Tip : ACTION BABY ACTION… ACT….

It sounds so incredibly obvious but still it’s often forgotten.
If you want action….. do something.
Pretty obvious right?

Still in a lot of photoshoots that I judge I see amazing models, great styling, proper lighting, awesome locations…. but no life. Somehow the images don’t speak. What’s going on?

With most models the thing they do is pose.
But if you don’t tell the model what to do she/he will…. well pose, just stand there or do some killer poses (depending on the level of experience of your subject), but if you coach your model everything will be much better… now imaging not only coaching your model through some poses but REALLY make them act.

During a recent cosplay shoot we had a set with the vampire hunter and the vampire.
Now a lot of photographers would probably choose to shoot the costumes and let the two stand next to each other showing off the costumes, but for me that wasn’t enough, I really wanted so hardcore action, some BANG in the shot so to say. So I told the models to REALLY act, “spike her”, “kill her”, “and you, you are being killed so act like it, scream your lungs out, this is gonna HURT”

The first few shots were ok, but very quickly our Vampire hunter was jumping up and down eagerly waiting who she could kill next, and the vampires were lining up, the fun was really growing, but most of all the images got more and more intense and cool.

Modelling is acting on 1/1000’s of a second, make them count.
And YOU as the photographer are responsible for the end results, coach your models make them enthusiastic about the shots, if you are very monotone and going like “yeah”, “ok”, “great” (mimic the most monotone voice you can imagine, for example Stephen Hawkin) or if you go like this “YEAH BABY”, “KILL HER”, “AWESOMEEEEEE”, “LOVEEEEE IT” (mimic a very enthousiastic voice) you will see that the end results are MUCH MUCH better.

Here are some images from that set.