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Key Foundations for Boudoir Posing

Lesson 9 from: Boudoir Photography Bootcamp

Jen Rozenbaum

Key Foundations for Boudoir Posing

Lesson 9 from: Boudoir Photography Bootcamp

Jen Rozenbaum

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Lesson Info

9. Key Foundations for Boudoir Posing

Lesson Info

Key Foundations for Boudoir Posing

Okay guys, we are going to start our opposing segment and this is big right? This is really important how many of you struggle with posing in any way, shape or form? Everybody okay? Me too sometimes um so today we're going to talk mostly about the foundation opposing this is the big posing segment please guys ask questions there's a lot of information here I'm goingto talk fast, eh? So basically we've already talked about my goal is as a boudoir photographer, right? My goal is for every woman to feel shamelessly feminine in her own unique way, right? So this is really important and how do I do that? Well, for me, I think it starts with the great pose okay posing wardrobe these air all ingredient that we have working together today we're going to concentrate on the posing part of it and you're going to see that you know, when we work with the models in the next couple of segments, I'm not so worried about their wardrobe as I'm worried about showing you their body and how it's going to m...

ove and how it's gonna work but we'll see in this segment wardrobe plus posing how it works together but for me really it starts with the great post so I want to give you a tool box like a virtual toolbox that you could walk into every shoot with you can't see it it's invisible you know, we walk in with our gear and our lights and our lenses and our cameras and everything else and we think we have all the tools there but it's really not enough for a good good wash you you need to have this virtual toolbox of education knowing how to move a woman to make her look good and how to communicate with her to get her to that point so I'm going to give you this tool box this is the start of that uh I want you to increase your confidence again we're talking about confidence in every single segment having only confidence you know, in pricing we talked about confidence and wardrobe, confidence and preparation and confidence imposing so this is really where you can start building your confidence so for me posing as the quickest and easiest way to increase your client satisfaction and I'm not saying that taking group in picture isn't important I'm not saying that you're lighting is an important or your f stop is an important all of that is part of the recipe but for me, if you have all things equal if you leave here with everything the same as when you came in except you have five new posing trick your pictures are going to be better period okay women don't care when they look at a picture if they're properly exposed, they want to make sure they're properly exposed right? Two different things. Um, they they don't care, and I'm not like I said, I'm not saying it's not important. It is definitely important. And we talk about that in the lightning segments and all that. But this is about making sure a woman looks really amazing. So what makes a good pose? How do we know we have a good pose? Basically a good pose. Number one flatters the subject. You're going to hear me say this again and again. The most important thing is that your client looks as good as she looks in real life, if not better. We're always aiming for, if not better. Of course. Whatever better is better might mean curvy or better. Might mean slimmer. Better might mean taller. Better might mean shorter. Whatever better is. Okay, so this is not just about making a girl look smaller. This is about making her look better than she looks in real life. You know that expression? The camera adds ten pounds? No. The photographer adds ten pounds. Okay. That's, my theory. Lens choices, angle's. All of that is what adds ten pounds. Because you have the power to add or you have the power to take it away. Most women want to take it away, so when that client calls you and says, well, I'm ready to book with you, except I really need to lose ten pounds. You could say, don't worry, I can do that for you. I could do that cause I know how to do that. Imposing between wardrobe, imposing in my decisions, I'm gonna help you don't worry about that. Okay, so it's it's, the photographer that adds ten pounds, not the camera. Uh, good post gets your point across. All right, so I've seen a lot of pictures where is lots of mixed messages? Like trying to think of an example? Like, how about you're in a really moody lighting set up, it's, dark she's wearing very sexy lingerie and it's very sensual, and the girls like this, right? I've seen it. I mean, I've done it. I'm not just making fun of other people like I've done that. Well, what do you what point are you trying to get across here? The pose has to match your environment. The pose has to send the signal of what you want the pose, the expression all of that together is telling the viewer this is what I want you to see, this is the story that I'm telling. So if your pose is a good pose but it doesn't match up with the environment you're gonna lose the message people going looking to go I don't know what to make of this I'm just going to move on okay it's not going to be successful and the last thing is opposed will create interest in your image that's really important so we are not just photographers right? We're artists were trying to create interesting images and part of that is composition it as shape it's negative space do you guys know a negative space is ok because I had somebody asked me one time in a workshop it was the best question I've ever gotten why did they call it negative space if it's so good I was like that is a brilliant question will explain todo eso negative space is like for example if I but my hand on my waist and this is this negative space right here that means it's empty basically I love negative space in pictures you know even tohave like somebody right in like the third of the picture and the rest of it is just negative space nice and empty eso these things create interest shapes like I said the shape of the body creating curves all of this is really creates interest that that's how we know if we have a good pose if it fits into all of these categories okay, this is not like an ef or thing by the way either this is like you need to have all these ingredients together so here's something at my blow your way a little bit um I don't believe in body types now I know that there is a million photographers out there that talk about body types and I think that that's wonderful if it works for them, I don't believe in body types I've shot enough women to understand that if you line ten women up here right now that we're all the size for they would all have totally different bodies, ok? I know for me for example, I am a size four and I'm curvy I have problems with jeans I felt we were to talk about how I have to have the altered because if they fit over my butt, they're not going to fit my waist. Okay, so I am kirby, but I'm a size four but somebody could come into my studio that's a size sixteen and be straight as an arrow and have no curves at all. So why are we trying to fit women into body types based on their jeans, size or clothes they wear? It doesn't make sense to me so I don't believe in body types but I do believe in when I'm posing is proportion that is so important okay, proportion is the key to making a woman look good I look at her and I say okay, is she more bottom heavy or her arm's longer than maybe somebody else's or she really taught her legs really long maybe that's a good thing maybe I want her legs look really long does she have a short torso? Does have a long torso is she top heavy? Okay, so all of these things or what I'm looking at on a girl, not her body type, not her jeans size I don't really care about that questions on that because I know it's a little bit of a different way of thinking okay, so I've developed these eight points of the body that I check every single time I click the camera and we're gonna talk about this a lot, so don't panic but these are the eight different points and I got these points from those armature dolls that come from drawing classes you guys ever seen alec and figure drawing classes? And by the way, I do have a history of figure drawing. I've been drawing figures since I was like thirteen years old. Um, you know, nude figures and it's funny how I never really realized how it helps me in my posing until somebody actually pointed it out to me like you're a really good poser I was like, I am I don't understand I just see it this way but I realized that my history of drawing has really helped so I kind of went back to that basics okay? How is drawing gonna help people in boudoir posing and this was the first case the armature dolls have big joints that you could move the dolls and this is every one of those joints. Okay, so starting from the head down we have the neck, the shoulders, elbows which I consider the arms we have the waste the hips, knees, ankles I think I got it all because I'm not looking at the screen, but those of the eight points going all the way down that I look at every single time. So how did I develop these points besides just the armature doll? Basically, we talked about this the other day, right, julian that you book it all of your good pictures, right? Like, what do you guys do when you you take you to a shoot, right? You upload your photos, I'm assuming I'm going to say what I do, you shake your head if you agree, I upload my photos let's have five hundred pictures and I pick one hundred pictures that are my favorites what happens the other four hundred somebody tell me what you do with the other four hundred pictures ha ha exactly way want to pretend like they never existed? I didn't even prompt you on that that was a good way pretend like they never existed because those unsuccessful photos as I like to call them are our failures right? Those air no good so we try to get them out of our memory and out of our light room as soon as possible because we don't want to admit that they exist but here's the thing what would happen if you actually looked at those four hundred photos way longer than you looked at the hundred pictures or what would happen if you looked at the four hundred photos compared to the hundred pictures you took and you understood why those hundred pictures are better than the four hundred that you want to throw out? Maybe next time you would get two hundred good pictures and two hundred that you want to throw away right? So we are photographers our job is to observe things right but do we really see see like I feel like do we really like we see things? We're really, really, really looking we really looking why does it look better when her chin is out and down versus up and out? Why? You know why on a curve your girl that's bottom heavy let's say does it look better when her hips are away from the camera versus a girl who's slimmer and her hips or toward the copper? Do you know why you're never going to know this unless you start looking at your pictures and you start seeing trends in ok every single time I push your hips away from the camera she tends to look better so I'm going to keep that as a mental note next time I'm going to make sure her hips or away from the camera but you guys we don't do that because we don't look at our old pictures, so I have spent a lot of hours looking I've done it for you you don't have to worry, but I've spent lots of hours looking at my unsuccessful photos I don't like to call them bad pictures because that's just mean to them because they're not bad they're just not as good as the good ones, right? So I've spent a lot of time comparing and contrasting I want you guys really think about doing the same thing on your next shoot look at the ones that don't work and try to understand why so that this way next time a girl comes in that maybe has the same issue, she doesn't have a very strong jaw line or she has more junk in the trunk or her arms are in his nice is she thinks that they are next time you have that girl, you know what to do with her