fun uh or some people will actually

some girls will like spray spray spray on

the wrist and then do this and then

of course we just happen to have the

angle and the wrist sort of bent to

where we want them as well all right

where are we up how are we going

for time i know we went a little

bit um we we're about five ten minutes

from an hour okay all right fantastic so

what i'll do now is i will talk

about hands um on hands on body we'll

we'll finish up with that so hands on

body so i mean we've actually discussed that

a little bit i mean you would say

that's on her wrist but what do you

do when their hands are on their body

um in different ways so let's discuss it

let's go through it hands on body where

do you put them well of course you

know in this particular case i'm after a

bit of a silhouette i didn't want her

hand dangling down doing nothing so i put

it basically like her wrist right on her

knee so there's a nice little repetition there

little gap between her legs so we've got

air between her body parts so we just

know where everything stops and starts and again

same girl that we discussed earlier and you

sort of see how got a perfect excuse

to show off the the rings um as

well usually what girls will do when you're

posing hands they will grab things just very

sort of abruptly it's like this it's like

holding like hey hold your hair it'll be

like this it'll be like that you're sort

of just going to grab the hands roll

the wrists around and don't be afraid to

go up and touch hands see when you

when you're especially guys especially when you're working

with any female i believe it's very very

comfortable that shoulders arms elbows forearms hands a

very safe area to touch faces i will

only direct and touch uh if i've gained

enough trust um i'll even ask permission sometimes

i won't ask permission to just tilt the

face but then sometimes i'll be very very

delicate and i'll just move the face the

rest of the body i don't normally touch

the body at all just get them to

mirror me and so this photograph how delicate

is that to just basically have that ham

just very very gently on the top of

the bust it's very very sexy very sultry

very beautiful and then we've got the face

up light falling on her beautifully got that

beautiful cheekbone and uh and life is good

now this photograph when we talk about communication

you would say she's a you know she's

a young girl she's a she's a teenager

so the way she's got her hands it's

very young it's very delicate it's not over

the top it sort of suits her and

it's amazing that when you start adding a

bit more this is a different girl but

when you add more dramatic lighting in this

case i said i want you to just

adjust your your hair and put your hands

right through your hair and sort of flow

it down and and bending her wrist see

when you're doing fashion if you just say

to the model okay dance do what you

do go great done fantastic hope for the

best and you'll shoot 3 000 shots and

you know maybe you might get a handful

of really good ones if you are photographing

a fashion model my suggestion to you is

this is start somewhere get get find the

angles of her face that's best usually that's

determined by if the nose is crooked or

not if one eye is bigger than the

other but usually most models normally have a

symmetrical face so life is good but you

really want to get them to know where

the light's coming from because if they pose

out of the light that's going to be

an issue but i quite like the idea

of getting to understand what their model is

capable of so start directing a little bit

give more freedom give more freedom give more

freedom then you'll find they'll loosen up and

then you'll find you're working with a a

graceful model who knows how to move and

then what i personally do is i will

sometimes let go see what they're capable of

and every so often love that love that

but turn this way chin up love that

give the energy up bang and then go

from there perfect example is something like this

now this was a hair flip i love

it because it almost looks like she's falling

but those hands are so delicate you see

how they're just very very very gently sort

of slightly bent um and they're just resting

on her thighs and then she's just flicking

her face upwards we've got broad lighting on

her she's a very skinny girl but actually

works well for her quite beautiful so hands

on thigh as well you see that beautiful

that beautiful bend that beautiful bend that beautiful

bend and then we're going to get between

the legs there as well shooting on the

short side of the face catch lights in

the eyes negative space here i position myself

way on the right hand side to get

rid of the window and so i don't

get distracted by the window light and i'm

sorry because i find myself just as a

teacher it's in my blood i can't just

talk about hands sometimes every so often i'm

going to talk about other things that are

part of that shot that will help you

too okay this one you see how the

elbows are bent slightly out and the hands

go back in again you you see that

the hands the wrist is never straight it's

there's always a bend in that in that

joint um and it's just very delicate even

if it's soft even if it's soft there

as well um it's incredibly important this is

also from the nikon d850 campaign you see

how if she had her elbows right into

her it would just not work the fact

that we've got the elbows out a little

bit the hands sort of go back in

she's shifting her butt a little bit to

the right so it creates some movement in

her body in her butt and then we

turn her face until we do not see

her nose in this case i just wanted

a hint of her jawline and of course

how important is it that we have that

chandelier in the middle of those frames there

and then everything is just framing her almost

looks like a butterfly or angel wings or

or whatever it may be but there's a

lot of methods of that madness that was

just recently published in uh what was the

magazine again pro digital photo pro digital photo

pro so the issue the current issue of

digital photo pro that's on newsstands right now

uh jerry's image is on the cover and

there's this great feature inside like multi-page

great article great interview so um next time

you guys are at a store try and

pick that up it's it's a really informative

article how precise you were about this image

and how long you took to compose it

to get it just right and how i

remember you told me that you didn't even

want to breathe because you would like move

the camera out of position so it's it

was pretty awesome to watch that come together

and see how specific you were to get

it right in camera it's pretty awesome no

thank you baby it was tough because it

my my main thing is that oh and

the whole idea behind the shoot too was

that you can shoot at high resolution but

not on a tripod so it would be

easy to set up on a tripod and

be done but it that wasn't the nature

of the brief i had to be handheld

and um that little gap was that was

the that was the bitch can i say

that um sure i'm gonna say it that's

just who i am i'm sorry that was

the bitch uh to try to achieve that

balance um as well as actually frame it

sort of nicely in all other ways as

well now let's talk about this kind of

a shot you sort of see that she's

got slim arms it's flattened towards the light

and i would say now that i've brought

that to your attention you might say it's

a little bit flat but but what did

i say lighting is either flattering and or

it helps communicate the message you're trying to

convey to the viewer so in this case

there's there's a nice little delicate sort of

vulnerability we're shooting boudoir here right we're shooting

almost through a lover's eyes and this is

almost welcoming so i'm not being too pedantic

to tell the model well bring the elbows

out and sometimes if i did this shot

with the elbows out this would look weird

even from this angle if i did not

