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Day 16: Posing Young Teens

Lesson 26 from: 28 Days of Portrait Photography

Sue Bryce

Day 16: Posing Young Teens

Lesson 26 from: 28 Days of Portrait Photography

Sue Bryce

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Lesson Info

26. Day 16: Posing Young Teens

Lessons

Class Trailer

Day 1

1

First 2 Years: The Truth

1:23:37
2

Teaching 2 Photographers in 28 Days

1:10:45
3

Rate Your Business

1:05:08
4

Year One in Business

1:00:34

Day 2

5

28 Challenges

1:21:39
6

Fear

1:04:07
7

Price & Value

1:10:17
8

Checklist, Challenges, and Next Steps

26:35

Day 3

9

Day 1: The Natural Light Studio

38:09

Day 4

10

Day 2: Mapping Your Set and Outfits

1:54:32

Day 5

11

Day 3: One Composition - Five Poses

35:49

Day 6

12

Day 4: Flow Posing

49:31

Day 7

13

Day 5: Posing Couples

55:55

Day 8

14

Day 6: Capturing Beautiful Connection & Expression

40:47

Day 9

15

Day 7: The Rules - Chin, Shoulders, Hands

56:24

Day 10

16

First Weekly Q&A Session

1:00:15
17

Day 8: Rules - Hourglass, Body Language, Asymmetry, Connection

28:39

Day 11

18

Day 9: Styling & Wardrobe

40:50

Day 12

19

Day 10: Shooting Curves

48:40

Day 13

20

Day 11: Posing & Shooting - Groups of 2, 3, and 4

28:46

Day 14

21

Day 12: Posing & Shooting Families

28:36

Day 15

22

Day 13: Products & Price List

56:53

Day 16

23

Day 14: Marketing & Shooting the Before & After

41:20

Day 17

24

Day 15: Phone Coaching & Scripting

52:56

Day 18

25

Second Weekly Q&A Session

1:02:21
26

Day 16: Posing Young Teens

43:02

Day 19

27

Day 17: Marketing & Shooting - Family First Demographic

33:14

Day 20

28

Day 18: The Corporate Headshot

1:05:43

Day 21

29

Day 19: Glamour Shoot on Location & Shooting with Flare

53:56
30

Photoshop Video: Glamour Shoot on Location & Shooting with Flare

11:06

Day 22

31

Day 20: Photoshop - Warping & the Two Minute Rule

1:22:22

Day 23

32

Day 21: Posing Mothers & Daughters

42:22

Day 24

33

Third Weekly Q&A Session

1:31:41
34

Day 22: Marketing & Shooting - 50 & Fabulous Demographic

1:04:00

Day 25

35

Day 23: Shooting into the Backlight

58:22
36

Bonus: Shooting into the Backlight

06:52

Day 26

37

Day 24: Marketing & Shooting - Girl Power Demographic (18-30s)

39:17
38

Photoshop Video: Girl Power Demographic (18-30s)

1:07:21

Day 27

39

Day 25: The Beauty Shot

46:32
40

Bonus: Vintage Backdrop

04:54

Day 28

41

Day 26: Marketing & Shooting - Independent Women Demographic

49:40

Day 29

42

Day 27: Sales & Production

54:30

Day 30

43

Day 28: Posing Men

52:19

Day 31

44

Bonus: Pricing

42:32
45

Introduction

11:36
46

Photography, Style, Brand, and Price Part 1

1:06:49
47

Photography, Style, Brand, and Price Part 2

47:24
48

Marketing Part 1

38:01
49

Marketing Part 2

1:12:04
50

Money: What's Blocking You?

