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Posing Tips for both Males and Females

Lesson 27 from: SLR Lounge Live Q and A and Image Critique

Pye Jirsa

Posing Tips for both Males and Females

Lesson 27 from: SLR Lounge Live Q and A and Image Critique

Pye Jirsa

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Lesson Info

27. Posing Tips for both Males and Females

Lesson Info

Posing Tips for both Males and Females

I wanted Teoh shift gears a little bit. Here. We have some questions about posing. Okay? And so we're getting your engagement. Incredible engagement, photography class. I know you talk a lot about posing, but you have some basic tips proposing males and females. And this is from Lisa P Cool. Like putting into some basic tips. You can use our studio audience. Of course. Okay, I'm gonna do this. I want to say, let's run through the basics of foundation posing. And then the courses go completely an adept. So we have those. Let's do some basics of it. Just so this is usually an eye opener for most people. And there's so much depth to it. It's really fun. Once you understand this kind of stuff, you can do anything you want with your posing. I want to show you guys the five basic foundation poses. Write these down. This is a system that I developed for our studio because what is our as photography? Our greatest fear is posing. And so I spent a lot of time studying, posing, studying body lang...

uage, setting all these different things, and I can't with this system where we can actually teach. Most poses come from a few different basics, So V up. We're gonna go open. Closed, stacked, reversed. Okay, this is the condensed version. I think we spent, like, three hours on this because there's so much stuff to go into, but going to the five minute version, this is the version that a client would get. Now, if you notice almost every pose in every photograph is going to composed of these five foundations, I called it foundation posing because it starts with your feet. So we work from the foundation up basically in creating, you know, the poses. So starting with the V up. So what we're gonna do, guys, is gonna have you faced the cameras like this, And then can we remove the scarf and maybe your jacket just so we can see the your body's little better. Take your clothes off my Simon. Just stop talking. I went and got what? Logos? Yeah, Just go shirtless. I'm just getting I'm kidding. Going to just keep it on this line. You guys like kind of match? That's perfect. Okay, so the V up is and you guys probably remember this from so Simon, your arm comes under her hip right here. There you go. So kind of pull her in. There you go. Perfect. And it's called a V because basically their shoulders are kind of turned into each other. Simon's feet are kind of going in, and using his feet are kind of going in as well as I know you're gonna have a soft kick to the hip. There you go. And you'll notice that distended, flat footed again. Okay, we do that because if she doesn't have a kick to the hip, we lose all the curves in the body, right? We also tend to have this mirroring look in the feet where everything is doing the exact same thing and it looks like somebody's stiff imposed. So let him kick the hip, drop a toe down. That's kind of how we naturally would be. So if you look at the shape, it's making a V right there Shoulders, air coming in to a view right here. This is the most basic of all poses, so I called it the via because this is where everything starts. If you photograph, you watch the runway like anywhere. Anytime you have celebrities, watch the Oscars. Okay, any couples coming down the red carpet when I go? Hey, can we to photograph? What do they do? They do this. Okay, this is the foundation of all poses. They're gonna tilt their head slightly in towards each other. This creates a sense of kind of closeness. There's a lot of body language, things that we talk about in the full length courses because body language is it fascinates me. I freaking love violin with the stuff that we do. Um, but anyway, from here, it becomes very simple to adjust certain things. So, for example, if I wanna get a portrait, that's both of them together and say Guys, look in the camera. We're just going to a quick traditional portrait. We have both their eyes coming to the camera, but then I can go as a I want to get shot. That just about Simon, Can you look up towards him? So I mean, you look in the camera right there. Perfect. That's great. Now want you to look at each other. Perfect. Fantastic. Now you know, why don't you bring your eyes over to my side? Great. I'm gonna get a close tie shot I want you focused on her. So your eyes lead right into her, and she's looking right in the camera. That's perfect. Now, guys, this is going to get even more weird, but hold hands, okay? And then we Oh, why don't you bring your hand up to his chest? And so I want you put your hand over hers like you're kind of holding her in tight. Yeah, and then look towards her. Okay. Now, generally, we create a sense of awkwardness when people look at each other from four inches away, right? It's weird. We don't generally do that. Look at each other from Florence to the way that feel normal. Okay, well, so what we do is bring the hand up to the chest again. Hold that right. There is a no. I want you to look down on towards this side right here and look down towards her now, okay? And now if you guys talking to interact a little bit So, like, just whispers were soft things into her here. Nothing. Nothing. Silence. Okay, so that's how we can kind of really create those things easily from just one single post. Now, watch this all we have to do from this pose is say guys, just pretend like your shoulder where it's touching is the hinge on a door. This was when this when? When I was like, Oh, my God, this is the easiest thing. The world. Why? I told clients this They were like blown minds blown. They were like blown. That sounds really weird. So pretend like your shoulders are the hinge on a door? If I were to tell you, Simon, close fire to say open by Cesena. Close, Open. This is the weirdest thing. When I did that, I was like, every single person could do that without knowing a single thing about posing. So I said, OK, guys, show me what you think. An open posted be. Okay, now, just hold hands in the middle. Here's an open posts. OK? Show me what you think it closed post would be. This is gonna be weird. Okay, pull each other in. There you go. You guys noticed this The hips apart thing that means that they're not really a couple. So if you want your couples to look like a couple, you make sure their hips are actually touching this goes for any type of wedding. Same sex or traditional where I hate the word whatever. Anything, make sure the hips or touching if they're not touching it will look like they're uncomfortable with each other. Can you guys do that? Just demonstrated. Okay, so there you go and pull the hips in, like, connect up. There you go. Perfect. Now bring the hips a little bit further away from each other. So, like, OK, that is We just started dating a week ago, and we are not comfortable with each other yet. He hasn't even farted in front of me. That's that post. Okay? Like Sorry. What? I'm giving you more credit than you probably deserve, but Okay, so we have open and closed so easy right? Now. Watch this