want it to look weird and i had

to bring it out because she wasn't as

slim as this girl then i would lean

the upper body towards the camera and that

would soften that as well speaking of boudoir

even more like if you're doing with a

naked figure for example the the problem that

i see is that when people are photographing

let's say nudes and you want to cover

up the bust you don't want to show

the naughty bits and you've got the hands

girls will tend to just be like overly

modest and and do this and squeeze the

squeeze the bust and it's going to look

a little bit weird so what i what

i do and what i suggest is i'll

say look uh just relax the hands and

just like don't cup the bust all i

want you to do is just put your

hands on your bust let your hands sort

of just flow over the curves of your

bus and just relax relax those fingers and

then if there's a problem still with the

hands melissa will go up to the girl

and adjust her hands on her bust and

life is good all right we're going to

finish up with a couple of shots here

to end our presentation today this one just

reminds you doesn't that remind you of the

kind of pose that we did for that

nick on d at 50 gold shot this

is basically the light that's coming through is

giving us that beautiful angel wings effect it's

got that light filtering through this is what

i call a detail shot of the back

of the dress but it's a dreamy quality

and that beautiful gap between the elbows and

the arms and the body is incredibly important

similar to that girl that we showed you

before about putting the arms up um this

is bethany luke edmondson you may know him

luke and david edmondson some very dear friends

uh dare i say my chosen family there's

a few people in this world that we

choose to be our family that we're not

blood uh and i had the privilege to

photograph their wedding um eight years ago or

so now um bethany would when she laughed

she just put her hands together and she

would do that same thing all you know

all the time and that reminds me to

basically tell you guys that when you are

photographing someone if you don't let someone be

themselves then they're not going to see themselves

in those photographs which means they do not

like those photographs they can be technically perfect

but we're missing emotion we have to sometimes

sacrifice the perfection for the emotion personally i

just want both for you and for me

and when i say perfect there's no perfect

way and and again if you've heard me

teach before you know what my definition of

perfect means my definition of perfect is is

the execution of my desired result my desired

result is i want soft arms soft beautiful

delicate and and also emotive in this case

she's very slim she gets away with it

you would dare say that i'm squaring her

up a little bit but she laughed into

that pose therefore i was totally happy with

it in this case uh if you've been

a member a loyal member of the ice

society before jgpt you'll know that over 10

years ago this was the very very very

very first shoot that i ever featured um

we shot there again uh in our five

year anniversary but you'll remember this particular fashion

shoot less habitudes or how would you say

that in french baby girl you just you

said it said so sexy i'm like i

don't feel like i want to say anything

anymore um this was it and then we

did this shot as well very delicate hands

that tilting of the face is beautiful then

we've got strength so in this case i

showed you earlier uh actually last week about

hands on hips and often what i told

you last week is that i want those

hands to be literally that little curve to

run into the curve and bring attention to

the thinnest part of the waist the hands

on the thickest part of the hips actually

makes her look wider she's so tiny i

wanted her to look a bit hippier is

that is that a word yeah i mean

it can be a bit hippier it makes

sense a bit hippier um and that's why

we did that as well so remember guys

uh pants can be so emotive you just

have to play if you feel if you

look at a photograph and it doesn't feel

right it probably it's probably not there's something

wrong with it now that i'm i'm saying

paying so much deliberate attention to hands it's

very hard to unsee what am i trying

to say you are no longer ignorant and

i when i say ignorant again i apologize

if that sounds brash but i was ignorant

when i started out no one ever taught

me i had no idea what how to

pose hands i just like well that feels

right or well that's okay or i just

totally ignored it most of us what we'll

do at a wedding especially we'll put the

bride's arm around the groom hold the flowers

all day with with the you know with

the bride's hand there like this and then

we have two less things to worry about

but you're missing a valuable source of communication

with all those shots that we're saying you

will only ever get better with something if

you focus on it with hands people are

fearful what do i do with hands as

we discussed there's been so many ways that

we can pose female hands and we are

going to talk about hands on partner right

now so really what do we do when

we're posing female hands on her partner and

now most of my cat well pretty much

all of my cases are on a male

but it would make no difference if it's

female on female it's just depending on what

you're trying to say is it going to

be like communication is it going to be

some soft is it going to be emotional

sexy passionate whatever it may be hands on

groom in this case but of course that

can be translated on hands on partner so

this is it what are we getting at

how can we communicate with our hands and

as i've already discussed guys that generally speaking

most of us when we're unsure how to

pose hands we get the actual bride to

hold her flowers with one hand and have

one hand around the groom or the bride

and then all of a sudden we have

two less things to worry about i'm saying

you're losing a very valuable form of communication

and that is hands look at how passionate

and guys do not look here look at

this area where the hands are look how

passionate those hands are the hands are being

mirrored so usually there's harmony and repetition of

course and when you've got these two hands

gently repeating with the gap between them it

really is amplifying what we're basically trying to

say and of course we're loving where we're

loving the groomer caressing the groom and all

those kinds of things let's keep on going

so again i've established the foundation on how

to pose hands the quick lesson is you

don't want to actually see this part of

the woman's hands you don't want to see

this part it should be this part or

this part so and also everything has to

be bent and the fingers can never be

straight and we don't want fingers all close

together like this either we need breathing space

and nice little luxury so that's the quickest

lesson on posing hands that we've given you

but to basically remind you on how we're

actually doing this right now let's keep on

going so in this particular case by the

way this was all natural light coming through

a doorway of a studio in fact and

if you can sort of see that all

of those principles that we discussed are very

much there they're very very delicate it's a

contemporary portrait her arms are off her body

a little of a gap between her arms

there as well and that beautiful delicacy and

also the way he's holding the hands is

quite delicate you would say that his hands

are almost feminine but because it's being hidden

by the girl's hands it's meant to be

delicate so this is not masculine on a

guy on his own it's actually all about

her at this stage and that delicacy of

those hands this wedding is a beautiful wedding

this wedding will be featured in upcoming episodes

on jgpt so you'll see this very shot

much much more being featured but do you

see how the hands on the chest now

it's really really funny when i started the

