All language subtitles for 6. Bridesmaids

Let's delve in a little bit deeper and

talking about bridesmaids.

Or if you photograph family portraits, a bunch

of girls together.

How do we photograph girls together?

Well, there are many ways.

And certainly living in 2020 and beyond, there

are certain things that have been popularized.

And sometimes girls can almost know posing too

well on their own.

Like they might follow other friends and girls

on Instagram.

They might be overtly like they've got the

little duck lips going on, the shoulder, the

face, all that kind of stuff.

And they may have an idea in their

head as to the way they wanna be

photographed.

So every so often, you may get girls

who come up to you and they want

something specific.

Now, part of me in my early career

would probably would have said, you know what,

like, no, that's just silly, it's cheesy, I'm

not gonna do it.

And I guess just with a little bit

of miles of shooting a lot of weddings

and understanding relationships, sometimes you just have to

disarm people by giving them what they want.

No problem, let's do it your way and

now let's do it my way.

Not dismissing as what they're saying is silly

or cheesy or is irrelevant or whatever, but

quite simply, if you have an impression of

yourself and you want something, see, if I

don't get the girls or the bridesmaids on

side with me, then they're gonna complain to

the bride about me for the rest of

the day and then I'm gonna look foolish

and then we're gonna have doubt in the

bride's mind and all of a sudden, it's

gonna be a bad energy.

So if they want something, I'll do it

quickly.

What can I do for you?

You want this kind of a shot?

Do you want a walking shot?

Do you want a cuddly shot?

Do you wanna lying down and putting all

your head sort of touching as I photograph

in the bird's eye view because you saw

that on Instagram or Pinterest?

No problem, let's do it.

And then you just do the best you

can and then you will do the shot

in a way perhaps that's maybe more timeless,

may reflect their personalities more and then in

other words, disarming people, take away the current

trend so that you can get back to

maybe what's more timeless or maybe what's more

authentic rather than being too showy as a

display.

So with bridesmaids, obviously we have a certain

energy and I'm not saying every girl is

a girly girl and I'm not saying every

photograph of a girl or girls together should

be all rainbows and butterflies because that's the

way we perceive girls to be.

Well, that's just silly because every woman has

a different sensibility, a different way about her

and I think that the cool thing is

that the fashion industry has taught us that.

Billions of dollars have been spent on what

attracts a female audience like the same girl

who would shop at Calvin Klein would not

shop at Versace or Hermes or something like

that.

It's a very different sensibility.

There is a market for every kind of

girl and a girl for every market.

You just sort of work out, well, what's

the dynamic and the energy of the girls

that you're photographing and how do we do

it?

I think Cyndi Lauper said it best, girls

just wanna have fun, right?

Ultimately, you get girls together, they just wanna

have fun and they wanna look incredible.

So it's not rocket science and especially when

it comes to bridesmaids with a bride, they

just wanna have fun.

Like here we're photographing into the sun so

tough thing is I've got the city in

the background, the sun is on to the

side but I want the background and how

do I do it?

Well, I at least get the bride turning

her face into the light.

What excuse do I give her?

Perhaps she's the one that's turning to her

friends and they're just walking across as well

and then we've got some giggling into the

sun and of course the lighting isn't perfect

but it's pretty damn good under the circumstances.

The next shot is what you would call

more of a classic portrait.

I love the fact that it's creating a

beautiful triangular composition.

There is a taller bridesmaid, there is a

shorter bridesmaid and then you've got the bride

center in the middle.

The lighting was coming from down below, the

light was actually the sun hitting a bunch

of tiles and then going back up.

Now, the problem is you possibly might get

some unflattering shadows in the upper cheekbones but

that's why it's important to get the girls

to lean forward, whoever you're photographing to lean

forward to correct the perspective so the light

is quite even.

So in this case, you do not get

those unflattering shadows in the upper cheekbones but

what you do get is that shadow behind

them.

But this case, I felt like the negative

space sort of shifted our eye and I

felt like it created a bit more interest

to have some negative space which goes with

the classic nature of them looking to the

camera.