okay. Yes. Okay. So one thing I really want to make clear is that our eyes I have brains attached to them that make them work. Okay, I know this is this is really basic. Your guys were like, does she think we're, like, ridiculous right now would think about it. Okay, when I look at something like, for example, I could look at your notebook over there work. Alan, I know that it's white, right? Cause I my brain says that that's why? It's paper? I know papers white, but the truth is, when I look at it right now and I look at it under these lights, it's kind of grayish blue, actually. So if I had if I was a painter on had a mix of color to paint that I would mix a grey blue I wouldn't make so why? I wouldn't take quite out of the way jar and use it so my brain is determining white balance for me. Okay, my brain is saying thats why it now based everything else off of it, knowing that that's white okay, our cameras can't do that. So we are our brain for our camera. Our camera does not have a brain. Because following me on this okay so here's that they you'll hear me say it probably even when we're shooting during this class is when I put a client on opposing she'll say does this look right and I don't know I can't see without my camera because what I see with my brain and my eyes it might be different than what my camera sees because my camera doesn't have that brain so I'm mai brain is automatically making assumptions and it's making changes in what I see I need to say to my camera camera these are the changes my brain is making I'm going to translate them to you and I want you to make the same changes so we see the same thing having you all done this will you look at something it looks great you take a picture doesn't look anything like what you see that's because your brain and the camera are not on the same page so you have to be the boss of that camera okay that's that's decision making as faras the pose the lenses the distance everything else so whenever I shoot I take a picture I stopped and I looked to see what the camera sees all too often I see photographers doing this okay let's change the pose I go where you don't even look at what you got how do you know it looks good well looks good no, but you don't know if your camera is seeing what you're seeing stop for a minute every two to three frames I stopped and I looked to see that the camera and I are in agreement I used to think when I first started that if I stopped and I looked at the back that my clients would think I didn't know what I was doing because I should just be us so good at this I could just do this all day and I don't have any problems right? But now I realize that they trust me even more when I stop and I look and I go you know what? I want you to put your hit back even a little tiny bit more let me take a picture yes that's it right there that's perfect and it's that's part of the communication imposing I mean, you'll see when I work with the models that I'm like yes, you know like and I get excited like, oh my god, yes don't move you look so hot don't move and she's going to hold that post like an inch of her death because I just told her she looks hot and that you know in it I don't stop and say, oh, I'm doing a really bad job here, you know I stopped okay let's make a couple of adjustments I want you to look even hotter and she goes with that that's okay so it's okay to take your time it's okay to pause and look and it's and it's not even okay it's important to do it okay yes, great. You know, this isn't really a question but it's more of a you know, a statement on that I used to do sports photography and you cannot chimp when you doing sports photography but as I saw his shooting women you have to make sure that everything's in frame everything set up right the lighting's good and whatnot so you know, I agree with you a hundred percent on that yeah I mean, haven't you guys ever like loaded up your pictures? You go? Oh, I I just told her to move her chin a little bit she would've looked so much better I wish I had seen that this is going to stop that this is going to prevent that not one hundred percent I still do it sometimes too you get in the groove and you're just not thinking in your lego we're connecting and this is awesome I'm just going to keep shooting but fruit for ninety nine percent of the time this is going to stop that that pain and that agony question um I always feel like when I look at the back of my camera that it makes the model self conscious that I'm that she's not doing something right so how what's a good way to kind of get around that okay I'm going to say something you might not love but hear me out for a second that is your insecurity not hurt in security she's expecting you to look at the pictures why wouldn't you look at the pictures you're the photographer that's your job to actually look at the photos ugh I'm assuming are feeling insecure and if I checked these pictures she's going to think I don't know what I'm doing I'm double checking myself and that's not the truth aaron it is your job to look at those photos okay? You know when we should hear we're going to shoot tethered do you think that I'm not going to stop and look at what I'm doing and make sure it's okay like can you even imagine as a photographer I don't stop and look and say ok let's see if our lighting looks good let's see if the poles looks good it's my job to look at those photos is that make sense? Do you feel insecure about looking at the back of your camera or do you not do another is what is what I'm saying resonating with you at all or do you just think I'm crazy? I don't think you're crazy not yet know it definitely does I and I think what you were just saying about when you actually do look at it that you're saying I'm I'm not seeing in the camera what I'm seeing right now, so let's make some adjustments and then it kind of puts it on it makes you look like the expert what you are on dh, then I can see how that would build their trust exactly, and I'm going to take it a step further. I'm going to teach you such good posing that you were going to show her the back of the camera and you're going to get to the point where you look at the back of the camera, I'm gonna go god, you look sick right now and you're gonna show her and she's going to go, yeah, this is awesome! Let's keep going and you're going to build her confidence and you're building your confidence. So looking at the back of the camera is super super important for that too question, um, you know, feeding off of erin's question what I ended up goingto overcome back when I had that same exact problem. I just give positive feedback all the time to the model. You know, even if the image is garbage, I'm not letting her know that it's garbage it's just like, oh my god, you look really good let me just play around with this and then I get that good photo and then I show it to the model and she has all the confidence in me, right? So for me, I do appreciate that for me, I don't live, she looks bad on me like this is not working for me, but it's not you, it's me. So let me do the job to get you into a better pose because you are kicking out like you are listening to everything I say and you're working really hard and I'm going to get you there so let's do this together, we're in this together, you know? And we are in this together. I mean, when I shot at the hotel the other day, I said to the model, listen, whatever happens, just do what I tell you to dio that's all you need to dio just do what I tell you to do if you do that, we're good, so we're working together, I'm giving the instructions you are taking it. If you fight me on it, you do your own thing, you do whatever we're going to have a problem, but if you just do what I tell you to do, I'll do my part, you do your part, I was just going to ask when you if you put them in a pose and it's really not working, how do you then just change, make small changes to that pose? Or do you say nose scrap it? Yes, we're going to see that a little bit more imposing flow the opposing flow segment. But, yes, I will make some small changes and at some point, if it's not good, I just abort and I just say to her, you know what? This isn't working for me so let's pick something that is working that's it and it's okay, I take the responsibility. I am totally messing up right now, so let me do something to fix it, and they go, okay, okay. So, um, again, it's not just knowing the points, but how to use them. So there is that expression, like, if it bends, bend it, but that doesn't always make for a good pose, right? So it's not just knowing that you should bend it or move it isn't me how to move it, to get the look that you're going for. Um, so we're going to talk about that. This is anna lisa, and she does not have the measles. I know it's like going around now, right, um, the every spot where she has a dot is one of the points that I've checked now let's talk about you know that song like the knee bone's connected to the hip bone or whatever this is true for posing also, for example, if I did not have her knee in this position, her hit would not have this curve. Okay, if her hip wasn't like this and I wouldn't have the nice curve of her waist. All right, if her arms weren't this way, then maybe I wouldn't see her body. Everything is connected, you guys, this is not thes eight points all work together. It is not like a individual point these air how they all work together. It works standing up also. Same idea. Okay, we have a nice s shape. We have some nice negative space here. Okay? Her expression ish is is working with the pose and here's the thing you guys, you're going to notice us a lot about my photography is that she is the picture? She is the picture there's. Nothing environmental in this photo whatsoever. There's no bed there's no night table there's no lamp there's. No, nothing there's, nothing here. If I don't have a killer pose, I have nothing have no image if she was just standing there like this you'd be bored to death, but this gives you a lot of interest and a lot of things to look at and it's telling a story, and you're wondering why the hell she's standing there in sweat pants in her bra? And, you know, whatever it is that you're thinking, but the truth is that this is the image the post makes the image here. So here in this image, we only have four points, right? But here's the thing if I didn't check that fifth point or any of the other points going down for that matter, I wouldn't have this negative space here, so if she was just standing straight up on her tush wasn't pushed all the way back, then she wouldn't have this great negative space. So I check all eight points, even when they're not in the frame. Okay, it's really important. Okay, so before I get it's like the real breaking it down, I just want to make a couple of fast notes here. Um, first of all, rules are meant to be broken, because inevitably, somebody will email me your message. Mango. I looked on your website and you broke your own rules, and I swear to god the police are not going to show up a few break rules, however. No the rules before you break them breaking them is awesome but you have to know them to break them otherwise that's called an accident sometimes happy accidents happen but we don't want accidents happen we want to be in control of what we're doing whether it's rule following or not so this may be canoeing again another day if we want to recreate it we don't necessarily want accidents we want some control accidents are okay as long as we learn from them but we want to control also there were no liquefy tools hurt in the making of this presentation I where the truth is I actually didn't even really know how to use liquefy until fairly recently only a couple of years ago and I really try not to use it almost all in and I'll show you during the post processing how I use it and when I use it and how little of it I actually used but I really do believe that getting it right and camera has saved me an eternity in front of my computer it is the last place I want to be hate editing terribly and I just don't want to I want to be able to show my client the back of the camera go look at how awesome you look I don't want to say to her in a while like I do look amazing can I see no