traditional way of what was popularized 25 years

ago on how to pose hands on a

chest it was this hand on like this

and pointed which doesn't really make sense because

although there's a delicacy to it you don't

really do that in real life now you

don't really pose it in real life either

so why do we pay attention to all

these things well it's because we want to

communicate we want something that's got a bit

more luxury more meaning a bit more flavor

and we want to start with flattering every

part of the body and then when you

evoke emotion if it breaks the perfection of

those hands well that's okay i'm okay with

that i'm not okay with forgetting about hands

because we're just lazy if we're ignorant as

we don't know any better that's fine we're

trying to help you so you now have

the power and you can purposefully pose hands

as well in this case her hands were

quite stiff and i just said just delicately

just adjust them like this so i get

often i get people to mirror me so

when i get people to mirror me if

i look at her put my own hand

on my own chest and say just relax

those hands then she knows exactly what to

do and now we've got a bit of

tenderness there and of course we have the

bending of the wrist a little gap between

the fingers and life is good now just

while we're here his hand do you see

how it's not covering up the thinnest part

of the waist and at the very least

it's mirroring it so when we'll remind you

when we're talking about posing groom's hands but

we want to be very very careful that

we do not get his hand and cover

up that beautiful thin part of the waist

the small the back because then it's a

waste of a waste if that's anything to

talk about all right let's keep on going

katherine hall you may know she's a great

photographer a great friend of ours as well

this was part of her engagement portrait and

you can see how she's leaning on that

sofa and bringing her elbow up and then

just delicately draping her hand down now that's

free hands this one um i if i

had her hand coming out over here or

if it was too bright i would say

it would be distracting that it's coming out

of his head now is the hand coming

out of his head yes but it's dark

and you can hardly see much of it

therefore i'm totally okay with that again guys

you've got to work on instinct with any

kind of photography any kind of rules in

fact like i've always say they are not

rules they're not absolutes they are common denominators

we're saying most of the time this will

work and if your gut is telling you

well this is okay this goes against jerry's

rules or anyone else's rules but it actually

looks really good go with it trust your

gut go with it as you become more

sophisticated your tolerance level for let's say poor

photography as in say a wine drinker to

a cheap bottle of two buck chuck for

example uh that's not good enough anymore as

your level of sophistication and mastery grows then

you will be less inclined to accept say

lazy or poorly opposed hands among many other

things as well all right let's keep on

going now you see how we're photographing at

the back here i think many many times

we get the bride to bring her hand

down here doing nothing so this hand's doing

something it's delicate it's caressing the groom's arm

there's a beautiful delicacy about it this one

here is a few things if we didn't

tell the bride to hold him then you

would just see the hand doing nothing and

therefore i disbelieve that left hand because this

hand's doing nothing first of all the arm

has to come off the body to give

us breathing space to basically see her the

thinnest part of her waist so she looks

beautiful she does if we bend the elbow

up automatically in your mind you're drawing that

hand going back into the body so he's

actually hugging she's actually hugging him with that

right hand and of course we get that

beautiful waist as well so from many perspectives

um they work and again that was very

very purposeful there wasn't any um fluke as

to how that basically happened same shoot now

in this case you see how i've got

the outer hand over the other one in

this case i'm shooting over his shoulder so

i'm pretty much getting both hands if let's

say for example let's say i'm the bride

and i'm putting my hands over the groom's

shoulders if i do it this way as

in you're the camera angle and we're like

this i'm amputating both hands so if you're

getting a bride to put the hands over

the groom's shoulders do this and if this

is too high and you can't see a

gap between here and here you get the

guys to lean upper bodies towards the actual

camera and that that's the way it is

but never do that in this case i

not only have this over but you can

see both hands because my angle is actually

a bit more over his shoulder oh pardon

me um and and that's basically it you

can see how also just the for the

nature of what we're doing here is that

this is also a beautiful pose to do

in the sun because this was bright full

sun um and how do you work it

how do you do it and in this

case it actually worked really well all right

let's move on now you can see in

this case i love it because we have

two windows obviously the brighter one over here

and the less brighter one over here so

we get a hint of that light that

masculine light that split lighting on him the

beautiful soft light that warm smile that left

hand is basically saying what her soft smile

is she feels protected she feels beautiful and

life is good now because her her body

is in shadow i'm i'm prepared to sacrifice

not exposing the thinnest part of her waist

first of all she's very thin you can

see it very easily but we want perfection

and emotion and again let me remind you

what i believe perfection is perfection for me

is an execution of my desired result my

desired result here is not only do i

want to flatter her but more so he's

passionate so he's going to draw his wife's

body right in into him which means that

i might sacrifice the waist for that hand

being passionate so again hands posing is about

flattery and communicating a message to the viewer

the photograph which in this case is of

course is you this one here do you

see that right hand over the left that's

exactly what i'm talking about do you see

how we've got a gap between the chin

and the actual shoulder quite obviously because she's

shorter so we get more space and then

we've got that right hand over the left

if we had it the other way then

that again that would be an issue we'd

have two amputations and that would be a

problem by the way you see how she's

arching her back you see how he's drawing

her body close and exposing the thinnest part

of the waist if he just wanted to

grab her and draw the body close like

we did before i'm okay with it as

long as she still looks thin and it

also expresses that beautiful emotion okay so perfect

example here she's very thin in fact the

thinnest part of her waist is actually in

shadow but he's drawing close but again do

you see how even it's proven that she's

got a gap between her fingers because even

that little pocket square is being shown in

between the fingers was that purposeful not really

uh it was more just hey just put

the hand on the chest relax the fingers

and then i got them in motion and

then that happened organically and of course we've

got beautiful expressions and all that kind of

thing as well let's keep on going so

if you look at this one do you

see how that hand is draped across even

though that we're pretty much showing this part

there is a beautiful movement to that hand

and it sort of just comes up we

are seeing quite a thin part of the

wrist and it sort of blends into the

hand being flatter for me it's more than

acceptable it just it just works now how

did i get this shot uh and i

didn't use any flash i didn't use a

big reflector in fact i used the hole

in the donut i used the small reflector

that's the hole of the omega reflector 360.