So don't forget that every kind of a

shot really has a place.

It's up to you to work out, well,

who are you photographing?

What's gonna suit them?

What's gonna suit the occasion and what will

have longevity?

Arguably, it might be all of the above.

There will be one looking in the camera

serious, one smiling, one interactive, one looking all

fashionable.

Would everything sell?

Most of the time, yes.

If you give it to them and it's

authentic, when I say authentic, as in it

suits their sensibility and it suits their dynamic.

In this case, we have the girls, they

were just giggling all day.

I love the fact that they're all giggling

and then they were giggling and giggling.

It all marries up together.

So what will happen is that when you're

photographing families or whoever you're photographing, you sort

of test them a little bit.

Maybe let them pose themselves a little bit.

Hey guys, stand in that light.

You might pretend to fiddle with your camera

or your lens and then all of a

sudden, these dynamics might come out that you

wouldn't have known unless you gave them a

space to breathe.

So, hey girls, just have some fun for

a little bit and then let me change

my lens.

You go back and have a look and

then all of a sudden, they could literally

just be sitting there waiting for you like

this.

Well, you know that maybe they're very traditional,

they're very formal, maybe their ethnicity or culture

might be not sort of traditionally conducive of

an overt flamboyant personality.

Well, that's okay.

You've just got to learn who you're photographing

and that'll be by the questions that you

ask before you photograph them, looking at the

family portraits on the wall in the home

that where you're at.

It could be quite poignant questions to find

out their dynamics and so on and so

forth.

So, a lot of this is quite like

psychological as well as the craft that you

use to capture the photograph but as well

pretty much when you're photographing groups, then really

your personality will be your number one asset.

See, any one of us can learn exposure

and take a photograph and it's in focus

and it's sharp.

I mean, the cameras make it so easy

but interacting with people and having some fun

with people, that's a different skill altogether.

This next group of girls, this bride was

just had this classic beauty about her and

I remember just walking out of the hallway

of this particular ceremony and there's a spotlight

that was above her and I'm like, wouldn't

it be cool that she just adjusting a

ring or earring or something like that as

the girls adjust her dress and then that's

what happened here.

So, now we have that beautiful triangular composition,

we have those lights framing her, the lights

pointing towards her and we have, let's call

it a natural photograph.

Now, was it natural?

Did I pose it?

Well, I just told you that I did.

Does it matter?

Always, all we're doing is looking at photographs

of best friends.

This shot here, this was quite an awkward

shot to pose.

The bride was lying down, I took photographs

of her already and now this girl had

to basically be on her knees leaning on

the bench or the ottoman that the bride

was lying down, bring her face forward and

she had to sort of half lean over

the bride and hug the bride.

Now, if you saw the wide shot of

this, it would be awkward as hell but

cropping it in like this is a classic

beautiful portrait and this could be a shot

of sisters, that could be a shot of

a mom and two daughters.

Again, do not think that just because this

girl's wearing a veil that this is irrelevant

to you because you don't photograph weddings.

I'm telling you now, portraits are portraits, people

are people, an occasion does not make it

irrelevant depending on what you're doing.

So this one here, for example, we've got

a nice little hierarchy, we've got the bride,

a little flower girl in the foreground, the

bride in the center and then everyone framing

her beautifully and then we go a little

bit closer in framing her as well.

But I love the fact that lighting will

often tell you what to do, the location

will often tell you what to do.

In this case, you've got light coming in

from both sides so I need the bride

either turning her to the face left or

the right, then these particular benches or the

bars there give the bridesmaids an excuse to

put their hands behind.

This particular girl's a little bit taller and

bigger so I bring her behind to bring

the proportion of the girls together and then

now, yes, there would have been a shot

looking in the camera smiling, the bride would

have turned her face bias to one way

or the other and then the interaction happens

and then now we've got a nice little

complimentary portrait.

Now, and if you're photographing, like I said,

onto a bench, this bench gives us the

idea of the pose.