49:15
51

Bonus: The Folio Shoot

52:29

Day 32

52

Photo Critiques Images 1 through 10

23:11
53

Photo Critiques Images 11 through 27

25:01
54

Photo Critiques Images 28 through 45

30:19
55

Photo Critiques Images 47 through 67

36:47
56

Photo Critiques Images 68 through 84

23:22
57

Photo Critiques Images 85 through 105

36:01
58

Photo Critiques Images 106 through 130

34:49
59

Photo Critiques Images 131 through 141

13:45
60

Photo Critiques Images 142 through 167

25:27
61

Photo Critiques Images 168 through 197

29:13
62

Photo Critiques Images 198 through 216

25:51

Day 33

63

Identify Your Challenges

35:06
64

Identify Your Strengths

22:16
65

Getting Started Q&A

22:54
66

Rate Your Business

31:29
67

Marketing Vs Pricing

33:26
68

Facing Fear

23:45
69

The 28 Day Study Group

15:02
70

Selling Points

40:35
71

Interview with Susan Stripling

18:03
72

Emotional Honesty

29:09

Day 34

73

Sue's Evolution

18:36
74

28 Days Review

15:14
75

Student Pitches

11:28
76

28 Days Testimonial: Mapuana Reed

09:02
77

How to Pitch: Starting a Conversation

37:28
78

Your Block: Seeing is What You're Being

35:30
79

Your Block: Valuing and Receiving

37:09
80

Building Confidence: Your Own Stories

20:45
81

Building Confidence: Your Self Worth

36:05
82

Pitching An Experience

34:16
83

Pitching An Experience: Your Intentions

18:15
84

Pitching An Experience: Social Media

30:14
85

Final Thoughts

24:35

Lesson Info

Day 16: Posing Young Teens

I love today's challenge. Today's challenge is about the teenage girl. We don't want her to look like, like an over-sexualized older woman. We want to make our teens look like teens. So today, the challenge is to teach you the difference between posing sexy, and posing age-appropriate girls. We want our girls to look gorgeous. We want them to have the supermodel experience. This genre of girls, this demographic of girls, sorry, just love my brand, and they drag their mothers into the studio. This is one of the most fun demographics to shoot, so we've got to make sure that we get them properly. This is about teaching you a little fun photo booth, keeping age-appropriate posing, and just making it really contemporary and magazine-like to attract these girls. Hi everyone. Today we are talking about high school seniors. Something I wanna teach you today for today's challenge is I wanna teach you the difference between posing a teenage girl and posing a woman. Now at the moment, Tatiana is ...