So what we've got here is we've got

the sun hitting him on the side giving

us that really beautiful uh rim light on

him that little edgy light that masculine light

he's hiding the sun on her but then

we have a reflector mainly hitting her and

you've got the off cuts on him and

that's how we basically got that shot and

that blends in that's why you've got sort

of warm light on top and then cool

light sort of more to the bottom and

even though that she's got her hand by

her side there's a subtle little bend and

you do that by simply just asking just

bring the elbow back when you ask a

bride or model any any female for that

matter to bring the elbow back almost always

the shoulder goes back as well it's sort

of it's you very rarely just bring the

elbows back like that so just remember elbows

back and then you can even bring the

elbows in and that's how you sort of

get that subtle little little bend there as

well so you see how they're very expressive

the hands are very very expressive i see

this done incorrectly when the bride does this

it's like a claw it's like we're trying

to grab him and you know holding him

for ransom or something like that and kidnapping

him so we don't want this this is

a bit aggressive in a bad way this

is soft and tender this one here is

all soft and delicate she actually just grabbed

the lapel of the groom and it looked

quite beautiful and of course i'm framing them

in the foliage and that becomes a sort

of a natural vignette there as well the

arm is off the body so it doesn't

look flat and life is good baby girl

talk to me girlfriend um if you go

back a couple of photos yes that's possible

which one yeah further back back back that

one okay um did you slump her shoulders

on purpose like did you have her pose

her shoulders like that specifically or was that

just how the pose happened that happened organically

so i basically asked the girl here i

go bring your arms over the shoulder of

the groom and so it's 50 50 sometimes

i'll do it like that sometimes like that

so when she put the shoulders up um

it i can't remember i think it was

the incorrect way i said swap hands like

this and she's just relaxing her shoulders it

just comes naturally now some girls will do

this it will sort of just do that

at a bit tense so then what i

what i might do is actually hey don't

look at me just relax the shoulders i

give her like an idea of what it

looks like and then how much better it

looks relaxed and then she'll relax them and

that's basically it let's go to the next

photograph again you see how delicate those hands

are the arm is off the body we've

got the shadow underneath the arm as well

so we know it's actually off um he's

not covering up the thinnest part of the

waist even though that we can't see it

and that beautiful delicate hands there as well

this also this shoot which was done in

my father's hometown of the in greece or

as the anglos will say dimitana but dimitana

is the way we say it in greece

and we've got this whole shoot that we'll

bring to you in future episodes of jgbt

as well can't wait to show you that

as well um really beautiful beautiful again tender

do you see how there's just a gap

between the fingers remember just i wouldn't overdo

it let them do it on their own

first as in hey bride um hey melissa

just put your hand on jerry's chest so

it's like this and it might just be

a little bit flat then you might say

just relax your fingers and if you do

this you'll you'll very rarely actually keep the

fingers together they'll relax and then just bend

them a little bit just like that and

then you get that form of communication that

tenderness that we're looking for of course if

that's what you're trying to say let's keep

on going here do you see how delicate

this hand is obviously we have this hand

just right on the thigh of the groom

we'll come to that in a second but

you see the difference between a masculine hand

and a female hand and how delicate that

can be but really really beautiful and i

actually what i love about this is you've

got this beautiful you know this curve here

and mirroring this curve here you've got a

gap between the leg there as well gap

over here you've got this beautiful little gap

so you see the silhouette of their faces

and it's all framed by this beautiful ancient

we call it ancient per se but you

know a few thousand year old buildings in

this beautiful village in greece all right let's

keep on going guys this was done with

off camera flash and you see how we

discussed a couple of episodes ago that if

you ever forget on how to pose hands

for those of you just joining us for

the very first time so remember so if

you're doing this okay if you're at home

right now do this hands flat towards the

camera as if i'm putting a gun at

you stick them up like the old westerns

do that put your hand flat on your

bicep and now roll the wrists around when

you roll the wrists this tells you how

to pose a hand right here if you

want it right on the actual joint the

elbow it shows you how to pose hands

on a forearm it shows you how to

pose hands on a bicep that's either the

bride's own bicep that's it could it could

also just be that she's holding maybe the

veil like this and she's just bringing her

hand on her veil like that or it

could be holding something of the groom and

and that tells you what it's all about

all right let's keep on going this shot

here do you see how very similar to

actually the shot quite a while ago let

me just show you what i'm referencing here

so you remember this photograph how most of

her arm is in shadow and he's hardly

seen so i don't doesn't worry me that

it i guess to the letter of the

law it's coming out of his head but

you see how in this case if you

felt that that may be an issue that

in this case it's right down and the

elbow is right there that comes right there

and it's draping across and it's mirroring the

beautiful shape of his shoulder and it actually

works well you see how he has masculine

light and then she has feminine light and

then you've just got this hand just very

gently on the hip if this was doing

nothing it would just be draping down doing

nothing so what you do is you might

say hey relax your hand by your side

and now slide your elbow up and then

that's how we would get that particular hand

as well all right let's keep on going

this next one this is meant to be

strong who's who's subordinate here he's subordinate to

her she's the queen she's ruling she's literally

grasping at him he's just there he's just

going along for the ride so do you

see how expressive these hands are this is

strong it's probably stronger than i would normally

do these are this hand is a bit

stronger again love the way he's supporting her

here but again you can tell that she's

the hero in this particular photograph he's even

got half his identity not even seen and

that little brow pressure everything was asked for

here so when you see this actually shoot

being filmed you'll just you'll know exactly how

we got there but just to allude to

it in case you're wondering how did i

take this shot and how did i get

beautiful detail over here this was done with

a profoto b1 this was done with a

five foot westcott octabox and with a scrim

gym a four by six scrim gym cine

which is also from westcott a lot of

people will buy a one of those big

boards four by eight foot boards from your

local camera store or could be anywhere and

