All language subtitles for The Faceless Portrait

I hope things are well.

So, today I'm going to just touch on...

Okay, so back all that up.

In the develop group, there was a thing

going around this week about the faceless portrait,

faceless week is what they were posting in

the Facebook group.

I posted on Instagram the other day about

how to me, to me the faceless portrait

is something that I've done for years.

It's something that I don't know if it's

like a personal thing or like a self

-conscious issue, but I find taking away the

visual of how someone looks and just focusing

on say the hands, it really showcases to

me, I think the connection between a couple

without bringing into light what someone looks like.

And I feel at times just human nature

is to perhaps either subconsciously or consciously judge

a couple on appearance.

And at times that can become distracting and

take away from what we as photographers are

really trying to showcase and to focus on,

which is connection and emotion and the love

and the feeling that we're trying to get

across in our work.

And again, showing faces or someone's appearance, we

may look at or the viewer may look

at the photo and feel like, wow, there's

a beautiful connection there.

But again, it's not a conscious thing at

times, but they subconsciously look at how they

look, how their makeup is, their hair, maybe

do they have a double chin, the lipstick,

the size of their nose, bags under their

eyes, all these things that we as humans,

like it or not, we sometimes judge what

people look like.

So for me, the faceless portrait is something

I've really for years, I remember like probably

10 years ago, I got an email from

a bride saying, we love your work, but

my mom wants to make sure she's gonna

be able to see us in the photos

because a lot of your work has their

heads cut off.

And so I really, now every wedding, I

try to make at least two to three,

four, quote, faceless portraits along with the mom

photo.

And obviously, they do wanna see their face,

who doesn't?

They wanna see what they look like in

their hair and makeup and all this stuff,

but I really have challenged myself to focus

on showing connection without showing someone's appearance.

I find if you guys can go into

it and challenge yourself, say your next shoot

or your next wedding, and really try to

focus in on taking away the visual of

appearance and focus on hands or the squeeze

or a touch and try to kind of

build on that, go into every wedding and

focus on today at this shoot, this connection

session, I'm gonna make two pictures that focus

just on hands.

And then the next wedding, I challenge you,

this wedding, I'm gonna focus on just the

way and embrace.

Yeah, to me, it's super powerful.

To me, I love creating that.

I love the feeling that I can portray

in my work when I take away someone's

appearance.

The flip side to this or in addition

to this would be, I think we've all

had it, I still have it.

And I know when I started, I still

had it.

It was couples maybe that didn't have like

the perfect connection, right?

Like, we're looking at everyone else's feeds and

we're like, well, their couples are like so

incredible and they just get it and they

connect.

And my couples are kind of goofy and

maybe a little more awkward and there's all

those things that we talk about and I'm

gonna talk about in my next video about

cues and things to say, but if they

are maybe goofy here in the visual on

their face and their appearance, because a lot

of times they laugh and they make funny

faces, which is all fine and it creates

funny work, but maybe it's not what you're

looking for in that moment.

So what I was doing was I was

starting to, it kind of almost came out

of necessity to capture connection with couples that

weren't getting it, was I was cutting people's

heads off and really every couple that we

work with can hold each other, right?

Every couple can hold each other.

Every couple can tickle hands, right?

Tickle the palm of her hand, tickle fingertips,

tell each other how much you love each

other just by touch, the way you squeeze

them in.

And then really shoot that wide, shoot that

with a 35 or whatever or 50 and

step back and shoot that moment happening, head

to toe, top to bottom, but then start

to walk in, start to focus in and

maybe it's instead of head to toe, now

it's head to waist and then the next

shot you're in even closer and it's head

to chest and then maybe now it's just

focused on hands and really what you can

see is as they move around in that

pose or in that moment, you start to

focus in on different things and for me

personally, a lot of my favorite work comes

from when I started back, but it ends

when I get really close, when I get

just the hands, just the touch, just the

hand on the bottom of his chin kind

of guiding him into her.

So again, guys, the faceless portrait, it is

something that I feel we can all kind

of throw into our, you know, for lack

of a better term, our bag of tricks.

It's something that I challenge you guys to

try at your next wedding, like consciously really

try to focus in on, can I make

something with a lot of feeling and mood

and emotion and connection without focusing on the

face?

Can I, you know, portray visually an intense

connection just by touch, just by hands, just

by squeeze, just, you know, whatever that may

be, but just focus in and try to

focus in on, focus in on not focusing

on the face is really, you know, but

like I said, I challenge you guys, you

know, to do it.

I'd love to see your guys' work.

You know, if you guys do try it

at your next shoot, you know, definitely send

me an email, send me a message.

I'd love to see it.

You know, I'd love to, you know what,

if you guys do try it and maybe

at your next shoot or whatever, I'll take,

you know, five or six photos from you

guys of your next faceless portrait, and I'll

do an editing video of, you know, your

guys' work and I'll edit it.

But yeah, I wanna see, and I challenge

you guys to really focus in on the

faceless portrait, creating mood without the visual of

appearance.

All right, guys, I'm gonna be in touch

soon, working on the next video, and yeah,

it should be out shortly, the behind the

scenes.

All right, guys, take care, and I will

talk to you guys soon, all right.