still a teenager, and she's still not quite a woman, but it's very easy to make this age group look very over-sexy, and it's also really easy to make this age group look very young and fun. So today, we're gonna show you the border that sits here, and I want you to practice all of these. Any client that you pretty much photograph that's around 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, as they're coming through their teenage years, I just want you to be very aware of two things. Our culture at the moment is very about hair and makeup and a lot of sexy clothes, and I want these girls to feel really gorgeous and be part of pop culture and understand what hair and makeup is, but I also want them to be very age-appropriate. I always say one thing: the girls often wanna post like supermodels, and that's okay. I will take them through that sort of really gorgeous beauty-type shot, but I just wanna keep it away from being over-sexualized and too sultry with their body language. So, I'm gonna show you the difference between the two, and I also wanna make sure that grandma and grandad can buy a beautiful shot that's just really traditional portraiture, and really smiley, and so we're just gonna go through the little rules. So before we start shooting Tatiana, I'm just going to show you a couple of little secrets that make a really big difference. So as you can see, she's in this beautiful little black cocktail dress and it's a fun, cute little dress, and I think this dress looks really gorgeous with flat shoes. When I style my clients, I always make sure I speak their age, and I have a look at all the clothes that they bring in. These little cocktail dresses look really fabulous with lacy stocking and boots, like my seniors video on my website. They also look really gorgeous with high heels. So, the high heels are gonna make them look a lot older. Also, just a note, you will find a lot of young girls are a lot more developed and they are allowed to wear hair and makeup. So some girls are definitely older-looking than other girls. So you really need to talk to mom as well and ask where she's comfortable with hair and makeup, how much hair and makeup is she allowed to wear, and then look at their clothes, 'cause that's a really good indicator of how they dress and how they like to go out. So, here's some really good basics to show you. On my wall, shot here where I start with everybody, good foundation, 45 from the wall, leaning back. As soon as I turn her shoulders away from the wall, so bring your hips and shoulders towards me, stay on the wall, but then go back to the camera with your chin, that's it. Soon as I turn around here, I create an hourglass in her body, as you know. So, I can make this really gorgeous, tuck this elbow in, and you just stay chin this way. Now, I can make this really simple and really cute right here, just like that, and what I normally do is, as I start photographing, I start turning their hips away from the camera. So I'm just gonna give you a little demo of what this does to her body line. At the moment, if this hand comes lower, and this elbow just relaxes back there, I'm in a quite, just gentle soft pose for her body line. I'm still showing off an hourglass, but I'm not so much making it too curvy. So I'm just gonna show you a little demo to keep this really simple. So what I want you to do is I want you to bring your chin around to me this way, stop. Good girl, don't move. And I want a tiny, little, little smile in your eyes. I'm shooting this at 320 ISO. I am at 2.8, which is my favorite f-stop. I'm on the 35-mil, and as you can see here, I'm directly under her eye line. Really, really important. Remember, I never shoot down, and I don't wanna shoot up. I'm just right where her eyes are here, and she's gonna follow me around a little bit here. So, I'm starting here. Little bitty smile on your lips. Now, at the moment, as I come around, bring your chin with me, that's it, stop, and that's cute, love that. I can come around to here, and I'm slowly pulling back. Now, these are all really cute, really easy to start here. So what we're gonna do now is I'm gonna show you with a few simple moves how I can make this pose a lot, a lot older. So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna bring the hand up in front to camera, and then I'm gonna push this elbow back. What this does, remember, is wherever hands go, we tend to look. So I'm gonna bring more attention to her hips. She's got her weight on this foot, so I'm gonna make her push her hip towards me a bit more, and as she pushes her weight towards me, it's gonna come away from the wall. This hand here is going to touch down in the front, turn it around, there, and that creates a little diamond in here. What that does is you start to see light through here, which means that I'm turning her hips away from the wall, and it gives her a lot more hourglass and a lot more body line. I'm now drawing attention to her body instead of her face. When her body was straight up and down, you were focused solely on her face. Now you're gonna be focused on her shape, because I'm giving her a much more cat-like shape. From the front here, all I do is I'm going to get you to push your hips away from me that way, so, like that. Good girl. Now, nice and tall through your neck and shoulders, and then bring your chin this way towards me, this way towards, towards, stop. Okay, so from here, one of the most amazing things about this most is I can get her to work the shoulder, and that shoulder, when it comes in, just makes the whole pose a lot sexier. I'm gonna take another example shot here and show you the difference between the first one and this one. Okay, so, lifting up nice and tall through your neck and shoulders, and this time, I want you to bring your chin further down. Now, as soon as I connect her chin and that little shoulder, just work it forward, good girl, perfectly. So straight away, the body language has changed in this image. Work that shoulder forward wee bit more. Good girl, a little bit more. The closer I bring that chin and shoulder together, the more sultry this pose looks. So, from here, I want you to roll flat, stop, and then bring your chin down. So bringing that chin down, engaging more of a body language straight away changes this pose. Now, a tiny little smile. Okay, less than that, good girl. Now, I want you to lift up tall and drop your bottom lip, so just completely. That's it, stay there, and I'm gonna come in nice and close. Chin down now to that shoulder. Perfect. Now, drop those eyes for me, Tatiana. So, and eyes to me, just not so open. That's the one, right there. Now, as soon as I bring this hand in, I'm gonna see more hourglass from the front straight away, and then I'm going to just drop forward. So watch that make such a big difference, that line, and it's the way she's looking at me. So keep that relaxed there. Bring your chin around to me this way, stop. Okay, now I'm more about her body line. Now, if I wanna take this up one more notch, I'm gonna take her weight, so don't move anything, just change the weight of your feet so you can push your, yeah, your booty back. Now, as soon as I push the booty back, I'm putting even more emphasis on her body line. So from here, work the shoulder forward, and then bring your chin down. So as long as I can see that gap through the back, I'm here. Now, I'm making this all about her body language. And I feel like this here is starting to get away from what we want. So now, I'm gonna go backwards. I'm going to get you to change the weight of your feet, and I'm gonna get you to hold your elbows in the front, okay? And I'm going to get you to push your shoulder forward. Now, as soon as I get her in this position here, I like that this has become really young and friendly again. So straight away, I can get her to bring her shoulder forward, and I