you can tape them together with gaffer tape

and put them down but they sort of

flop and they sort of they tend to

deteriorate after a while the scrim gym cine

is awesome because it's four by six and

you can velcro anything you want to it

you can velcro their their calico material so

if you're doing video production and you want

a slight little warm you can bounce the

light off the calico and it's got that

soft beautiful skin tone you can you've got

silver you've got black and so on so

the cool thing is you can also put

it on a hinge and it's a sturdy

frame that you can pack together or you

can expand and leave in your studio like

that so that's what's giving us that beautiful

little detail all right someone whom you might

recognize here ryan and jessica chambray so again

do you see how that left hand is

over the right and then we're basically seeing

that that hand hair cover up that little

bit of a mess on the side there

you might look at his hand and say

well those fingers are pointing towards the camera

therefore we're foreshortening those fingers therefore it doesn't

really look that good two things one is

i think it's acceptable because it's in shadow

you can hardly see them two i always

said remember that posing is either flattering and

or it helps communicate the message you're trying

to convey in this case he's drawing really

really close um the bride's body towards him

therefore it's communication if i did not want

that severe angle all i would do is

get them to twist their bodies more towards

me so again i want you to think

of posing hands or anything for that matter

anything kind of a pose as communication rather

than just i'm trying to make everyone look

pretty otherwise if there's no expression in those

hands then this we've lost all the moment

all right let's keep on going here so

if you look at this particular one you

see how there's a beautiful little bending of

the wrist just here um and he's he's

basically holding her he's probably just covering up

the thinnest part of her waist but she's

so thin she's got beautiful shape i think

it's more than acceptable let's show you now

the difference between flat hands and emotive hands

let's look at this so is that hand

saying anything no we're photographing basically right there

and it doesn't look good at all but

now what's the difference there and there there

and there huge difference now in fact what

i'll do right now i will put them

side by side so you can see what's

going on and here's something i prepared earlier

um okay so look at them side by

side there really really is is um yeah

i mean there's you gotta you gotta go

for that one every single time and that's

what i'm getting at it's funny because i've

i've been really obsessed with posing hands um

for a lot of my career and i

i went back and tried to find bad

examples and i'm not saying i'm perfect by

no means but because i'm so obsessed with

those hands it was tough to find bad

examples but i will in future in future

sort of uh i guess shoots and things

like that i'll go out of my way

to actually show you good pose bad pose

uh and give you ideas on how to

do that and actually be able to reference

it in the future as well um now

this is a this is an exception to

the rule you see how quite delicate of

hers so his hand's quite emotive just like

this and and she's doing that and she's

pointing her wrist really towards the camera now

is that a bit of a no-no

could she have lifted up her hand a

little bit up higher i would say yes

this is probably a good example that could

have been posed a little bit better so

at the moment again relative she's sort of

like this she could have been up a

little bit and twist the wrist around but

i feel like it's so emotive with the

faces and the hands and it's still very

very thin there i'm like i'm okay with

it so trust your gut like i said

i wouldn't go out of my way well

that's a great pose jerry let me just

copy that next week no no i'm giving

you principles i want you to stick to

those principles and then only break them if

it looks good now how to look at

these hands what are we trying to say

in this photograph well what we're trying to

say is that she's basically her fingers are

kissing his lips just before she is and

that's what the hands are basically saying here

what are the hands saying in this photograph

they're saying it's cold let me comfort you

let me keep you warm um let me

envelop you with my hands it's emotive how

about this one now you would say that

with this right hand covering up the thinnest

part of her waist but i accept it

because look what she's doing with her hand

she's ripping his shirt off that's very very

sexy even her arm is pressed up against

her body this is a bit of a

no-no in my book this is a

bit of no-no in my book but

does it communicate what i'm trying to say

yes it's raw it's sexy it's passionate it's

not meant to be perfect it's meant to

just be absolutely unashamedly exactly what it is

all right let's keep on going here what

time is it just want to make check

that we're going in the right sort of

mold here as well check this one out

um this this one um this is luke

and bethany edmondson um those hands are flat

in the tummy i actually pose them a

little bit differently but in the heat of

the battle and making them giggle if the

hands were a bit too flat now you

might say well where do i put those

hands i would just try to avoid being

center in the stomach which somewhat it is

i just don't want to center those hands

like if those hands were a little bit

to the right it almost looks like she's

pregnant now two things would would be good

for this shot what i'm what i've already

done but maybe a bit more off or

more this way and or turn their bodies

a little bit towards me the fact is

though the light was coming from that direction

and that's pretty much where i i put

them for the light you can see because

i've got that beautiful shadow on her shoulders

her cleavage and it actually works accordingly what

about in this case in this case she's

just basically draping her arms right over and

this can look a little bit strong a

little bit heavy and it may not feel

right um i would say drape them on

be careful that this area doesn't look too

thick that's an important one um and then

place the if you're doing a mash of

hands like four hands in a row at

least have the bride's hand preferably with a

ring if you can remember on the outer

side you know that game where you guys

play the game when your kids like yeah

so if you're doing that do that but

the bride's hand ends up on top if

the bride's arm is heavy do that exact

shot but do this hand underneath the butt

the the armpit of the groom and that's

how it'll work remember how we did this

before this particular pose um the left hand's

beautiful romantic everything like that that is nice

and again this is quite flat to the

camera but i feel like it's it's still

soft it's expressing something uh bless you by

the way and um it works this hand's

very delicate so you see the left hand

caressing his face the right hand you would

say well maybe like in that position because

it's his chest towards the back where would

her right hand go as in i would

say if it's romantic on the faces it

should be romantic with the hands but because

the pose is so like chest to back

then it doesn't really make sense that her

hand is where is it going to be

you know i might touch something naughty it