Now, yes, did this girl blink but is

the shot worthy enough to be in the

album?

Well, yeah, I'm not after perfection because it's

not really about that in this shot.

See, if this photograph, if one of the

girls were blinking, it makes it unusable but

the minute they start interacting, then I'm like,

well, that's fine.

Now, where was this taken?

This was in a doorway of a house.

Natural light coming through.

Remember, the more people that you have, the

less lighting options that you have.

Don't get too fancy.

Make your life easier.

Open shade, big window light.

Just bring the light behind you and then

bang, photograph like that.

If I start to try to get Rembrandt

lighting on every single person in this photograph,

it's gonna be almost humanly impossible to make

that look good, especially when they're interacting.

You know, you could have bridesmaids just having

some fun underneath a veil.

You could have girls drinking mimosas and having

little stories here and another story there and

then overall as well.

You know, often you'll go to a bride's

house and the bridesmaids will be wearing a

robe.

The bride will be wearing a robe and

having a bride or bridesmaids written on the

back of their robes and they're gonna want

that.

And you're gonna say, well, all right, if

I'm doing a traditional portrait of the bridesmaids

later on, well, let's not make these ones

traditional because it suits more of a casual

setting.

So you would do that accordingly.

Then I might do this shot later on

and then it's a little bit more casual

because I've done the traditional shot looking in

the camera.

I've done that.

But remember, just because you're adding another human

being or more girls to this shot, does

the posing that Jerry taught us with posing

the female form change?

No, you're just multiplying it.

So do we turn our bodies, point our

toe, bend our knees, shift our weight back,

lean forward, chins up?

Well, yeah, we do, of course.

See, often now I haven't shared many photographs

of the brides that are getting ready as

in hair and makeup being done, the makeup

artists doing their thing and everything's all messy.

I personally believe and I'm of the philosophy

that the first impression of a bride or

bridesmaids should be beautiful.

When you open up a wedding album or

a portrait album, why would you have the

process of them getting ready in the shot?

Because the face might be half done.

You might have a makeup artist who's a

stranger to the bride and the groom and

they're there with their tracksuit and hair everywhere

because they wake up at four in the

morning to get to the bride's house.

In other words, it's too raw for me.

So why would a bride spend two hours

on hair and makeup to look half done?

For me, I want the first impression of

a bride to be she's completely ready.

Every so often though, I'll be in a

particular environment where they're amongst the chaos is

harmony.

Like in this shot, for example, you will

see that this was in actual fact photojournalistic.

I didn't pose it, I walked in that

room and even though there's so much crap

going on here, there's mobile phones, there's flower

petals of the dress hanging, there's shoes over

here, the bride's getting ready next to the

window, there is a makeup artist there, the

girls aren't even ready, but somehow they just

look really good.

Now, whether this was photojournalistic, I may have

tweaked something, I don't remember exactly, but at

least 90% of it was somewhat like

untouched.

All I know is that if my instinct

tells me, you know what, this is a

pretty cool shot, take it.

Otherwise, if I did simply not like what

I'm seeing, I will not take that photograph.

All right, so this one, I love the

idea of creating stories within a story.

This is one of my favorite bridesmaids portraits.

So if you look at this, you've got

their own little story here, then you've got

their own story here.

This girl's having a frigging ball on her

own and then you've got that story and

then you look at it overall.

This is my favorite kind of portrait because

we are saying a lot more than just,

here's the relationship between all of these girls.

Well, no, here's this dynamic here, here, here,

and here.

Sometimes that might just be a healthy coincidence

and other times it might be premeditated.

In other words, this might be the bride

and her sisters.

This could be their nieces.

This could be someone that you just had

to put in there because an auntie insisted

that her frigging daughter was in the bridal

party and that could be the cousins.

So sometimes it could be premeditated and sometimes

it could just reveal itself as you're photographing.

Then sometimes it could just be very traditional.

This is just an Ottoman.

The bride was standing on the Ottoman and

I posed all the girls around and it's

very traditional, very classic, nothing formal about it,

but it also has a home.