just like how cute this is. So, this is my go-to pose for most teenagers. What it does is it takes away the cat-like pose, and it just brings it back to a little bit more friendly. I tend to shoot this here, and instead of that sort of sexy face, I just get a little wee smile. So just lips together. Good girl, that's beautiful. All right, from here, the hands can come straight down and flat against the wall. Now, as soon as I take away the hand from her hip, you stop looking there. Now I'm gonna get you to push your hip back a bit. As soon as I take the bottom half away from the shot, she's now a young girl leaning against the wall again, as opposed to being more catlike and sexy. And so from here, if I get her to bring her chin around, it's now no longer about her body line. It's just all about her face. So, have a look at the pretty progression of those images. We started off nice and flat. I brought her body line right up and cat-like. I pushed her hips away from the wall. I brought more attention to her body, and then as I started to push it back again, started to push the bum back, started to flatten out her pose, she started to go back to being younger again. The idea is, is that we make sure we photograph everybody how they are, now how we want them to be, okay? You need to gauge your client straight away, her age appropriateness, the clothes she's wearing, how much makeup they're wearing. But I just don't like seeing senior shots that are overly sexy. In saying that, if that's what your client wants, that's really important, I just think that there's a way to do it that's really model-like without being overly sexualized. So, what I'm gonna do today is I'm going to let you watch all of the poses I do when I shoot Tatiana, and I'm going to let you see how I can take it right down and bring it back up, depending on where she's sitting and how she's standing. So, as you see her shoot unfold, I'll talk her through it; I'll talk you through it, and you can get to see how you can just make it look so different by including arms and shoulders and just little wee bits of body language. Also really good practice for, in the opposite, when you're teaching your clients to be more sensual with their hands and body language. It's a good reminder of how to bring that in as well. Let's take it away. Right, what I've done now is I've set up a corner. This is a dark, remember, phone call, black V-flat. Sitting in the corner. I've got lots of natural light. What I'm gonna do now is treat this like a little photo booth. For me, I would do the fashion quarterly poses in here. I would do the cover girl poses in here. But because I wanna hit that age appropriateness, and I wanna have fun, and I want her to smile as well as look supermodel, I'm going to freestyle shoot for as much as I can in 10 minutes, and I'm going to treat this like a little bit of a fun photo booth and a fashion quarterly pose-y as well. So, on this box here, I've put her little denim jacket, and I think the denim jacket makes this dress look a lot younger than it is. I'm also gonna shoot it without the denim jacket so it looks older. I've got a couple of little black scarfs here so we can wrap them around her neck, and she can play with them and have fun with them, just so that we can have something like a little prop, and I've also put her hat here. So it's a gorgeous little hat. We're gonna play with it and have some fun with that. We're gonna ham up some fashion shots, but keep it fun, keep it young, keep it funky. So, I'm gonna freestyle shoot, and I'll talk you through it as I go, and I just want you to watch the way we're directing her, what works, what, you know. I think, too, I'm thinking of the finished product here. For me, in this age group, I wanna create maybe a nine-up series of her of nine shots, all in this sequence, but just doing fun different things, showing lots of personality, and making her look as gorgeous as I can. So, from here, let's start off exactly as you are right there. And I want you to do just typical cover girl. Just go hands, both hands, that's it. Now a little, in a little further with your hands. Good girl. Drop your shoulders down. Lift up nice and tall, and bring your chin towards me, straight away, and then down, stop. Don't move. Nice and close first, and we're on a timer for 10 minutes, so let's get going, good girl. Perfect. From here, I want you to slowly just turn away from me this way and kick forward with your hips, and then this back hand, just tuck in your elbow in, this one. That's right. Oops, sorry. Stay behind the elbow there. Long chin towards me, good girl, and bring your chin down now to that shoulder. Perfect. Now, from here, drop both hands down behind. Lots of shape, and keep this elbow bent slightly. Not so far. Good girl, perfect. Long chin, excellent, that's it, Tatiana, right there. And just work that shoulder forward, love. Good girl. Love that. Chin down a little wee bit more. Gorgeous, big smile, go. Love that, okay. From here, slowly turn away from me so you're looking over your shoulder. Little bit more, stop, and then chin down. That's absolutely beautiful. I'm just gonna turn this way and take one there, nope, I like it better here. And I want you to bring your shoulder up a little higher and give me a gorgeous, big, huge, smile, go. Okay, from here, turn back to me again. Let's grab a black scarf, so maybe that top one, and I just want you first to just put it around your neck and throw it over your shoulder. So, let it hang down the back, that's it, and bring it in under here, that's the one, perfect. From there, and from here, I just want you to cross your hands at the back, straight down, and I want you to just push out on one hip, and long chin towards me there. That's a girl. Don't move, and I'm gonna come into here. Long chin forward and down. There it is. Okay, here. From here, turn the scarf around so it comes from the front, that's the one, and I just want you to cross it over your body and to just fall into it this way. Okay, so instead of being hips towards me, just go hips back a little wee bit more, and hold it a little higher. That's the one, perfect. From there, long chin towards me, stretch your arms down so I can't see those hands. Use your shoulder in the front, and give me a gorgeous, big smile here. That's the one, okay. Fall into this pose for me. So I want your head to just tip, that's it, I love that. Okay, now, work that shoulder in the front. Gorgeous, big smile. Perfect, okay, from here, let's go, take that off. Or actually, no, wrap it around a couple of times, around your neck, so it's nice and thick around. That's right, that's it, once more. Okay, stay there. I'll just put that one over there, and then push this one back. So, it's like a really beautiful, thick necklace. That's the one, bring this here forward. All right. From here, I want you now just to hold your dress out like you were just doing then. So I'm just gonna step back. Keep your face towards me. That's a girl. Okay, now, lots of shape into your body. So you're just gonna, that's it, that's it, that's exactly right. Okay, now, I just want you to go step and kick your dress out this way. That's the one, I love that. Do it again, step, kick it out this way. That's it, perfect, perfect. Okay, now, do something completely different. I want you to maybe flick the skirt across like this. That's it, that's it, go back and when I say, you're gonna do it. I like that, go. I love that. That was perfect. Okay, let's do that one more time. Don't turn so far away from me, 'cause I didn't quite see your face. So as you turn, do a cross, and go. I love that. You need to do that with a big smile, though. Go again. Flick the other way. Okay, this time, do a flick back this way. So I want you to, that's it, do that, and do a beautiful, big smile. Go, move with me. Good girl, that was