can't say that scary right then, she's gonna freak she's going to run out your studio, but if you're like, yeah, I could show you look amazing. So this is the thing, and ah, lot of these pictures are completely unedited. They're straight out of camera, and I'm doing that to show you literally what a difference it makes to move things the right way. So if you see bruises or cuts or blemishes but it's, just because they're unedited pictures, they're totally unedited. Um, okay. Let's, start questions before we start getting into the actual body. Okay, we're gonna start with the head, the neck tin chain. Out on down is something I say a lot to note it down and it's like, just a little movement. It really strengthens the jaw line. It's really, really important. Um, we want to make sure we have a defined jawline for sure. Um, and also makes your eyes appear larger. So take a look at this. This is lauren. Have to remember everybody's name so hard. This is lauren. And when I tell her in my studio, okay. Can you just stand there with your hands on your waist? She goes like this. Everybody does that. Do you notice that it's, like when you're born, your hands at a guidebook? This is to be a woman, you need to raise your chin and every picture, so you don't have a double shin, but it's, actually not true. The chin out and down is much more successful. Look at the difference between the two. I mean, her eyes here, although gorgeous, and we see the eye makeup, her eyes look so much larger in that photo and that's really what her eyes looked like, right? Also, her neck looks unusually long out of proportion here does not in the other photo. So that's, the other thing, when we're raising our channel about, we're making our next look out of proportion don't like that remember proportion is everything for me. Be careful, you don't take it too far, this is what that looks like. Um, this is a model that I was working with, that she just I had to keep reminding her, and she just went too far, and now she has no neck that's also out of proportion, and it looks strange. This is a common mistake, and we're goingto do this again when we do posing for I'm going to show you guys had to do this successfully, but this is a very common posed anybody see what's wrong? I mean it says it on here, so I guess I can't ask but she's out of proportion look at how big her far ahead is compared to the rest of her face she has no chin and barely see her lips her face is completely out of proportion I want to see those things I want to see lips I want to see her face lips are very sensual don't lose them I've seen even worse what girls turns you down even more nose covers the lips that's oh that's our noses don't do that don't make it look like it does so we want to make sure we raise that chin all way up and again I will show you guys how to do that also, it avoids all those forehead wrinkles and the under the other white under the eyes have you ever seen those pictures, right? I'm not making fun, I've done it, I've totally done it, but I learned you can't do that you have to come all the way up in your head, okay, this will be get something like this much more in proportion. We see her actual face, she has lips and her body is still looks great but she is really uncomfortable and and that's something you need to discuss with your clients to guys um uncomfortable is normal. Take two advil tomorrow and stop complaining cause you're gonna look hot today. And the thing is, if you're not sore tomorrow you work hard enough for me. And the more it hurts, the better it looks thes air things I say all the time in my studio again and again, the more it hurts, the better it looks. She goes all. Then I must be doing it right. Okay, you know, I have, like, yoga instructor's coming there like I teach yoga. I'm not going to the store, and they're like, oh my god, what are you doing to make, uh, that's normal. They think they're coming for a wonderful, sexy fun day. It's a lot of work to model it's, a lot of work. And this is also why I sort of limit my session it's about two hours because after two hours, they hate me a lot, so I try to not push it past two hours. Um, in fact, I didn't wash. You want sally was there is my support. Right remember what I was like have we had two hours? Yeah, because I'm done with everything photographers like it was two hours and fifteen minutes and then I'm done I'm out like I can't do it anymore it's exhausting it's really, really hard you want them to finish like five minutes before they get to that point, you know you want them to leave and be like, oh my god, I had the best time with jen not like, oh my god, I'm so tired, you know you want them to leave on that high note um all right? Turning and tilting with your head they look different, I have said to clients all time turn your head and they tilt it, tilt your head and they turn it so just is one of those instructions I would do it can you just do this till this month? But they look different I mean same girl, same pose, same lighting one is tilting, one is turning and they do look different, right? So try them and this might be a case where she's like, oh my god, I love them both. They're both so different. Maybe I'll just put them both in my album so that's like we're making just really small changes that it looked different enough for them to love both images question on the head I told you is a lot of information like I'm not even breathing so yeah yeah do you find yourself working from like the head downs like head check you know, shoulders check now when I pose I start with the hips usually um and you will see that as s o I'm not doing any shooting in this segment but imposing flo I am and in uh best selling shot I will be actually shooting and I will show you how I do that uh that's basically called the foundation pose and we're going we'll talk about that in those segments when you're working on the neck are you looking at everything in the head like the eyes her lips yes so coach on things like breathe through your lips so she's not there's a rudy holt attention somewhere in their body it's usually in the lips right and then when you go okay, can you well actually they go yeah, no problem. All right, so then we moved to the shoulders and then you're like no, just relax your shoulders, okay? You know the whole tension somewhere and usually in especially in the beginning of the thie shoot they're always like tent somewhere so yeah coat looking at the lips looking at the eyes, making sure the eyes are in the right spot like often I have my clients looking down and they're just kind of half looking down I don't want to see half eyeball I want you to totally be looking down or like looking off to no man's land and all I see is white in their eyes so we want to make sure their eyes are in the right spot you want to make sure their head has not turned so far that you lose the other half of their face if you don't want to things like that so yeah thats all incorporated in in the head that's something that you want to check good question uh okay shoulders shoulders are what I like to call the gateway to the chest and I hope you guys laugh at some of these silly things I say because that's how you're going to remember like you're going to do it you know I remember jen said it was the gateway to the chest but it is it's sort of like the gate the guards right to the chest um and opening up the shoulders really can change a pose it's really very important so this is a perfect example of that and I've shown this image before but it's such a good example of it that I need to do it again um this is amanda and amanda I mean can somebody tell me what they feel that their body language is saying on amanda's picture I mean it's a good picture and amanda's adorable and you know she would be happy with it is a client but for me is a photographer I look at this picture and it tells me something anybody wanted to tell me what they think it has more in she does look guarded yes one hundred percent because she's pulling her arm forward now this is a this is a typical moving people do what you say can you flirt with me a little or give me a little something they kind of do this it's my least favorite boudoir movie ever because first mom losing her neck secondly she is her body language is saying stay the hell away from me I don't want I don't want to be around you right so we have to be really be aware of that not to mention the army is coming toward the camera which is not very flattering period and it's also blocking her back I always want to make sure I see her curves we're going to talk about that as we get more into waste so all I did was look at the picture and say hey man to do me a favor pop your shoulder back and she did that and this is what we get three second command maybe not even and it totally changed the picture and let's go back and forth once again and see how it changed it to see how our arm look bigger here and here it looks so much more toned and she's worked hard for that, you know, guys like they go to the gym and they work hard for their sessions you need to respect that too, and show off their bodies in the way that they want to be seen. Um the thing that I love the most is this negative space it gives us a nice triangle shape, which is really flattering, but it also makes her look thinner because here I'm only measuring her is this wide with my eyes, right? But in this picture are measuring her isn't this wide so my brain is saying she's actually thinner in the second picture now my goal wasn't to make her look thinner. My goal was to make her look as good as she looks in real life, if not better and this is what she looks like in real life. This is not what she looks like in real life, okay? But let's also look at her chest for a second here I'm not getting any cleavage, she has a nice chest, so we're obviously singing that she has a nice chest, but we're not really getting any of the goodies like we're boudoir photographers we want those goodies right here we're getting more cleavage, it's more attractive, it's more of what we're looking for, right? So just that three second command and I just feel like her neck looks longer, too, now that I'm looking at it right doesn't her neck with longer because her hair is most moved out of the way proportionally and body language and everything. This is a much more successful photo however it's a c tiny little change was just a small little thing, so we're not talking about like, groundbreaking moves here you guys were talking about little tiny changes. Ah, few of you I actually chose to be in the audience specifically because I looked at your pictures and I went, you know what? A few little changes are going to make these pictures so much better so much better. So this is like we're talking little change, big impact, broad shoulders tend to be a more masculine trait and there are women that have broad shoulders if you look a typical body types for men and women, women are usually hourglass and men are like upside down triangles right there broader in the shoulders, smaller in the hips. So if a client comes into you with broad shoulders, you have to be really aware of that because it could if you shoot them straight on, it could really make them look very broad and a little more masculine um, I kind of turned them three quarters to the camera to prevent that changes the distance of their shoulders um this is a client that I shot who happened to have had broad shoulders and she wanted me to take a picture of this tattoo and I first took a picture of it with her hands down, I couldn't find the picture otherwise I wouldn't put it in the slide show I couldn't find it, but she just took her pictures hands down and you know what? She looked really masculine like her shoulders were abroad the tattoo is really so small and you could tell she was a woman cause she had like, curly hair but you know, guys have long hair sometimes too, and it was just kind of like a weird shot I'm like this isn't working, so I look at the picture I said, ok, how am I going to make this more feminine? And my first instinct was to bring her hands up like this so it would show her finger now it would show her fingers and we would know it was a woman but a beautiful thing happened