So it depends on what you wanna do.

Also, don't forget, you can simply go into

bird's eye view.

This gorgeous South Asian bride had just stunning

piercing eyes.

That's pretty much, you know, the culture in

general.

Like most, I mean, almost every South Asian

bride has those piercing, beautiful, dark eyes and

that gorgeous color skin.

And I thought, wouldn't it be cool to

just have all the girls somewhat vignetting the

bride and then you've got those eyes piercing

the camera.

I think this is beautiful.

And we can do that from a bird's

eye view.

We can actually deliberately get all the girls

out of focus, leading your eye into the

bride.

Or if there's a balcony at the bride's

house, in this case, for example, then we've

got this kind of a shot where they're

interacting and having fun, beautiful lightings hitting them.

And then sometimes bridesmaids will bring you props

like a parasol umbrella.

It could just simply be an umbrella to

hide them from the sun, but you could

use that with the shadows on the backs,

which I think is actually stunning as well.

It could be a walking away shot like

this.

I love that.

I love the fact that we've got these

beautiful flowy dresses.

Well, how do you show that off?

Well, of course you would walk, you would

move.

And then they would turn around and you

could see how their front toes, in fact,

I've just discovered something here.

So you see that third girl, she's bending

the wrong leg.

Well, actually, no.

The more I look at that, I'm like,

you know what, I wouldn't make that mistake.

So as I look at it, she was

turning her shoulders that way.

Therefore, I bend the leg that's close to

the camera.

What she did was turn her shoulders more

to square to the camera.

Therefore, it sort of breaks the finesse that

I added.

I'm gonna give myself a break on that

one, but I love the fact that this

little kid is breaking the monotony of that

predictable nature of that photograph and a bit

of negative space to just give ourselves some

breathing space as well.

But remember that the environment will always tell

you what to do.

Here we have a bride with her two

nieces and she was into the piano.

Well, how do I show that in a

photograph?

Well, all of a sudden, we'll bring the

smaller one on top of the piano.

The piano is gonna be the anchor of

the shot.

And then she's connecting with both hands on

the girls and then she's being framed by

those sort of white little columns in the

shot.

So it's fun, right?

Like this should not be a chore.

This should not be, oh damn, I'm gonna

photograph bridesmaids or guys or whatever.

This should just be part of the process.

And the fact is that you are not

photographing bridesmaids on a day, you are photographing

best friends.

And it starts to make you think of

everyone that you're photographing a little bit differently.

This is somewhat a very classic Jerry way

of photographing bridesmaids.

Lean forward, chins up, close together, bang.

Then they're in the sun and now they're

all classic and they're all turning their face

into the sun.

And yes, do you sort of see how

I said the more people that you have,

the less lighting options that you have and

you can't get them interacting with that perfect

light.

Well, I didn't get them to interact.

They all turned their face into the light.

They have perfect Rembrandt lighting.

Look at every single one of their cheeks.

I think it's mostly Rembrandt, a little bit

of loop there as well, but their faces

are turning by the light, eyes back.

The next one is a bridal portrait, a

bridal shoot.

So this is just basically a bridal fashion

shoot, but you can see how we're creating

this beautiful triangular composition and the girls are

sort of leaning forward and they're all looking

at the exact same spot.

So when you are getting, you are photographing

multiple people, whether it's guys, girls, or a

family, and you wanted to look off camera,

my suggestion is this.

In fact, don't do what I did when

I started in my career.

I would just say, guys, look over that

way.

And then everyone would just look over there

and people would look at different spots.

When you look at a photograph like that,

people look disconnected.

So now what I say is, if I

say, guys, look at my hand.

All right, and I like where your eyes

are, great.

I look in the direction of my hand

and now I see the top of the

tree.

I say, everyone, look at the top of

that tree.

Now they know where to look.

And then in the photograph, you can tell

they're all looking at the exact same spot.

Sometimes even a couch can give you an

idea for a photograph.