perfect. Okay, from there, take the scarf off. Let's play with the hat, well, actually, the jacket. The hat's gonna flatten the top of your hair. So let's put your jacket on, and from here, that's great. All right, now this is really fun. I really like that, jacket collar up. That's the one, perfect, and bring your hair forward now. All right, so this one here, what we're gonna do is I want it just like a normal photo booth, okay? So just do one where you're, just what you'd do with all your girlfriends in the photo booth, being silly. Just step forward to here again. That's it, don't move, perfect. All right, from here, I'm gonna go and, go. Lean forward a little wee bit, and just do a cute pose for, okay, that's it. Another one, look at me. Okay, and then a silly supermodel face, you know, like, and now do the duck face. (Sue laughs) Okay, so look straight into the camera. That's it. Beautiful, big smile. Good girl, that's gorgeous. Okay, from here, do peace sign. Yay, cheesy. (Sue laughs) Okay, hands down. Big crack-up face, go. Big laugh, ah, another one, another one. I love that. Good girl, that's perfect. Okay, from here, let's just do, button up your jacket at the bottom. That's it, that's perfect. One more. Perfect, and one more. Yep, exactly right. So kind of cover girl, again, but this time, this hand can go a bit lower. That's the one, long chin towards me here. I'm just gonna use the denim there. Okay, push your chin towards me now. Good girl, that's beautiful. Don't turn your chin away from me, this way. I just need a little bit more expression in your mouth and eyes. Good girl, that's the one. Right, from here, I want you now just to turn this way. Okay, stop. Long chin towards me. You've got it, perfect. Okay, now work the shoulder forward in the front here. Drop this hand down at the back, that one. Good girl, tip this way. Okay, and I want a huge, big smile, go. Okay, from here, bring this hand up into your hair this way, and I want you to, that's it, chin towards me and down. Huge, big smile, go with me. Nice, big smile. Laugh, laugh, laugh, yay. (Sue laughs) That was perfect; I love that. Okay, from here, jacket off. What's my timer? Okay, you need a hat. We're at eight minutes. You wanna see how many gorgeous shots I can get for you? Yep, straight on. That's it. All right, so now, this is your Vogue shot. So let it flop down, that's perfect. And I just want you to completely, like, vogue it up for me. That's it. I want your elbows in, good girl, and long chin towards me. Okay, that's it. Stay there. Now, push your chin towards me and down. And this time, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna bring it down here. That's the one, real Vogue, that's it. Now drop your bottom lip. Good girl, perfect, chin up. Absolutely gorgeous. Okay, from here, I just want you to hold this hat here and look down. Look down, eyes this way. Turn your hand side on. Soft fingers up onto the hat, that's the one. Eyes down. And bring your chin back to me. Chin up, eyes to me. That's a girl, stay there. Chin up, up, stop. Okay, from here, just go hand down here. Tuck those elbows right back. Chin up and long. I'm just gonna buff up your hair. That's it, don't move. I like that. Okay, from here, just go side on. Stop, kick back, and long chin. Don't move. Okay, turn back to the front, and let's just hold that hat. Now squish it down around you. That's it, big smile. Look down at the floor. Okay, from here, I want you to learn forward. Look down. Beautiful, big laugh, yeah, go. (Sue laughs) That was perfect. Okay, turn around the back, and just look over your shoulder here. All right, and from the front, just your back hand. I just want you to come up to here. Just touch your cheek, so just inside your cheekbone. That's it, I'm gonna pull that down. Chin around to me this way. Perfect. And, something else I think I'd do here is I'm just gonna finish you here. Just bring this little box in. Sit up on there and cross your legs. So, sit with your bum to the back, and then cross your legs over in the front. No, actually cross, like, sitting up. I'm gonna step back here. Criss cross. Yeah, criss cross. So, your skirt'll hide them. Okay. That's it, perfect, that's exactly right. So from here, put your elbows out, and tuck your elbows behind. Gonna get my little Vogue flop. There you go, perfect. Don't move. And long chin, lift up. Push forward towards me and down, towards me and down. Chin down a bit more. Now, chin up just a touch. Big smile, go. Perfect. Thank you so much. Was that 10 minutes? (Sue laughs) Gorgeous, I love that. What I wanna show you are the subtleties of how I move her in my frame, not the frame moving around her. One of the most important things that I'm constantly teaching people is the angle of where my camera is in relation to my client. So at the moment, we are exactly square to the backdrop, and the camera is exactly square to us. So no side angles. We're shooting very flat to the backdrop, 'cause we don't want that angled backdrop. We want that nice, flat backdrop. So I have to move Tatiana through my frame, and I can come forward and backwards as much as I want, but I will not change my angle in the sequence, okay? So what's really important is what you do with the body when it is looking straight at the camera. So one of the things that I was showing you before when I asked you to put your hands out and then back slightly was when you bend your elbows to the camera, when we tuck your elbows back, and when you tuck the elbows back to the front, instantly, it brings the body line into an hourglass again. So, this is such an odd position to show people, but it is so significant to the front of the camera. Now, if you have a curvier body like me, we're going to push the booty back. So as soon as we take the body back and out of the frame, instantly, I come forward. Now, it's really important that we don't have people like this, okay? Also, that people don't do this, and pin their shoulders back. So I always look at it like this. The hands go flat, and then the elbows just tuck in nice and tight to the waist, and it's a really, really simple move. Also, I'm making a lot of effort to constantly put shape in the body. So, even though we're doing teen poses today, I'm still gonna shape her body this way, okay? So these are your traditional red carpet poses, where we push the booty back, we come up onto one foot, and we get lots of shape. So if you do exactly what I'm doing this way, by pushing back, we wanna put lots of shape into the body here. Now, outfit makes a really, really big difference in how I'm gonna photograph her, and I think this little cute dress is entirely age-appropriate for her. It's almost couture, but it's not. It's cute. It's almost dress up. It's funky, you can have fun with it, but you can still do a really cute beauty shot here that's not over-sexy. So once I show images like this of girls this age, then all of the girls around this age start to bring in dresses like this, and, you know, they make sure that they bring in outfits that really suite their shoot. So, there's a couple of other things, real subtle things, that we do, keep this hand back up, is when you are lifting up nice and tall and looking at the camera, working that front shoulder forward. So I'm constantly connecting this front shoulder and the chin forward and down, okay? And then engaging the eyes by bringing the face forward and down, so you move with me too. So, do exactly the same thing, and then tucking these elbows back, because we don't want the front arm to dominate forward. So just really simple moves like this. Then I get them to drop this hand straight down, and see, when they drop it straight down, I lean back, because if I can create space in here and make this waistline look beautiful and make the shape look really model-y, this hand can hang straight down, and the chin can come all the way around to the front, and then the shoulder can work. And straight away, we start creating these little lines and these cute little poses that you can move around in. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna keep Tatiana on this plane. I'm just gonna move her around. I'm gonna get her to use her dress, and I'm gonna get her to cross the dress over. So if you hold that and cross over in the front, use your shoulder and your chin together so that she's always looking over her shoulder at me. Then from the front, I can get her to do those poses where her elbows tuck back. She's lifting up nice and tall and pushing her chin forward. If I want it to look more model-y, I can get her to bring her chin up and long and relax her mouth, and then I'm gonna use her hands across her body like this, so holding elbows, so it's like an arms folded position, but we want lots of movement in the shoulders like this. So, getting her to use her shoulders like this, and as soon as you see her using her shoulders, you see the whole body language change a lot in her dress. Also, for the younger girls, you can hold the front of the dress and cross the shoulders this way, which is really demure and cute, and you can do more down, looking this way and lots of sweet smiles instead of lots of supermodel faces. Keeping it friendly, keeping the movement, keeping it fun, and just keeping it on that line of really cute and really gorgeous. Let's go. Okay, so what I want you to do now is come there. So don't come towards me or back. You can stay on that plane. We'll just move from there. Okay, I want you to put your hands out flat and then tuck your elbows behind you, the way you did before. Good girl, that's exactly right. Don't pin your shoulders back too much. I'm just gonna bring your hair forward there and there, and long chin towards me now. Good girl, and down a little wee bit more. There, perfect. Okay, from there, love that. Okay, relax your mouth, lips together, and chin down just a little wee bit more. Chin down a little bit more, good girl. Right there, that's perfect. Okay, from here, I'm just gonna take one this way. So I want you to go there, stay there, stay there. For this one here, a little wee tiny smirk. That's it, little bit more. Good girl. I'm just going to put a nice little puff there, and a nice puff there. Okay, from here, that one, long chin towards me, Tatiana, chin this way just a tickle. Relax your mouth so complete that, you've got it. Stay there. Love that. Okay, from here, I want you to turn exactly side on to me, and I want you to do this. So instead of pushing back with your booty, I want you to, that's it, stay there, and just pushing the hair back. Don't move, right there. I love this. Okay, work that shoulder forward for me a little wee bit more, and then a beautiful, big smile. You've got it. From here, pull your eyes down this way, okay. All the way down, down to about here, that's it. Now, I just want you to do a huge, big smile, go. Okay, from this one, I want you to put your hands into your hair, just like this. So turn your body towards me, and just kick out, that's it, stay there, and I want you to just change onto your other foot, go. So change the weight, and just turn a little bit like that. So, just very subtly. Keep your chin forward, and kick your knee across in the front. So like, that's it. Now, big laughing smile. Do one more change. Go again, the other way, the other way, that's it. So I just need you to pull your hair out a little bit so, that's the one, look down. Big smile, go. Good girl, okay, change again. Come back this way, hands down, stop. I just love that big shape. Yeah, okay, stay there. Don't move. Now, I'm gonna go here. I just wanna create some space there. Just hold your skirt, that's the one. Perfect. That's beautiful. Now, bring your chin around. Engage your chin and shoulder to me. Bring that shoulder forward. Okay, from here, I want you just to fall. That's it, stop, don't move. Chin this way, long chin towards me. Okay, work that shoulder forward in the front. Good girl. Okay, I'm gonna come closer. Okay, chin, shoulder together, shoulder forward, shoulder forward. Okay, stand up tall. Bring this hand across. That's the one, elbow back. That's it, that's a really important move there. Elbow back, shoulder forward. Okay, from here, now, this hand here, just bring it, yeah, good girl, there. Okay, beautiful, big smile, go. Okay, hands into your hair more. So pull your hair out, there you go. Nice, big smile, good girl, okay. Drop that shoulder down, okay, relax your mouth. Lips together, and just look at me, there. Perfect. Okay, from here, I'm going to bring in this, oh, I might just keep you standing. Let's just do something a little bit more fun. Let's just go feet apart, and just flick up with the skirt. That way, that's it. Perfect, perfect, okay. So I'm gonna get you on the move. So I want you to go to the other side, and go. Okay, eyes to me, though. Do that again, go. Okay, from there, what I want you to do is turn away from me, turn back, and just flick your dress back, that's it, and as you do, just, when you come back, reset to here so that you're looking straight at me. Go. That's it, do it one more time. Perfect, do it again, one more time. In fact, go the other way. Tatiana, turn around that way, and come back this way. That's the one, go. I love that. That was beautiful. Okay, from here, let's do a really fun one. So I just want you to go like crazy, just jump up and down. All right ready, and go. (Sue laughs) One more time, go. I love that, one more time, go. (Sue and Tatiana laughing) That was perfect. One more time, go. (Sue laughs) Gorgeous, I love it. Okay, from here, I want you, let's just go this, I'm gonna bring in this white box. Here. Okay, so before, when you sat down on it and you were cross-legged, this time, what I want you to do is sit on one of your feet. So I want you to do that. So, you can sit with your foot up in the front and just your skirt over there, so that you can bring your hands up. Okay, in fact, I've got a little box, I'm gonna get that, and let's sit here. So let's sit with your, just don't fall off. (Sue laughs) Good advice, don't fall off. All right, yep, so you're gonna put your bum on there, just on the edge. That's it, sit down. No, no, no, just both feet down. Okay, yep, you can sit on this. You won't fall off. All right, now you can turn towards the camera. Turn towards the camera. Just put your skirt between your knees so that you don't feel like you're flashing. That's it; just don't lean back. (Sue laughs) All right, from here, just leave it now like that. That's perfect. And I just want you to learn forward onto your knees. I'm gonna shoot this quite close-up. So I can't see your legs. You might be able to just put one down, actually. Can you touch the ground? Not quite, oh, you can. Okay, so just bring this knee across, there, and lean onto this knee, okay. Instead of forward, there. That's the one, love that. All right, and what I want you to do here is I just want you to bring this elbow through there. So let this one hang down, that's the one. Cross a bit more, perfect. Okay, sitting up nice and tall. That's a girl. So, chin straight up, that's it, stay there. And lift up nice and tall. Chin down now, okay, really give me those eyes. Okay, lips together, little smirk. Just drop the shoulder down a little wee bit more and bring it in here. Good girl, chin towards me. Stay there, chin down. Okay, now give me a slight fall this way. Bring this hand up, and just lean onto it. So cup the face there. That's it, stay there. Bring that hand in. That's it. And bring your chin this way, all right. As you can see, I could just keep going. I could think of a million ways to just keep photographing her. I want her to sit down. I want her to stand up. I want her to jump