when she brought her arms up like that her shoulders disappeared. So now not only am I creating this perceived hourglass figure because she is going down and around and your brain is saying this is a woman so her if she it must go like this she looks more feminine she looks less broad the tattoo was more in proportion now because she was much smaller and I've created a completely different shape for her and some interests with the fingers, too. So it wasn't my intention again, it was a happy accident like we spoke about, but now I'm going to remember next time this happens, okay? Her shoulders disappear when they lift her arms out, pushing back the shoulders also will change the posture and the way a woman looks as well. So this is a perfect example of that when I had annalisa hop on the bed again, she's giving me sort of that flirty kind of expression and then when I say they're okay, can you just pop your shoulders back? Look at how much had changed. First of all, we see her chest in the second picture, right? Actually, let's start from the head, her head came down, which is what I wanted. Okay? There's a balance thing that happens with heads and moving things well, going to see this a lot with the hips, I'll probably mention it again when somebody stands are like this and you say, move your hips back, their head automatically goes up when you say, like, move your shoulders back if she was kind of like this movie shoulders back, she comes down it's, the body's way of balancing you use your head is a balancing tool you don't even realize you do it all the time, right? Your arms your head so when you have somebody just move one thing their head might move so this is the head is one of those things you have to come back and check over and over and over again so it's nice is here it actually brought her head down, which shows off her beautiful blue eyes we see her chest look at her stomach. I mean she's, not a big girl here at all. There's like nothing happening here. However, that is much more flattering do anything just the way the light hits her stomach and my favorite part of this is the back. So here, she's very straight again, a more masculine trade here we get this beautiful arch of her back and we get this great curve on her touch, which is what women want when we want to see that there's like a booty revolution going on in this world right now and I love it. Finally, I fit into something but really, like, you know, look at the celebrities and the songs that they're coming out with and they're talking about booty this and booty that and, you know, it's it's important girls want booty now, so make sure you give it to them um, so arms are definitely the hardest opposed. I hate them. I hate them. I struggled with him with every girl every single time. They're awkward. You see them from the side, you see them from the front from the back down. They don't. You can't hide them. They don't go anywhere. I've tried. So you have to be really cautious of them. The main thing I really want you to know about arms is that they will add bulk to the body if you don't pose them properly. And we're going to talk about that. We want to make sure we show off her curves. This is a perfect example. We're backto lauren again, totally unedited picture on and she's just standing there now. Lauren, proportionally happens to have really long arms. By the way, keep this in mind as I'm going to show you how I pose her, which is ok, that is who she is, but I want to be cautious of that. I don't want to make them look longer than they really are, which I think is actually kind of happening here a little bit. But the most important thing here is that I don't see the curve of her back and so it's, making her look like a big chunk of lauren right here, right? So I had her bring her arms up. Now I'm telling you this because I noticed her arms looked a little bit long. So how do we do that? We just kind of hide them here, right? And not just that. Look at what happens when I take it away from her body. She looks so much smaller and she's a small girl. We want her to look that way. I wasn't exactly sure if I'd loved this mostly because she was getting some skin rules here. Now, let's, just talk about skin rolls for three seconds. Everybody has them. Everybody has them like my babies up to, like grown women and victoria's secret models like everybody has skin rolls, it's normal? Um, somewhere along the line, somebody edited them out of pictures in a magazine or something, and so women go skin rule. They're very normal. I do not like editing them. First of all, I think for a couple reasons, if you edit this out, a kind of she just looked really flat and I don't like that, but I'm just going to avoid the conversation altogether by hiding them either with hand or opposing angle or something of that nature because I just I don't even want to have to deal with the issue of skin rolls, but they are normal, you guys and really think about it before you just are editing them out. It could actually make a client look heavier if you do, which is not a good idea. Um, but again, we have it and I don't want to edit it, so you know what I did? I turned her around because, like, when I go to my pictures like, oh, this is a dump on that editing that I'm just gonna throw it away. I like that it's really? How much I hate editing it's so bad, so instead I turned her around and I pushed her hip away, and now I'm still getting a tiny little bit of skin texture here, but it's not as bad, I see the curve of her back, which I think is even more flattering, and I'm again I'm kind of getting rid of her arms here. So this is my thought processes I'm going through and I'm changing her posing around. Um, this is a horrible picture. Arms toward the camera bad. I'm proving it to you right now. I mean, show you guys bad pictures, you know, we don't talk about vulnerability. This is bad um but yeah you know, first of all she looks like she's a massive headache and she's really pissed at me but just this is just bad you see this foreshortening happening here just makes her look really like heavy arm and she's a really thin girl so that's not that's not good all right we're going to talk a little bit about in body versus out of body posing yes you have a question like how would you make me call it back up like how would you fix that just like dangle her more or something um yeah in fact I show some other photos I think in this presentation or maybe imposing flow that will show some other things that we did um she was moving around so we just kind of like a snap so but yeah I would probably have her either bring her arm back up this by now we get the nice negative space or just bring her arms down which is I think what I end up doing I had her bring her arms down like this she was also kind of small chess is doing that gave her a little more cleavage so it was beneficial for multiple reasons for may yes rika is their arms crossed suppose something you could use with someone who has bigger arms or it depends on the angle you're shooting the mountain what they're wearing I wouldn't do it like this, because then you're going to see a lot of arm on the side may be a little more to the front, and you see how sometimes you're going to see where I have poses with girls like this, and their arms are not locked down. That's part of it. Any time you push the arm, it ends up like spreading same thing, like when you sit on a chair, your thighs like twice the size it's the same concept, so maybe just like, sort of a delicate pulling it away from the body a little bit. Okay, so it's not about in body versus out of body posing it's a little confusing, so if you guys don't understand it, please tell me you don't understand it. In body posing is when the woman has her arms inside the lines of her body instead of just hanging out like this so that it shows off the shape of her body. Okay, it accentuates her shape. Here is some examples of that. Do you see how, even though yes, this arm brings her body out wider than her? Body really is in the perception it's still giving her that shape that we're looking for it's not blocking her it's not making her look like a square so it's accentuating her curves this happens to be nice actually for a girl who's a little thinner that maybe wants to have a little bit of bulk on her you could do something like that somebody with a really small chest or something of that nature it's the same thing here you see I'm accentuating her curves she's not very curvy so I'm making her look even mohr hourglass I'm telling you she has an hourglass figure by using her arms to create it that's an in body pose? Yes. Okay, same thing here we've seen this picture before and we were talking about wardrobe and this is kind of an idea what? What you were saying? Richelle she's very square brooke was her name brooke very square how doe I create more curve on her? I do it by actually adding book to the top of her body here and now do you see these curves that are happening here? Total h I think she looks totally different do you guys think she looks different so I'm creating a curve where there is not one okay out of body posing is keeping the arms completely outside the torso of the body okay, I'm going to show you some examples of that same model is before, but here I'm able to see her curves and her stomach and whatnot. I'm keeping her hands completely away from her body. This is a great example right here. I want that I love that if her arm was down, I wouldn't have that kate would be blocking that. So this is an example out of body posing on my first creative lie when we shot the girl member of the fabric. I can't remember her name, unfortunately, but we were shooting her, and she kind of kept doing these like fashion model e things. And I kept saying, okay, give me a little more out of body. I want a little lengthening. She was very tiny. She was really short, very small, and I just felt like it was making her look even smaller, saying, give me a little more like, think of us swan and lengthening. I want more length from you, an out of body posing as part of that keeping everything outside the torso. This is her actually right here. So you see she's tiny she's tiny, you can see she's tiny when you kind of, like, cover everything up, I don't want that I want to be able to see see what you look like so I kept saying her bring your arms out again here but she's keeping her arms out it's creating interest through the image and I could still see the curve of her back same pose one is in body one is out of body with the arms okay so you could mix it up you guys is not only rule like you don't have to do it one way or another way try both ways see what works another thing is you can combine the two obviously okay so with maurin um what's nice is I'm seeing her shape on this side and seeing her shape on this site in this body even though this arm even though in body posing it's creating that curb that I want on her okay, okay using the arms to mimic the shape of the body is another little tip when you want the arm down by the side but you don't want to add bulk you can see here with camber um I'm her arm is actually mimicking the shape of her body because it's behind her torso it's more in shadow and the color difference also helps making sure it doesn't add bowl because if it was the same exact color and it was lit exactly the same then she's just gonna get a big chunk of meat there it's gonna add both to her same thing laying down hide the arm I don't know what the ivan you know it's just but here it's accentuating her current is actually making her curve look like it's bigger which I like cry so we were using arms to our advantage whenever we can like to give the hand something to do hands or like evil deadly objects I hate them ah they always like doing this you know or like really tense so here give the hand something to do typically we don't really love showing the back of the hands but you know it happens like I said break the rules when you need thio uh this works for may hold on to your undies can you put your hands in your undies? Can you hold some fabric right? Throw some fabric up in the air and just be careful not to amputate it is totally okay if a woman only has one arm well for that that's