If you’re a portrait photographer, you know how important it is to master posing, especially if you work with clients who are not professional models. As a portrait photographer specialized in maternity portraits, my eye is trained to look for poses and angles that flatter every woman’s body shape while showing the belly and the curves of pregnancy.
The first thing you want to do is come up with your purpose. Why do a styled shoot? Is it to build your portfolio? To get a chance to shoot at a certain venue or work with certain vendors? Is it to get published?
You can create your own magic anywhere you want with a battery-powered light and a small softbox or umbrella. When shooting outside, I love using the sun as my hair light and a softbox as my main light. No matter how bright the natural light is, placing the sun behind your subject will either create a subtle rim light on a cloudy day or a brilliant one on a sunny day.
As photographers, one of the things we gravitate to is light. Makes sense right? Light is the foundation of an image. How you use light is what starts to help you develop your identity as a photographer.
So many elements and considerations go into the physical aspects of posing, from facial expression to the point of the toe. It’s all important, but that’s not what I am going to cover in this article. I won’t bore you with the usual posing tricks and principles taught in most basic photography blogs or tutorial videos on the internet.
The key is to really think about how you can mix your style with their personality and create an image that not only satisfies those involved in the shoot but also elicits a response from the viewer. Once you have completed this "triangle" you have made something special.
Posing is one of the most beautiful ways we can speak for our clients, and it’s all done through body language. I can’t wait to see what your portraits will say!
The bottom line is whether you’re photographing for black & white images or color, learn the difference between an f-stop and a bus stop, print and frame your work, and look at life in shades of gray, not hard and fast rules.
Looking back over my career for the last 20 years, there is a distinct line of when my work went from predominantly black & white to taking an immediate turn to color. It happened when I captured that first medium format digital image in 2004 and I never looked back.
From a professional point of view, understanding light and being able to execute your vision 'at will' despite the time of day or the location makes you an incredible asset to your client. Light is both an art and a craft. This broad spectrum can make lighting a daunting task to learn and teach. However, one simple philosophy of light can help clarify everything. There's good lighting, there's bad lighting, then there's the RIGHT lighting to help express the emotion you want.