might go on his leg it might look

a little bit weird so in this case

i'm using the framework of the environment to

actually frame them so the right hand is

there but i feel like it's okay based

upon what what else is happening but when

you get two hands saying what the face

is saying beautiful romantic lovely gorgeous whatever and

it's just delicate then i believe everything if

one hand is flat or claw like or

something then you are missing a very valuable

form of communication as i discussed again um

same couple again you sort of see how

i've shown you a few poses like this

this would not make sense if she just

turned it into the more i look at

it i'm like it's funny i've formed a

pattern with this with this shot why why

am i why am i not bending the

wrist too far and even though i'm saying

it's a form of communication so therefore it's

okay but if i was to bend it

in fact maybe come over here let's do

this i feel like we need to explore

this why naturally haven't i done this quite

a bit so at the moment okay so

you're over here okay so it's slightly over

my shoulder my hand is like this and

then put your hand on my wrist now

if you turned it see how the hands

they've got nowhere to go so if you

want to see the thinnest part of this

wrist it actually wouldn't make sense if you

go lower i don't know that doesn't feel

like it see this hand on the wrist

is basically saying i love where your hand

is i'm guiding a kiss therefore this is

saying i'm yes i love that guide a

kiss i want that so if we do

it the other way well that would look

silly so i guess i've answered my own

question i've found a bit of a black

hole anomaly with with what i'm doing but

if it's too far bent it looks like

i'm posing hands where this is basically saying

i just love you so trust your gut

and go with it somebody um i think

it's stephanie actually in the chat rooms yes

talk to the microphone um stephanie in the

chat room actually said that that whole rolling

the hands is one of the best pieces

of advice that they've gleaned from these these

few episodes it's pretty awesome because like you

said before like just knowing how to do

that yeah answers so many problems like that

do it again there bang go in keep

that hand exactly where it is and there

it is go again and now put the

hand on the bicep beautiful go again hold

the bottle of water perfect all right awesome

let's keep going again same one see that

pattern is forming i actually i didn't even

realize as i was actually doing this presentation

that that's sort of a very obvious common

denominator that i've broken or now it's become

a common denominator that the if i turn

the wrist too much it would look a

little bit weird i could go shoot from

this angle for the wrist but then i

wouldn't get the face so it feels like

that that's uh that's really the way to

go you see again um how we did

this melissa was doing this and that's the

hand on the wrist exactly my position again

um this is another one from luke and

bethany from some several years ago but this

i wanted to show you because when i

made bethany laugh um she would bring her

hands together like this and her arms will

be on her body and she would just

giggle and laugh and crack up and and

so on now that's her if i start

now oh no bring your hands off off

bring your arms off your body or it's

just not going to be her and i'm

telling you what a waste and you've got

to make sure that it's going to fit

from the personality you might get a very

strong corporate ceo executive on her wedding day

and then you're trying to make her look

all delicate now i'm not saying go all

the way rainbows and butterflies nor am i

saying actually you know make you know make

her look very strong and masculine no you've

got to sort of don't just go too

far depending on the person that you're basically

dealing with and photographing people ask me all

the time and melissa's probably gonna kill me

for this but i want to say it

anyway um how did i make them laugh

like that i said um because i knew

that she was religious her father's a pastor

uh and certainly luke is uh you know

spiritual religious whatever to call it but he

has his uh he can certainly have a

bit of fun so i knew that there

was an innuendo there i knew that that

would laugh at innuendo so i set them

up i've got their posing and then i

said luke and bethany sitting in the tree

f-u-c-k-i-n-g and

she went oh my god she started looking

away and i got the shot exactly that

i wanted and i love it so there

you go don't try this at home and

if you do it's uh not my fault

oh i love trying to make joe giggle

because he sort of giggles under his breath

and the laugh comes out of his nose

it's really funny um all right guys have

i shown you enough examples of posing hands

let's show you a couple more here um

this one now if you look at this

you see that now the bride's hand is

like this and you'd almost somewhat say that

his hand is looking a little bit feminine

um i would say perhaps if well here's

the anomaly again if he turned his hand

as it moored towards me it would look

claw like you'd lose his fingers um so

the more i look at this i'm like

well what what other choice did i have

as far as his hand is concerned if

it went a bit lower that would look

a little bit weirder it'd distract the attention

his hand could be on the on the

actual waist but i wanted her her chance

to basically say i'm guiding a kiss and

him to say i like that where that

hand is so that's questionable whether we whether

you feel at home right now if that's

too feminine or not or masculine or not

and if you think it's too feminine for

you then just don't do it this particular

pose is great especially when you have a

bride who's plus size or plus size arms

because we get the veil covering up one

arm and then really if i turn their

body slightly towards me you wouldn't even see

her right bicep even though it's being hidden

and swallowed up by him so this is

a great pose if you want delicate arms

and hands if you've got a plus size

girl and remember guys hands are meant to

be expressive they're meant to meant to emote

so if you're photographing the henna tattoos of

a south asian um wedding an indian wedding

um don't always just do this as you

let me show the tattoos because have i

done it in the past yes but do

these show the tattoos but actually give me

more emotion yes and that's what i'm getting

at is i'm after hands with emotion now

that brings me to um a very very

strong finale to this three-part series of

posing female hands and i guess i can't

wait to show you what i'm about to

show you because even me thinking about it

right now i get goosebumps in fact if

you go close enough here i got goosebumps

thinking about what happened during this following shoot

this was very recent now if you know

europeans i'm i'm greek and i'm very expressive

with my hands as pretty much everyone is

really but it's sort of like a cliche

one of the european traits that you just

talk with your hands um in fact someone

who talks with their hands a lot if

you know sally and sound good from animoto

i want you to next time you speak

with her she's the funniest because she's a

descriptive um gesture so if you talk about

like you'll i went on a boat and

she'd go we went on a boat like

this so she she's very descriptive but when

i say talk with your hands i'm not

talking about the way sally does it and

she'll kill me if she's watching this or