fine, but if she has two let's show her that she has to write that's really important. This is a good example of that. Now with lauren. What freaks me out about this picture like if she was turned a little bit more and we didn't see this part of her shoulder, it would probably be okay, but the fact that I see this little part of her arm like where is her arm? I literally don't know where it is even my brain is like where is her arm right your brain doesn't know what to make of it so just by having her bring her arm forward it completely changes the picture and what's nice is here even though her arm is straight I'm getting that little bit of negative space still shows off her curves so I'm not if I was blocking that I wouldn't be happy but we're getting that little bit of separation between her torso on her arm um again same idea this is lauren was just kind of moving around she put her arm in the back this one doesn't bother me as much as I see her a little bit of hand back there so at least my brain goes oh okay I'm making the connection her arm is here but I like this picture better still because she clearly has two arms um arms are one of the items like I said the concrete interest in an image when we talked about that in the beginning right a good pose creates interest in an image um this is a perfect example remember I told you lawrence arms were proportionally long for her body but I was able to use that to my advantage actually in this scenario we're here we have a really nice angle and I kind of mimic that with her arm it creates interest here I was able to frame her beautiful face with her arms. Girls wish our arms can't do that. It looks weird. Okay, so I used her arms her longer arms to my advantage. In that case, sometimes when you don't know what to do with them. I know I lied. I said you can't ever get rid of them, but sometimes you can kind of get rid of them just very carefully. Okay, we want to make sure she doesn't look like just a chopped up torso. That's. Creepy. Ah, we want to make sure it's flattering. So in this case, I like her arms up mostly because it's allowing the light to hit her stomach and really flatter her shape. Okay, questions on arms you're going to see even when we do the stuff here, we struggled with it a little bit always and every girl's a little different how they can move and where they could go. So any comments? Questions on that? Yeah, please don't be afraid to ask questions, guys, you guys are speaking for everybody out there. So go for it. Just you hear so much about armpits and how you should, like, say, a lot of people avoid showing the armpits is that something, yeah, very good, very, very good question um I love long hair for boudoir because you could just kind of do this and then you put your arms up and you don't see the armpit all anywhere any time I can use hair to block anything I don't want to see ideo don't shoot into the armpit ever like I always have a girl kind of move to the side even if she's up on the wall will have a kind of shift her body so her armpits really on the wall verses like kind of facing me this way I always say and we kind of talked about this even when I'm preparing for this class I'm more scared to shoot a bald woman then I am to shoot a woman that's like a size five hundred you know like because everyone's always like what about shooting curvy girls and like she is hair I'm good you know and I recently did I shot a ball girl just to challenge myself and it was really fun but I was trying to avoid the whole army think his hair hide so money problems you know, kind of wrinkles in the neck whatever it might be a so use hair to your advantage away and just be careful not shooting into the armpit and just be really careful also have be looking down in the armpit and spelling and I'm going to show you I'll show you when we shoot how to avoid that yes, I just had an ah ha moment. Okay, how you worked with long arms? Ah, a lot of times I will shoot something and it won't work on the particular person that I'm working with and I never use it again but it's because it doesn't work on her and everyone everyone's dead that's right? That's why aaron it's such a good point. We're building this toolbox. Now you have that in your toolbox, right? Every girl you shoot, you're going to add something to that tool box. This is my toolbox. I have a crush on handy. Manny, you guys heard me saying that before. I think it like handy manny's soul box I love him right that you have all these tools now and you can go. Okay, long arms. Let me get my toolbox. Ok, long arms framing of the face. Pull that out. Let's do that. Okay, this is this is your tool box. The more you do it, they're better you're going to get at it. Cry. Yes. What if you have a client bring in a picture opposed that, you know absolutely will not work on her body like it's that long arm pose and she has short arms, I will tell her I'll say, listen, I'm going to try this pose on you, it doesn't poses air different for every girl if it doesn't work on you I promise I will try to take inspiration from this and get opposed it will work for you particularly you know not everybody is the same and then I sometimes they believe it on photo shop I go you know they probably photoshopped those girls arms you know, like she doesn't have arms that long that's ridiculous you know and I'll blame it on that like that's not reality we're working in reality so let's take this and inspire it to be a shot that's all your own they can I mean that's the best you can do they can expect that, you know um quickly going back to the eyes yet um do you ever have clients who think it looks good to look out the window and they're kind of doing their own they turn their head and how do you kind of direct that too? So that they don't feel dom or they don't feel, you know, sure it's not a very good you're going for is gonna laugh at me hopefully my mom's not watching right now, okay? I call it the stripper mentality you ready? So I don't I'm not saying I go to a ton of strip clubs and if you've ever been to a strip club and you have a stripper that's dancing for a gentleman, okay, she's either looking at him or she's looking at herself, right? If she's dancing for him and she's trying to seduce him and she's like, I wonder what laundry I should do later, you know, like she's looking off to no man that there's no connection she's either looking at you or she's looking at herself, and I tell them that I tell them exactly that. I said, I either want you looking at me where I want you looking down at yourself unless I specifically tell you I want to looking out the window models or they are the worst at this because they all think that they need to look at the light. I think they all leave every shoot blind it's crazy, uh, because they did you ever notice that, like they'll be like, okay, you know, they all look at the lake. Um, I'm really very particular about it. I tell them, you know, there's a connection here. Women like pictures looking at themselves, men like eye contact. So we want to make sure we have a combination of both when we're putting together an album it's really, really important so I tell them don't look out the window unless I specifically tell you but I also allie I don't let them just kind of look off to whatever like I'll be very particular I'll put them in a pose I said okay I want you to look down and then don't move anything but then just look up at me with your eyes okay now can you turn your head and look out the window like I'm very particular about telling them where to look the whole time and if they're not listening to me then I'll tell them the story the stripper story and I'll say you know what think about going to a strip club and having a girl look off to nowhere she's thinking about what she's gonna make for dinner that night and then she's like oh I get it I understand why you're telling me to do that so wrists pen actually make her body look different depending on the way facing and you know again we talked about kind of avoiding the front of the hands if you can I'm going to show you quick example of that this is lisa lisa super tiny in fact she's like four months pregnant here um and she's like you're gonna liquefy me right? I'm like no uh but uh here's the thing her hand looks pretty big like you might not notice it right away but when you're now and I tell you her handler kind of big, you probably think yeah, I just kind of look actually little big sometimes I'll actually measure my photos like I'm like all right, this is how big her hand is it's the same sizes airhead this's what I do at my desk is my hand the same says my head no, therefore this is out of proportion, okay, not to say everybody's not a little bit different, but I just think it looks out of proportion so by having her turn her hand this way, it does a bunch of things first of all, it x yeah. And yes, your hips are a little bit different uses a couple of different ingredients going into this picture, but just for argument's sake you see how it's accentuating her curve it's also actually making her waist looks smaller because now our brain is measuring her is this wide versus this wide? Did you see how that works to our advantage also? Okay, so, let's, look at these pictures for a second, this is broke again. I was working with her in my studio when we were showing the three different lights and she also has some pretty long arms and long hands and you could see that when I sat her down she put her hands this by it took the picture what oh no that's very distracting and very crazy so I took her hands in it's a much better image I don't see her hands I don't have to worry about editing the different colors and whatnot and it's a much more graceful shot don't you think? But this is the kind of image that you'll call up and you'll be like ah I just told her to move her hand she would look so much better that's why it's important to look at the back of your camera because in person it didn't look so bad otherwise I would have changed it right away um fingers have ruined way too many photos for may really pay attention to the fingers here's some examples of that amputated amputate like club hands what are those those air club hand so pay attention and it's okay to take this picture but then make sure you take the right picture after you have her relax her fingers I want to see your fingertip it's on again it's good to give the hand something to dio playing with your hair touching some fabric it kind of makes the hands less stressed you just have to be really careful when they're touching these they're not like grabbing on for dear life okay waist and hips is a really big one I combine them together because they are so connected if you take nothing away from this entire boot camp except this I will be very happy this is like the most important thing we're about to do in the entire boot camp um let's start with waste it is usually the smallest part of a woman's body so we do want to accentuate that again we're looking for the hourglass figure uh this is again perfect example when I have lisa stand there I say ok lisa can you go put your hands on your hips she puts her uh put your hands on your way she puts her hands on her hips that's because that's where your jeans fall when I was younger genes came to hear my mom probably one of them up here but they came to hear and so this is our waste but most people kind of put their hand on the waist here and you can see that because I you see how they did color blocking on this dress this is not an accident this is a wardrobe purposeful thing that they do that make your your waist looks smaller this is they're purposely putting that color blocking and change in the car right where her waist is to make her look smaller but you see how when she changes her hands to her waist how much smaller she really actually looks I mean she's a tiny girl and she looks like really, really brought here in this picture same thing like this top by the way same thing it's it's accentuating my waist it's making my hips look bigger which is okay in this case because now it makes my waist looks smaller is the same idea. Okay, so this is this is the waste where my shirt is kind of coming and this is the waste not this okay with lauren