around. But more importantly, what I want is to just keep her body language really young, fun, gorgeous, and just watch from the front, simple things like this. If I bring her hand across, I cover her cleavage line, okay? If I wanna open that up and make it all sexy, I can pull her body back here and then push her chin forward. So if I wanna open up the diamond, which is the feminine part of the body, I can open up the body language. I can also make these arms, but them out here and just really sort of, you know, play with the hair. I can play with her face. Or I can bring both elbows up and just make it more cutesy and more girly. So, I can put your knee across it. Both elbows are on the front there. I can cup her face, and I can bring it in and just make it real teen. So I just try and really watch where the hands are, what the hands are doing, but for me, it's a really good highlight to show you how much body language changes an image, how much an outfit changes an image, and also, what she's doing with her face. So I kind of stay away from that duck mouth and that open mouth fashion pose, and I just try and keep it, that little wee smirk there, so that little subtlety when you put your chin forward and that gorgeous smile, and you'll notice a lot with her, I'm always getting her head to tip to one side, because when the head tips and there's a big smile, there's a really good body language through that. I'm just gonna show you the subtleties of the wall, okay, in an actual shot. So, like we did when we first started out, I just want you first to lean your upper body back until it touches the wall. Your weight is on the back foot. I just want you to let this hand hang, that's it, and then bring your chin all the way 'round. So just a nice, simple shot like that. The body is not really in any shape. We're not really bringing any attention to the hourglass. I'm gonna take a still of that and show you. Okay, nice little expression. Good girl, just like that, perfect. Okay, so right here, this is probably the shot here, is where I start with 10, 11, 12 year old girls. Something that also looks really cool is if you turn around to the wall, put your hands on the wall, lower there, and both hands together, and then I want you to look back at the camera this way, and then tip your head towards the wall this way. So just something that cute, and that looks really great on window line. I'll take a still of it to show you. So, I just want you to use your tip there and then bring your chin, that's perfect, don't move. Good girl, Tatiana, that's great. So just so, FYI, I'm shooting at 2.8 still. I'm still at 320, and my shutter speed I'm just toggling depending on the light. So, turning back with your back to the wall. Now, this time, I want you to step your body away from the wall, and I want you to lean back more. I want you to put that hand there. So I want the whole back of your arm on the wall. Good girl. And then I want this space here. So as soon as I put this space in here, I bring this hand up, remember, to accentuate the hip, and then this elbow tucks back, and now, as I roll her body away from the camera, there, and I bring her chin back to you, I start to define her body line more. So I'm going to show you this pose, shot, and I want you now to bring your chin around me. That's it, stop. And now, just very gently, have a look at this. See how her shoulder's flat against the wall? Work the shoulder forward off the wall, and then your chin down, and have a look at that. See the body language change in that pose straight away? So now, what I'm gonna do is take it to here. Now lift your chin up to me. Tip your head back to the wall, and I want you to relax your mouth. Good girl, perfect. As I start to make her pose more sort of curvier and bring more attention to her body, you can see a big shift in the final product. So now what I'm gonna do is take it one step even further, and I'm going to get you to roll back onto the shoulder more. Stay there with your hand. Keep your hip away from the wall. Really accentuate your waist. Bring the shoulder around, and really connect your chin and your shoulder together, but lean back 'til you're just touching that wall. That's it. Now from here, we're there. Chin all the way around to the front. Nice connection in chin and shoulder, and I'm just gonna go a little bit closer here. Now, this is what's gonna do it. I'm gonna take the weight on the back foot, and I'm gonna kick your bum back to the wall. Good girl. See how that puts that shape into the front of her body, keeping that one there, touching down, working the front shoulder. Let me take a shot of this, and bring your chin around to me now. Lips together. Get the top of your head back, stop, there it is, beautiful, and a little wee smile, tiny in the eye. You got it. So as soon as I start to really shape up her body, and then again, just like we showed at the demo at the front, we hold the elbows in the front, the cross. Now, if we were gonna make this really sexy, we could just bring the shoulder forward and sit right back into those shoulders. Chin around, so we've got nice body language here. Little wee smirk, or we can flatten the body down, put this hand around, work that, and bring the chin around this way, and just be more up and down. And now, nice, friendly smile. Good girl, a little bit more, chin around to me a little bit more? Beautiful. And I think that there is a significant difference in that body language and those really subtle moves. So I'm gonna change her position. What I love about this dress is that it's a sweet, innocent dress, and it's very good for her age, but you can still make it look really beautiful. I just wanna show you the back wall. So more of a cover girl, but just keeping it really simple. So if we just turn flat to the wall here, there, and come away from the wall, that's exactly right, now, what we do all the time is when we put the hands out flat and then push her elbows back. Okay, so from the front, that tapers the waist straight away, but although it tapers the waist and it makes the waist and body look good, there's still no curvy line in there. So let's show you another, another option to this. If her hand was out there flat, right, hands flat, and elbows back, when I shoot that from the front, that's my quintessential cover girl shot. So I'm gonna take a shot here, like that, pushing your chin forward. Now, not so far with your elbows. You pushed back too far. You're quite flexible, that's a girl. Now, just bring your chin towards me and down. That's the one, and just stand up nice and tall, chin down a little wee bit more, more, stop, you got it, right there, little wee smile here. Good girl. But it's very different from doing this. Come up into cover girl, so just hand onto your hip. This hand goes onto the other side, and I want you to kick your body out that way. That's it. And this elbows shapes around the body, and as soon as we start shaping her body and pushing it out, that's when we start getting curvy lines like this. Okay, then we'll have a look at that, and chin comes this way. Drop your shoulders. Lift up nice and tall with your head and shoulders. Bring your chin towards me. Relax your mouth. That's a girl, more. Chin up a little bit more. That's it. And you're here, soft eyes. Good girl, that's beautiful. Okay, from there, makes a really big difference into the body language. So, if she was 13, 14, I could still pin the shoulders down, or I could just leave them flat like this, and also, remember, for younger girls, looks really good when you tip this way with me. Tip and smile. (Sue laughs) Tip and smile looks really good, tip and smile. Okay, so just work that wall pose, and just work through those poses for me. Have a look at the body language, see how much of a difference it makes. I think it's very subtle, and it's very beautiful.