she rewatches this but i'm talking about being

emotional i'm saying expressing so much more see

when we said repetition how there's harmony in

repetition right so when we start doing what

our faces are doing with this hand and

this hand body language everything is saying the

same thing it's you're causing an experience you're

tantalizing senses everything is basically becoming more soulful

so we photographed this beautiful family recently and

with its parents with three children and they're

they're very close friends of ours and the

the mother the wife a beautiful woman but

you can just see that man with three

kids under the age of what five six

so three children under the age of five

or six i think is just being a

mother i believe is the hardest job in

the world i my hat's off to you

if you're a mother i can only imagine

what it's like to to be the rock

of the family because you you have to

be your wife you have to be a

mother a daughter a sister um and you

have these little human beings that rely on

you not to die you know every day

but usually there's just not much left in

the tank for you and anyway so we

were doing this family session of uh of

every combination so father mother whole family kids

on their own kids together girls together guys

you know all that kind of stuff so

anyway there was all this commotion the kids

are running around as kids do they were

being you know they were being very um

what's what i'm looking for um my kids

they're toddlers yeah they're being kids i mean

they're being fun but they were being rambunctious

oh no no no what's the word i'm

looking for i'm not obedient oh jeez what's

the word what are you trying to say

baby i'm basically trying to say they uh

good good behavior what's i just there's a

word that's just lost me anyway well behaved

well behaved let's just say that yes there's

a word for it i was thinking of

anyway well-behaved children but kids being kids

um but you can imagine in the studio

they're seeing all these big lights what's going

on whatever so i just said all right

everybody out lisa stay in the studio and

so she did now if you look at

her what is she saying with her language

right now she's quite nervous even though that

we've known each other for a while in

fact i've i've known her husband a lot

longer than than her and i've only probably

spent three or four times with her but

knowing that she's an incredible wife incredible mother

and um and also she's a singer she's

a singer as well but anyway you could

tell that being in a in a dark

studio as it was and having a light

on you and all of a sudden everyone's

being thrown away you can see that she

looks a little bit nervous a bit anxious

and oh what's going to happen right now

then i started to relax her a little

bit we started talking and then she got

a bit more relaxed you can see although

forget about posing hands at this stage but

thumbs out in a pose whether it's a

guy or a girl suggests that i'm more

relaxed not that i like it and we'll

come to that and talk about that at

a different time but then i wanted to

relax her a little bit so i made

her laugh and then i started giving her

um a little bit of direction and this

is the pretty much the direction that i

gave her um and i can't remember exactly

but it was something to the effect is

that i want you to sing me a

song now if you're a performer singing on

cue is not that difficult because you're a

performer you do it all the time you

can sing on cue but arguably it's probably

even tougher to a one person or two

person audience in a dark room and i

just said sing your song i want this

to be your moment you know what this

is all about your family all about the

kids everything every day is all about everyone

else right now i want this to be

all about you and she started singing and

you can you can see there's words coming

out of her mouth you can see there's

a little bit more than just talking she's

singing by the way i happen to shoot

this with a profoto b1 there was a

four by six scrim gym cine on the

other side just a little hint of light

coming on this side and uh five foot

octabox just for those of you wondering not

the point of course but just to let

you know and then as we started photographing

you know she's singing here now these shots

aren't that great i did not capture a

great expression i'm gonna say but she sang

her song so do we have a hero

shot yet is the question no why why

do you believe we don't have a hero

shot at this stage this is a gray

oliphant background we had two lights here i

believe we had one light from the top

one softbox from the top one from the

side for catch lights potentially we may have

had i'm pretty sure we had a four

by six scoob gym cine on the other

side there as well we had our challenges

the reason why i may not be a

hero shot is because maybe her eyes are

closed um she's not singing to an audience

so there might be limited um connection to

to the to the viewer um she's not

completely relaxed maybe she's singing a sad song

her arms are down by her side she's

not using her hands all right can you

emote can you photograph someone and create an

emotional portrait with their eyes closed my answer

to that is absolutely yes haven't like so

um yes she's not quite relaxed yes i

agree with that as well but the answer

is the hands are not doing what the

face is doing and what the voice is

doing your physiology when is that that's what

you call it physiology when when your whole

body gets into something and you might think

of some activities that right now that could

be uh that you could be thinking of

that does that but when your whole body

your mind your spirit your body your soul

gets into it it's an incredible experience um

probably an obvious experience that your whole body

gets into is when you're cheering for the

vegas golden knights uh winning the second playoff

series but when you watch sports everyone just

freaks out and you scream your whole body

and that's why you can hear the roars

um from the other side of town so

i'm saying to you with posing posing hands

we're focusing on hands right now but the

whole body mind and spirit that goes along

with it i am telling you your photographs

will be more soulful more spiritual there'll be

more emotion and that will ream out of

a browser of a bride or someone looking

um at a website to hire a photographer

now i can't remember the exact words that

i said i'll have to look back at

the footage but this is the roughly what

i said uh when i actually after that

song happened so i i said oh my

god that was beautiful that was amazing all

that kind of stuff and i said something

to this effect talk to me with your

hands express yourself with your hands assuming i

couldn't listen to your voice in other words

i want to know what words you are

saying assuming i i was deaf just by

your hands i'm understanding the lyric and i

said take your time breathe in relax can

you think of a song by the way

release the pain release the the anxiety because

i i saw it you know often and

especially mothers and again i think you have

the hardest job in the world uh and

my hat's off to you the fact is

that especially when you have young children that's

a tough gig she she had her moment

this was probably just a little mini holiday

for her that she could just be all

about her and i said that this is

all about you don't worry about anybody else

this is your moment i want you to