do you see how actually putting her hand on her waist makes her look more proportion it more in proportion? She's really tiny she happens to have a little bit of a long torso like I said longer arms, longer legs and she has nice curves but she tends to be a little bottom heavy here when she puts her hands on her waist is actually making her look more proportion don't you think just tiny little thing it's really a nice little change. The funny thing is on this shot with her I would normally like her hand on her waist. Normally I would pose somebody like this, but in this case I actually like her hands on her hit more because I'm seeing the curve of her body here I'm not seeing the curve it makes her look really square so rules are meant to be broken she breaks the rules and I would only know that if I looked at the back of the camera and took the shot both ways and compared them ah here's another great example this is jackie jackie is adorable I love her um but you see just moving her in a little bit of a different shape or putting her hand on her waist makes her look much smaller here, which is what she wanted to big difference right? Not that she looks bad here and this is what I love about men by the way, whenever I show pictures of jackie the men I'll go I like this picture better and the women will go I like this picture better so no, you're shooting for okay maybe good person different options but the point is not to say that one is wrong or one is right I'm just showing you how putting your hands on the waste can make a difference. Okay, so if you have a client that you want to have a smaller waist that's the way to do it um creating curves again we're back to brooke, who doesn't have a ton of curves here on putting her hand on her waist to give us that that imitation of curve especially here in the dark right in the shadow because our mind is going ok, her body goes like this so I'm using her hands to create that curve all right hips hips hips hips so important pushing the hibbs back it makes their hips look smaller and also lengthens the torso which is really important if you start looking through like us weekly or people magazine you'll notice that the celebrities all stand there with their legs crossed and their hips back like this it makes them lose ten pounds which is why I like if you come to any photography convention and I'm standing around I'm usually like I mean really my backwards I'm always like this it's just sort of a habit at this point but they're taught to stand that way because it actually does make them look smaller everything further away from the camera is smaller and closer to the camera looks larger not to mention when people usually stand just kind of normal they're pushing their hips forward a little and it squares them out when you're pushing your hips back it makes you actually look a little bit rounder which is nice this is a perfect example um couple of things about this I took this picture of camber and this is actually camera was in my posing dvd if you guys want to check that out we it's sort of like you're just watching me shooting how I work with them but this these air shots from that dvd that we started with this and she has a beautiful body right she's like perfect in every way I love her but let's look at a couple things are happening here this is very normal when you pose a girl like this she tends to sort of push this hip forward it's a balance thing okay and I don't like that I want to hit back and it's very hard to hold yourself up like that but here's what she's doing she's pushing this hip toward me in this area you can't really tell because her hand is there but her hip is getting really her thighs like a little meaty I call it it's kind of a gross word but it reminds me of how bad it is right it's a little median here and what's happening is you see the skin roll here I don't want to edit that that is the quickest edit and liquefy and I still don't want to do it okay so there's a lot of problems with this picture even though your client will look it and go home you look pretty good right are you guys looking to go okay this is not a bad picture I look up and go no I could do better than this so what I said to her was camber do me a favor this hip push it as close as you can like away from me closer to the wall and she did and look at the difference it's huge it is such a small change was a huge difference first of all, her chest looks bigger bonus, right? Secondly, her arm, her stomach. Sorry is so much more flattered because she's pulling her hips away, it's lengthening her torso, literally lengthening it. Her thighs look more in proportion. We're not getting this neediness on the side anymore. We've lost this little skin roll, which makes me very happy. And look at the difference of the curve on the side of her body. That's much more flattering. This is all just by saying to her, can you pop that hit back? That's it. Okay, so it's not just what to move it, how to move it and when to move it. Okay, same thing here we're back to jackie. Look at how she's pushing her hip toward the camera here she's pushing it away from the camera there. This is literally one shot after the other. Okay, I pulled two shots right next to each other. Do you see that little tiny negative space right here? Girls like that. Like if my thighs ever didn't touch, I'd have a party. I'd have a diet. My thighs didn't touch party, so she wants that right, it's? Sure, you guys are laughing because it's true, you're gonna remember that I'll invite you all so fun and again look at how meaty she's looking in here now it's not that it's a bad thing I think again most guys are like I like that meeting this but it's out of proportion this guy looks twice the size of this guy I don't want that I want proportion so I'm pushing her this way and now look at how her thighs look so much more in proportion hips away from the camera yes, same thing I hear you guys look at this. I don't like this situation that's happening here I'm not gonna liquefy her. She looks super meaty here. I just said to her do me favor push yur hips back and not just that put your hand on your waist we're gonna block that skin roll we're gonna get rid of it it's much more flattering there. Same thing here with amanda here she's pushing hips toward here she's pushing hips away look at how it changes her legs but not just that look at how it changes her torso. Her torso was literally longer here and I'm going to show you how that works. Look at the curve of her back here we get like medium, medium or medium long right here we go long round round is a good word boudoir we like that when I pushed my hips toward you right, my jeans and hear my brought ends here. This is how long my torso is. Okay? When I pushed my hips away from you, my genes end here literally just lengthen my torso. So if you have a girl that you're shooting, it has a short tour so you had better push your hips away because you're gonna lengthen it she's gonna look more in proportion if you're shooting a girl with a really long tour. So maybe you want her hip toward you a little bit more, so you can shorten it. You're in control of how her body actually looks literally here. I hate this she's pushing her hair out here we get the meeting us here we get all these roles here. This is a dump for me on the editing. This this is garbage. I'm over it. So I try something different. I have her switch to the other leg. I don't mind the shot actually kind of like it, but I don't love her thigh here like I'm not in love, but it's still it's an okay shot, but maybe there's another way that we can fix it. Turn it away from the camera completely right now, it's much more successful, I like this one even better, though. Maybe we just don't want to see them at all why you just sit on your ass so I don't see your hips at all, okay? So we just keep moving it again. I've said this before there's more than one way to skin a cat don't think that there's just one answer keep trying until you find the successful way of fixing it. I swear to god, if I can't teach you like this is maybe the most important slide of the entire boot camp right here. If I can't show you that posing works to change the body with this slide I'm just going to drop my mic and leave right now. This girl is first of all she's a model um I'm standing behind her, okay she's looking in a mirror so she's standing here looking in the mirror and I'm behind her shooting her and I take this picture and I go oh m j because this is not like what you looked like what she looks like or better believe may I went, oh my god, how am I gonna fix that? So I said to her, do me a favor, pull your hips towards me because don't forget I'm standing behind her, I want you to push that as out as far as you could possibly go and then go like another centimeter after that okay so far as you can but here's the thing you guys it's really important she shouldn't bend over bending over is the fart pose okay but not just that if you start bending over now my chest is closest to the camera my head is closest to the camera and I'm gonna look out of proportion I'm going weirdly out of proportion not like I have a big chest I'm gonna look like have a big head I have no legs it's gonna look strange so we want to keep a nice posture and just bend from the waist down all the way back and look at how it changed her body I see where do you I did not touch her body in post processing whatsoever first of all in this shot she mean she looks like she has cellulite she has skin rolls here her hips don't look so great she's a little bit of muffin top it's just not it's not attractive here look at the shape of her body she has a total hourglass figure her torso is completely changed she noticed her head went back right why did her head go back? Because I'm pushing her hips back and she's raising her head to balance herself I kind of liked it I kept it here and now not only that the light is hitting her so much better to her stomach is a little more in shadow and you're getting sort of like this nice little highlight right here which I love and it's also putting her hips more in shadow and because there are hand first of all looks way better like what is this situation and it's blocking this lace like this lace is distracting to me so just her hips look thinner thighs looked so much thinner her arm looks better like there's nothing that doesn't look better with just pushing her hips all the way back so if you're in like a situation you're like I don't know what to do just push yur hips back see for how it changes everything else and see if that works did you have a question no just loving your microphone okay? And she looks taller because you're lengthening her literally lengthening her okay? I mean, I have to admit when I saw that even I was like whoa, that was amazing uh no, but really it just put the hips, hips, hips, hips okay, so when we take two shots we're gonna break all the rules now hips toward the camera everything I just said to hips away from the kind of fifty times hips toward the camera this is what hips away from the camera looks like hips towards the camera same girl one shot right after the other I would like to have this for my birthday not like I would like it to be here that could be taken really the wrong way uh this is what women want to see. If you could make a woman look like this, she will be your best friend forever. Okay the right light the right pose you will not see cellulite on somebody or very minimal cellulite. There is nothing worse than editing cellular it's impossible! Just stop trying to do it. Start posing her better any time somebody tries to edit cellulite it looks flat it looks it's fake. It looks awful and I think our clients know it. They certainly know it. How nice would it be to take a picture like this and show your quiet and go by the way remember that ask you told me you didn't like look at it now and they go oh my god! You know, maybe that's not really what it looks like in real life but they don't know that we are telling them this is what it looks like right now, right here, right now you look hot and they love that so hips toward the camera crime again she is pushing that I mean, you see that she's real she's flexible, but you know