Class Materials

bonus material

Business Checklist
Keynote Part 1
Keynote Part 2
Posing Guide: Set Map and Outfit
Posing Guide: Flow Posing
Posing Guide: Couples Posing
Posing Guide: Curves
Posing Guide: Teen Posing
Posing Guide: Family Posing
Posing Guide: Over 50 Demographic
Posing Guide: Beauty Shot
Posing Guide: Posing Men
Workbook
How It Works
Styling and Wardrobe

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I have purchased four of Sue's courses and love them all. I have learned so much. I found the lesson on connecting with people thru their eyes has made a huge difference in my photos already. Her before and after's made me cry. I want to be able to take these kinds of photos for my family and friends. I just love what she does. She is such a great teacher. I learn much better seeing things done, so this was the perfect choice for me to learn. I love Sue's humor, her honesty, her detailed teaching and sweet and wonderful personality. Her sessions will or should not disappoint anyone. It is the best money I have ever spent on self-help teaching. Thanks a million creative live. You GOTTA LOVE SUE!

katie
 

Pure gold. Sue Bryce is likable, talented, funny, and an amazing teacher. She calls you on your BS (your excuses for why you aren't succeeding), gives you business, posing, marketing, pricing and LIFE advice. The class is 58 hours long - and you spend the majority of it looking right over her shoulder, through her lens and watch her walk through many, many photoshoots. She verbally and clearly repeats several critical formulas for success so it's imprinted in your mind. Her advice is crystal clear and your photography will dramatically improve after this class. Before Creative Live, you'd NEVER have had the opportunity to shadow a photographer of her quality... hands down the best photography class I've ever taken.

JRomkee
 

I have just began this course and I am excited to see how following her model will help me to improve and get my business started. I have been through the first two days and there is lots of information to absorb and things to get in order before I begin the actual challenges. I am thankful that there are photographers out there who are will to reveal there secrets ad are truly invested in others improving themselves in all aspects of their life and not just their photography skills. Thanks Sue Bryce for your passion for empowering woman and your knowledge of creating and sustaining a business by being true to who you and commitment to the improvement of others! I am excited to grow myself and my business, I am confident this will be worth every penny! Were the templates for the email PDF included in this course

Student Work

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