So you want to be a model for a day but you’ve never learned how to strike a pose?
Welcome to the club of Most. Women. Who. Get. Their. Photos. Taken.
Sure it looks so beautiful and effortless when you glean those images from the pages of Vogue or Vanity Fair but what you’re really starring at is years of hard work and dedication to learn how to contort those rail thin bodies into nonchalant looking, graceful (and painful) lines.
There’s no point in pretending that posing is easy for either the photographer or the subject. Learning how to pose clients for consistently beautiful and flattering results in a steep learning curve for any portraitist. It is one that I will continue to develop as my style evolves over time. But it is not up to the every-day client to come into a photoshoot owning that skill set. Sure, there are women who have a certain feel for how their bodies move or what angles are most flattering to them, but overall, most come in feeling awkward, stiff bodied and torn between a near-irrepressible urge to giggle or to groan from the strange process that is having their hands, chin, shoulders, hips, feet and eyes coordinated like a kind of glamour puppet.
So how can we help ourselves out a little here?
As your photographer, my first priority is to get you to feel beautiful, womanly and empowered. There is no pose in the world that can truly compensate for what is going on inside of you. Because the camera doesn’t lie when it comes to expression. And capturing beautiful expression is key to making stunning photographs of people. So the hair, the makeup, the wardrobe, the environment and your trust in me, are all meant to create a synergy that will lead you to feel radiant and confident. The overall goal is to get you out of your head and in touch with your senses.
We’ll then relax a little together before I start to guide you through a series of poses. My technique is not a science however. I’m a photographer who spends a great deal of time trying to capture people being authentically beautiful. A slight turn of the head, a moment of inhibited laughter, a confident, sexy gaze will say so much more than a contrived dip of the shoulders. So I love looking at the ways my clients move naturally, at what makes them get in touch with their sensuality. The process can go from directed to organic, usually as the shoot progresses and you begin to relax into your skin and start to relish the attention and have fun with the whole thing.
At times and often nearing the end, I’ll ask if you want to freestyle or do whatever comes to mind. From quirky, silly, or sultry moves to bursts of images as clients dance or vogue-off like wannabe Cindy’s and Naomi’s circa 1995. It’s all part of pulling out the it factor while creating images that are unique reflections of your best self.
However, any pro photographer will tell you, the one surefire posing technique that works every time is to truly enjoy the process. To that I'll also add don’t ever, ever give us your version of duck face.