stack, guys. All that means is one of your feet goes over the other person so they know. Why don't you come out in front of him? There you go. And then it's just your stack. So your feet or just over each other. Okay, The only difference being stacked well. And if I say Simon stacked with you in front, that just means you're going to go with the front. So do that now. And this is the one supposed that, like you wanted that lovey dovey cute shot where you're like hugging him from behind And that kind of stuff, you know? I mean, the only other one is reversed, so reverses means that your feet are going in opposite directions. So, Simon, you're looking back that way. And as they know, you're hugging onto his arm. And Simon, now you're looking towards her. Okay? Now, if you think about every single post, I'm not gonna say every single one, but the majority of poses come from these five basic positions. The only difference is is distance. So, for example, do an open post facing me. Yep. Yep. OK, hold hands in the centre. Perfect. Spread apart. A little more whimsical, right? Whimsical of imposed Look toward each other. Kick the Hippolyta Zana. There you go. Perfect. You guys could lean across for kids. I'm just kidding. Don't do that. Um, now, close the distance. Start walking forward. Perfect. Walking shot. Now close. It isn't Mawr. Hug onto his arm. Both hands. That hand in the pocket. Other one look down and towards this side, she's gonna look right here. Start walking again. Perfect. The only thing that changes in all these types of shots is distance, and they're kind of connection points. That's it. So we can go from, So come back here, guys. We can go from any of these poses and simply go. Guys hop into a close post. Okay? Now I want you have to hold hands and just hold hands directly from each other and kind of turn. So we get profiles right to this camera, so turn a little bit This way. There you go. There you go. And now close the distance between you. Okay? So when you guys were doing those profile shots, watch this hold hands, take a small step away from each other, drop a toe and looked toward each other. Okay? And you have a perfect, like, kind of profile shot of both of them, right? You could also just say, Hey, guys from the clothes pose, hug into each other. Simon puller in from the hip. Azania put a hand upon his chest. There we go. Or put a hand on his arm. Look good too. I want you to lean onto his chest a little bit. Simon lean into her a little bit and looked down towards her. So and what we do is probably suggest a list of Simon's not covering their from right there. Perfect. Okay, so perfect. Guys. User, give him a hand. Um, husbands, wives, boyfriends, houses. Just send them my way. I'll be like we had to do a guy. There was no option. So those basic five foundation posing, we talk about all the variations. We talked about how to do it. Basically, once are people understand that? Oh, my goodness. This is a weight off our shoulders because now we just go. What's the purpose of an image and ago? I'd like to get a traditional shot of them looking in the camera so that we can see their faces. It's gonna be used for a thank you card. Easy enough. Guys, do a close posed to Avi up, do whatever and look into the camera was the purpose of the shot. Oh, these guys are fashion A. They want to show off their clothing. Cool, go open. So they open up to the cameras of their chest us forward. We show off their fashion, their clothing And then I want toe look down and towards this side and you looking towards him or her, and you just guide their eyes toe match, that kind of a look for the shot. There's a lot of other rules, but I don't think I have innocently a time. So I have a beautiful scenery and tiny capo would you pulls them a lot of beautiful scenery, like really, really a nice background and really tiny couple? Would you pose them a lot or just do something simple? I would definitely pretty much always posed Onda. Reason is, is because we pose for what we call a staged or posed photojournalism. So most of the voters that we take, like the 90% of photos we take are designed to look like natural images they're not designed to look like opposed photograph. Well, do the 10% the traditional ones because Mom and dad want those kind of shots, and we need to have them for posterity's sake and that kind of thing. But even when you have a beautiful background, you have an amazing scenery. How many clients do you have that would know what to do when they got there like, what do you do? We Okay, we show up to this beautiful forest. Now, that's almost every single time. That's the case for us. Now, the one time where you can let them go more on their own is when your shoot is based around activities. If your chute is based around action Hey, let's go on a camping trip and we're gonna be documenting you guys camping, you might say, use down on the side. You sound this side and just make a fire. Guys do whatever it is that you guys would normally dio and that would work. And you work around them, documenting what they're doing and so forth. But for the most part, just stepping into a beautiful scene, they're not going to know what to do. Those air awesome posing options and posing tips had a comment come in. That said, thank you so much for these posing tips that air so hopeful I can't wait to try them on my next shoot. So can you actually talk a little bit more about incredible engagement photography your class here on creativelive and how you go further into depth on those? So we did a really fun two day course on Creativelive. Incredible engagements were basically we assume that if you're jumping incredible governments, you guys have seen photo one a one lighting, one of one, leading to one because we basically take all the lighting and photo techniques that we learn in those courses, and we apply it to an actual endgame issue. Actually, three engagement shoes that we did. We did one in studio. We did one in downtown Los Angeles, and then we did one and like Redlands was really cool. We had, like, really great different metropolitan backdrops, and we go through everything the gamut from lighting to posing, too. All the stuff that we did, but in complete detail, showing you guys how you can get to 30 different poses from just one foundation posts without even changing a single thing. How to create a candid expression versus a portrait. All of that stuff is covered. We go through all the different rules and everything to get there

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Pye is an awesome instructor! He explains everything in a way that you understand it. He is a wealth of information. Love all of his classes!! I love Creativelive and SLR Lounge! Continue doing the great work that you do!!

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Pye is an amazing teacher! I've learned so much from him over the years - both in person and through his tutorials. What's even more amazing is that he is able to do it LIVE! He is able to clearly explain complicated concepts through easy to understand lessons. I highly recommend his courses to learn everything from the basics to advanced topics!

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Wow! Pye is an awesome instructor! I've learned SO many things - nuggets of gold!

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