So if you can understand it, it's hard

to explain, but the shot on the left

-hand side, there's a sofa.

And the two girls on the bottom right,

obviously the girl on the bottom right is

leaning on the middle girl, and then she's

leaning on the arm.

The girl on the bottom left is kneeling

down on the ground, bringing her head really

close.

The girl right from the back there is

leaning forward to the bride, who's sitting on

the arm of the chair, leaning back, and

she's got a very close relationship with her

sister over here like this.

So you sort of see how, first of

all, the light and the location gave me

an idea of what to do, but then

we actually created a dynamic of the relationships

within what we've got going on.

This one, they're just getting ready.

So she was finessed enough for me to

say, you know what, that actually works pretty

well.

I quite like the idea that if you

go to a bride's house and they are

getting ready, that they're completely finessed, the bride

gets her details completely on, the earrings on,

necklace, it could be charms, it could be

the hair, and then we can just get

the bridesmaids just adjusting the bride.

And I find that is really fun.

And this was just photographed right into a

bedroom window, and then we've got basically no

detail in those whites, which we don't want.

And I've shown this bride before.

This was done a long time ago, but

I love the dynamics between these girls.

They're putting on the charms and the flowers,

they're interacting.

If magic is happening like this, I will

capture it.

If it's not, I will create it.

And that's the whole idea, is that no

bride and bridesmaids will just happen to be

standing next to a window and look that

beautiful with that little edge light.

It's not gonna happen like that.

Now, you might say, well, why do it?

Why do it if it wasn't actual fact?

Well, what do you do on a normal

day?

You wouldn't be dressed like that.

You wouldn't have hair and makeup like that.

You'd be probably by the TV watching frigging

Game of Thrones reruns.

This is not a real world.

This is not real life.

You did not just get dressed like that,

hair and makeup like that, to look like

you do every other day of the week.

There's a fantasy involved on a wedding day.

All I'm doing is glorifying the fantasy and

then putting them in good light, having some

fun, creating dynamics of relationships, and letting girls

be girls.

Let's have some fun.

Let's interact with each other, even to the

point where you've got the girls, the bride

with the sister and the dad putting on

the shoes, or just the girls just hanging

out, waiting to be photographed, or the bride's

sister doing up the back of the dress.

I love the fact that we can work

out those relationships and photograph more purposefully rather

than always just photographing pose 23 with family

number 31.

Does that make sense?

So what we need to do is, once

you get the repertoire down, is like, all

right, you've got the shot.

Here's the type of shot that you've got.

Okay, everyone looking at the camera.

All right, great.

Well, how else can we do that?

How else can we do that that shows

off the dynamics, the relationships, and the individuality

of each person?

Well, there's gotta be a way, as I've

been showing you all along today.

And in this case, of course, we've got

the bride, the bridesmaids, the sisters, and all

that kind of stuff and the family along,

but you can see a lot more personality

in these photographs.

So I could be here like for several

more hours discussing the intricacies of the way

you would photograph bridesmaids, but I think you

get the point.

The idea is you get the clean shot,

you get it done, get them to interact,

and then tell me a bit more about

who they are as people, as individuals, as

families, and showing off their relationships.

And the way you'll actually get better at

this is you do more of it.

Why don't you, maybe not on a paying

wedding day, grab a group of friends, just

girls, all girls, great.

Let's have some fun.

I wanna just show how close you guys

are and who you are as individuals and

go out and play.

And guess what?

The next time you photograph, let's say, a

mom with sisters or best friends, or it

could be at a school, a bunch of

seniors, where the girls have graduated together and

they wanna show off an incredible time in

their life where they've never looked better, felt

better, they've never been as close as friends,

they share similar interests.

How do we show that in a photograph?

It's more than just doing this, and it's

more than actually just saying the words.

You just have to feel what they feel

and basically photograph an image that is timeless,

that says exactly the way you want history

to remember these people.

So I hope you enjoyed that.

In our next segment, we're gonna discuss how

to photograph guys, boys, groomsmen, and we're gonna

have a lot of fun doing it.