it without this, what would this picture bay girl standing up against the wall? Why? I don't know this is all about the booty here, here's a way to kind of take the same pose and create booty or minimize it. Okay, so in this case, this on client didn't really have a tush, so I have her with her shoulders back up against the wall, and I tell her, put your tush up against the wall to but I should be able to slide my arm behind you. I want that really nice arch on what's happening here is because of this art it's creating the illusion of a nice touch here where vanessa was bottom heavy, and she wanted me to minimize that. So I had her bring her touch out. And the reason why it minimizes it is because if she's leaning against the wall she's actually using her touch muscles to hold herself up and it's contracting so it's, making her look a little bit smaller, same pose to different ways to move the tush. Okay, so when laying down you guys, this is so important. Don't lose your curve. This happens so much I see this over and over and over again. What law? Flat it's. Boring. Yes, she's got a little bit of booty, but also here's. The other thing is out of proportion, like look at how short her torso looks compared to her arm by pushing that hip up and giving her that curve over here in that little bit of negative space we're making her body look more in proportion and much more interesting if that doesn't work turner to her side not everybody convention there back like that I can to turn it on her side we get that nice curve of the hit she looks even more in proportion there backto lauren um this is actually the before shot she's she's pretty good. Oh, no wait this is the before shot hold on she's pretty gifted in the booty department right? So I don't have to have her push her leg up and give us a little bit more but I tried it anyway I wanted to see what it would look like and what I like about having her pusher hip up like that is it makes her thigh look more in proportion. I think like here really narrows down almost like too thin I'm here it's much more in proportion. The only problem is this situation okay? I'm not editing that out later so I have to make a decision. What do I do? Do I drop her hip? So I changed my angle do I move her pose? What do I do here? And for me the solution was for her to bring her shoulder forward so it stretches out the skin a little bit and I'm going to change my angle so I'm gonna come above her and then when I come down again, I'm gonna use this arm to cover any skin roles that are happening, so I don't have to edit it out later, so I decided to change my angle, not her posed don't do this ever. I see this a lot and I see it even worse. And I know because I've done it um, first of all hello, gigantic head, really small body. But this is the thing, you guys people are not showing the landscapes of the body and this is so important, especially with your clients that are curvy er when people say, oh, well, I had a client that was kirby so I just hid her body no, no, no, no, no, because then you're buying into everything that she thinks she thinks she should be hit and right she's worried about what she looks like if you have a girl that's, curvy er you show her body, you make that pose work, you figure out how to make it happen because hiding her is buying into everything that she thinks about herself. Somewhere along the line somebody said, well, just take a picture, you know, f to focus on her eyes and blow out the rest of her body, and that will be beautiful and that is exactly the opposite of what I want. You know, if the client says to me, I'm worried about my behind I'll go, don't worry about it, I won't even take pictures and I'll take pictures when she's not looking and I make her look awesome. If the client says I'm worried about my stomach, I say, don't worry, I'll take care of an imposing and more job. You don't have to worry about that and I pose her tow away. She knows she's gonna look amazing and I know she's going to look amazing so I can show her this is what your body looks like when you take a shot like this, you're just hiding her body. This is not a boudoir picture it's a really bad headshot, right? This is what we want to say more body. I don't care what size or shape she is, you can make this pose looks sexy on anybody but mies needs definitely changed with the clients body looks like you can see here when I have her put her hip at. Right? I don't just have her leg, her knees hanging I have her knees all the way over. You can also cross legs it's a little hard and high heels to kind of stand there like this for a long time. But what I like about that is it's sort of tapers the thighs it's gives a very nice shape it's giving us lots of curve. I really enjoyed that, but here's some real shots of laura and those were just sort of examples of how that works when laying down. This is so important we talked about this yesterday. Make sure that this knee, the leg that's closest to the camera is always higher than the one in the back. This is not a real boudoir shoot. This is just like I'm showing you an example. Do you see that when her back leg is up? This one is literally like one and a half times size of one in the front that's out of proportion. We're looking for proportion here. Her legs look longer, they look slimmer, they look so much better. I mean, look at how much longer. Like look, this is her calf in this one it's half the size of the one here this is in proportion measure your pictures, guys, use your fingers, measure them here's another example and this is you know we talk about wardrobe like new shoes again this model was really really sure but look at how the new choose made her legs look even longer and I keep that front leg up higher um they definitely likes can create interest just like arms can't so don't rule them out you could do a lot of different things with legs to create interesting images um change them around move around given different looks something like this is wonderful girl's gonna look at this and go oh my god can we use all three and I'm like yeah that's a great spread in in an album that's perfect one of my favorite images is the stairwell up to my studio and this image is really all about the legs I mean she's not super exposed he's not wearing lingerie but if her legs weren't in that configuration which took me about fifteen minutes to figure out, by the way I was like, how are we going to make this work? But this this is all about the legs and I'm glad that I stuck with it and I pushed through it and I found the pose that works because it's I think it's a great child um you have to be careful with ankles I always makes your feet together we don't want to have any of this like I have to pee right? That happens a lot when they're laying down in bed, make sure their toes are pointed, especially like I mean, in this case, she's wearing socks so it breaks up her like a little bit. But if she wasn't wearing any socks, we really want to make sure she's pointing her toes what's giving her that few extra inches cates more flattering that way here, same thing it wouldn't be as much fun of her feet were flat. We wouldn't see the gorgeous red bottoms of her shoes that she paid a lot of money for. Um again, so these air the points now, here's, the thing about this, you guys every single time you go to click the shutter, I want you to check these points every single time it's kind of like when my husband goes to golf school, he goes to golf school, innit? Comes home really bad. It got worse than when he came. Then when he went because what happens is he's overthinking it. And this is gonna happen to you too. So I keep saying him, just save your money and don't go to golf school anymore and just suck less it's fine, um but this is what's gonna happen to you, you're going to start doing this and you're gonna go, oh, my god slowing me down and that's okay too slow you down its muscle memory as you get into it and as you start memorizing and you start checking these points over and over and over again it's gonna get much easier I promise so every single time I want you to check this from top to bottom quickly I'm going to show you a couple things about bringing it all together this is sort of the ingredient so here we have out of body posing her shoulders are back her hips are away from the camera her tush is pushed back and her legs across all of this is creating these shape without one of these ingredients it wouldn't be a good and she's very uncomfortable even though she doesn't look like she is super uncomfortable same thing here this is the same pose but which small different little tweaks right? Like here on pushing her hips back I'm having her I'm sorry here on pushing her hips back I have her hands on her ways to see like her knees over see how like all those little tiny tweak exchange her body you're in it's like clay you guys you're literally changing her body this is those are total opposites like this is out of body this is in body chin up and out chin out and down so these air how like total opposites might look okay and the thing is just because one thing works doesn't mean like another thing won't work you just have to keep trying this's the same ingredients but gives us two totally different looks don't be afraid to experiment again these two are totally different it's the same girl totally different ingredients but they both work on her one might be a little better than the other like I happen to like this picture a little bit better but that picture doesn't not work still looks good on her two different feel again I have my posing dvd you guys and I'm offering with the code boot camp ten percent off all of my products so if you want to check that out and see how I work more with those models, you can do that um do you guys have any questions before? Yeah good headline so this is part question part commiserating but I've had a few clients that are just so incredibly uncoordinated and aly and I were talking about this like you want them to have soft hands so you say you know pretend like you're putting on lotion and they're like yeah, you know, they just they look so awkward do you have any tips for that? I had some clients like, you know, push your hip out and it was just like I mean I don't even know like it just does not look good yes I want you to pay really close attention when we do top shelling shots, because that is going to give you a whole bunch of shots that you're going to sell, no matter what and there very easy to get almost anybody into. So what? That's in your toolbox, but I want youto have I want youto have like these ten to fifteen poses that I know we're going to look great on everybody are easy to do, I don't have to worry about hands, whatever those poses might be for you, but I'm going to show you some of my favorite ones, and that will help avoid that like I know that I could go to that toolbox if this client came in and she's in a bad mood and she's having a bad day and she doesn't want to cooperate, may I know no matter what those ten to fifteen poses or always gonna work for me, no matter what the size, shape, attitude, sexiness is of a client. So I want you to start building that for your tool box, and it will definitely start with the top selling shots. I think you'll get some inspiration from that good plug, thank you, I want you guys to ask me questions also, so please make sure you join me in my facebook group asked questions of me and the other amazing boudoir photographers that air in there. I hope you enjoy this. This is a really important class. I want you to share your best posing tip with me and everybody else. I want you to tweet to me at gen rosenbaum with z er you can find me on facebook as well posts on instagram anything. Just make sure you use the hashtag jen's boudoir boot camp and hashtag shamelessly feminine, and I'm excited to hear what you guys have to say about your posing tip. I hope I learned something from you. Thank you.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Boudoir Bootcamp Workbook
Boudoir Bootcamp Gearlist
Frequency Separation
Life of New York City Boudoir Photographer
Shooting Demo: Male vs Female Photographer
Shooting Boudoir: Finding the Hidden Gems
Shooting Boudoir: Fly on the Wall