pick a song that releases that pain and

makes you refresh by the end of it

and she sang roy roy orbison's crying a

beautiful song she sang it beautifully but this

is when i asked her to just relax

and take a breath then before she started

singing she did this then she started singing

and then i can't believe how much more

beautiful even the face is i want to

say beautiful i'm not saying pretty i'm saying

how much more beauty came out of her

because the hands were mirroring the face and

giving almost a face permission to express herself

she lost her inhibition she even sang more

beautifully her tone was more beautiful there was

there was just this beauty that i haven't

seen for a very very long time and

you could see she's releasing it that brow

pressure by the way this is um every

shot that you're seeing is straight out of

camera nothing's being done to them i photographed

in black and white on my camera obviously

with raw and jpeg but the hands look

at them look at what's happening with her

hands now she's performing now she's releasing now

she's crying so to speak she's mirroring that

energy of the song and it was an

absolute joy to watch it was a spiritual

experience i can't even tell you um but

you see how even her face i don't

know there's just something to it and then

even though that there's been in my opinion

a lot of hero shots the next one

i believe is the hero shot for me

that says everything i can't even see her

eyes but that brow pressure the hand on

the heart this hand almost in a fist

basically saying i'm strong but i'm vulnerable if

if it was only strength and no vulnerability

no pain it would be just like this

if it was out like this you're welcoming

something but she could be releasing or she

could be clenching so for me it's a

combination of strength and vulnerability this is i

mean this my hands on my heart turning

away from the light that drama in in

her face that light is absolutely full of

beauty then she releases the pig that note

that's very tough to get if i'm a

closet singer myself and the song that she

was is a very tough song to get

and she she hit that note but you

see what she's doing with her hands she's

feeling it like any symphony there's highs and

lows and then we finally get to a

point where she submits and she relaxes and

she lets go i can't even tell you

guys how beautiful that was to watch that

was probably one of the most beautiful things

i've ever seen and now that i'm talking

about it getting emotional um because i have

so much respect for mothers and the fact

that she had a moment we had a

great conversation afterwards on on it and she

said i've never no one's really given me

that time even though that it was 10

minutes no one has given me that moment

to shine on my own all about me

nobody else can we go to you baby

for a second yeah i think that um

what was pretty awesome about that moment is

exactly what jerry said because when we were

all together doing the family session because they've

got three kids and you know so jerry's

trying to pose them and we're getting them

all together and kids are running over here

and then we're giggling and we're laughing and

i was of course like helping to make

them giggle and i was tickling them but

mom's of course trying to make sure that

everyone's happy and that everyone's being obedient and

in their right place and so she's totally

being a mom throughout and i've actually never

seen lisa in any other mode other than

mom mode which so i don't know how

jerry picked up on this or whatever what

it was and they were there for a

family session but he did get individual portraits

of everybody during a family session like he

always does but just couldn't get lisa on

her own being lisa and so that's when

he kicked us all out so i brought

the girls next door we started a movie

and even then it took a little while

for lisa to come out of mom mode

because that's what moms do and it's really

interesting to see jerry fight so hard to

get lisa to be completely relaxed and and

comfortable and it was only later on that

when we were comparing because she she did

that first when she first sang and it

was very calm and subdued and it was

almost like she was doing it because jerry

asked her to jerry she was singing because

jerry asked her to and then jerry said

what he said and he said i want

you to just just sing to me and

i want you to show it as if

i hear you so if i couldn't hear

your music what would that look like and

so that's when she became more expressive but

it wasn't until way after the fact when

we were comparing the shots from the first

time and then the shots from the second

time that we could we noticed that it

was like a physical body difference that she

had like there were physical body changes to

her with her hands and her and her

she stood taller and that kind of thing

so it was it was just a really

interesting lesson for us as well and that's

why jerry included it into today's program because

the hands were such a big part of

that but jerry always says that the hands

are the most expressive part of any pose

that we do but here was like a

perfect example where we could see the before

and after so it was a really fun

lesson for us to learn as well it

was pretty cool thank you baby thank you

for the great summary and um if i

could sum up this entire broadcast on how

to pose hands how to pose female hands

if you remember only one thing right this

is you this is your quote jerry how

do you pose hands again my question to

you i'll throw it right back to you

well what are you trying to say are

you trying to say tenderness are you trying

to say sexy are you trying to say

passionate are you trying to say uh what

lisa said talk to me you want to

give permission to the people that you photograph

to be more meaningful and more expressive and

although you're starting off with a mechanical structure

let the expression the people the the faces

guide you if you've got someone like i

said if you've got a guy who's burly

and strong then yeah they'll be strong hands

and it's masculine obviously if you're talking about

a girl who's very delicate more princessy then

those hands should mirror that ultimately we want

to follow those principles that we discuss with

you in a way that expresses something and

also flatters the person so we start off

with the pose which is flattery then the

expression if it breaks the perfection it's okay

because you see with all those shots that

we showed before it wasn't about perfection it

was about saying something so with that i

challenge you guys that now that i've put

that extra slant on things the next time

you do a portrait session why don't you

actually say to the bride or the groom

or the mother or the father just with

your hands tell me how much you love

your wife let's see what happens thank you

so much guys this has been a really

really fun exercise for me personally because it's

something that i've been teaching for many many

years but in the context of preparing this

with more detail because again i wouldn't teach

this three four hour seminar as part of

my workshop i'll be wasting too much time

i want to give you sort of bits

of everything but in doing this it's actually

taught me how many things that i've actually

developed over the years and as i articulate

it to you it actually strengthens my resolve

to make my hands my female hands any

kind of pose that are more purposeful so

i wish you the same resolve