Tag Archive for: posing

Playing with hair and expression

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Sometimes a portrait can be incredibly simple but effective.
The next shots were done during a workshop with just an Elinchrom beauty dish with grid aimed at the model under a slight angle. The power for me in these shots is the very subtle expression enhanced with some wet hairs.

 

Now whenever you’re stuck in a session and don’t have the creativity to do something really cool with accessories etc. just wet the hair of the model and start playing with that, the longer the hair the better of course, the results will probably please you.

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The glamour pose

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One pose I can’t get enough off is the ones you see in this post.
A lot of people ask me for a glamour shot but often the models are not experienced models so posing can be a bit difficult. With this pose you can really work some magic with inexperienced models, now add a really good model and you have (well at least in my opinion) a great powerful shot.

 

The trick is to shoot this from a low angle and as wide open as possible, you could for example only use the modeling lights from the strobes if you have too much power. I used a very narrow beam of light by using a reflector with grid, but the same pose actually also works really good in hotel rooms (on the bed/floor etc.) with broad natural light.

 

The main thing you have to take care of is the way the “angle” works, find the curves in the body and let the model play with her arms and chin, I like the pose best when there is a lot of tension in the body of the model.

 

So the next time you are asked for a powerful “glamour shot” think about this one.
Good luck.

Marie November 21 2013-130-Edit

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Using the sun in the shot

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Yesterday we looked at using the sun as the main lightsource, but today we take it one step further.
When using strobes (and even without) you can really play with including the sun into the shot, in the next series I used the Elinchrom Ranger RX to fill in the model while using the sun (in the frame) as a strong backlight and creating some interesting lens flares.

 

In these shots I also lowered the brightness of the sky to make it more dramatic, you can do this with a lot of power like the Elinchrom Ranger RX, but also with speed lights and the use of HSS (HighSpeedSync). As long as you lower the brightness of the sky in comparison to the strobe output.

 

Now we could of course just shoot Marie posing and rely on a great model, cool clothing and great light… but that’s not what the viewer will remember in the end. One of the most important things in a shot for me is the inclusion of a story, this can be done with adding props, sets etc. but also very simple by just giving some extra attention to the pose like you can see here.

Marie November 21 2013-74-EditIt can be just as simple as this, but as you can see when you see the rest of the shots, this image really tells a story while the other ones are just…. well nice. So the next time you’re on location try to not be afraid of the sun and give some extra attention to the posing of the model and lift your shot from ok to WOW.

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Poses

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One of the things that I always see as an eye opener for people struggling with getting forward in Photography is pointing out what you can achieve with lights only. And to be honest that’s not that much. Yes you can make stunning images with great light, you can light models in a way that other people maybe aren’t able to pull off, but in the end for me that doesn’t make the shot. For me a good shot is carried not only by technique but also by pose, expression and of course technique but technique to be honest is just a small part of the total package.


To experiment a bit with this topic I asked Stephanie to work with me during a very quick photoshoot and just only concentrate on poses, so we used a very simple light setup (one light) and let Stephanie really be the center point of attention with her poses, and of course we also played a bit with some of her clothing like for example the shoes, just to create a fashion image you normally don’t see. As you can see in this series it’s very easy to shoot a model just standing there, but it becomes increasingly harder to find the curves, poses etc. that fit the model. This is also why I always strongly believe in the fact that if you pay a model because she is better than the models you normally shoot on TFP (Time For Print) you will get a lot better in your photography, they can teach you so very much just by showing you the poses, and you can build from there.

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