Ratings and Reviews

sean
 

I think this course is great, my question was about a Facebook comment made that if a man has a bunch of likes that are female pages..., I agree and disagree in marketing they thought me to like your interest and hopefully future clients. How do I make it safe for clients and future clients? I am a Talent Agent and use to model and learning Boudior is my way of helping my models and business ,I want to also produce a magazine from my agency ,I was going to buy both franchises years ago but I want to do it myself in one company so I'm learning boudior photography to help me a beginning photographer pose women something I do not know I still pose women like family photos. The courses in green screen and other photo classes are just about lighting and position not what position, as a Videographer same thing no posing skill, business video production doesn't teach it all my courses are pro-stuff and tech nothing about what poses my models do. This will help my Video Production Business and Photography Business and my Model Agency...., thanks! I need this course so my models are comfortable and my clients feel comfortable I'm a shy person and I don't want me being uncomfortable make everyone feel weird!

Daniella Moné
 

Thank you Jen great Bootcamp! I'm starting my boudoir photography business and you have given me so many tools to succeed. I would have like to see more of the why in the posing as opposed to I don't like this let's change it as posing is the biggest challenge for me. I was particularly happy to see how you use your TD6 to create window light. That's what I use since my studio windows are too high when the client is laying on the bed. I really enjoyed your hidden gem video as well as the male versus female. You are an amazing teacher, thank you for your generosity!

Student Work

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