The Fine Art of Posing

What was I thinking? I mean really. I know I can get the shot, I am good. But seriously, I did it by the skin of my teeth. Not cool. I need to go to posing classes.

Just because you know composition, you know the exact right moment to click the shutter does not mean you are going to get a great image. You have to have a good pose. It's tough. People come in all shapes and sizes and the couples who pay you look nothing like the couples in your inspiration folder on Pinterest. Wake up call!!!

I have a family friend I inherited when I married my husband. I asked my best friend (a pro photographer) to take our wedding pics and my husband asked his best friend (a lover of taking pictures). My husbands best friend is getting married and I of course offered my services pro bono for his wedding. We did use a ton of his pics and I felt I owed him big time. Plus, they are on a budget and what are friends for. His bride asked if we could take a picture that she could frame and have people sign at the wedding. Of course I said. I knew the location, I knew the couple and I thought I had it in the bag. Nope. 

Posing people is turning out to not be my strong suit. A very, very, very bad thing on my part. You have to know how to pose people. It does not unfortunately come natural to your subjects. Gah. 

My shoot with them was not my best portrayal in my competency at posing. As a matter of fact most of the shots were unusable because I didn't pose her ideally. Ladies, cross your legs!!! Tilt them to the side!!! What was I thinking? I am walking away from this shoot with 1 usable picture that when I look at it I immediately see things I should have changed. I am kicking myself for not catching them when we were on location and I am toying with re doing it. My best advice is to keep looking. Keep looking at pictures, keep hoarding the poses you like. Refer to them often. Often. Keep them fresh in your head so when you are shooting you can think of them on your own and not need to refer to your folder on your phone. Good grief. This should be understood and plain common sense. I am now going to fill my folder with more poses and kick myself very hard.

The Guests Have Left

This past Saturday I photographed one of my low budget weddings. It was in downtown Seattle on the roof of the cruise terminal. It was hot. The bride and groom were an hour late. Half the guests left the reception (inside the WTC) after dinner. Wow.

Luckily it was not my fault. Looking back, I am not even sure how they got to be an hour late. My guess is nerves. The bride had a bit of trouble getting into her dress. She needed her bun re done. The groom was still writing his vows as he walked to the ceremony. The mother of the groom wasn't dressed yet when I left to go to the ceremony. Granted, she had been running all over helping the bride. The crowd seemed fine. You could tell they were anxious. It wasn't until the room emptied out that I realized those poor guests paid for downtown parking, sat for close to two hours in the sweltering sun and waited for a late dinner. That's why they left. 

Meanwhile, I was left for close to two hours with barely anything to photograph. That's right. A few people danced, the cake cutting was done without any applause, the bouquet and garter toss were luckily pulled off but my bread and butter of guests and couples was none. Seriously everyone that stayed were family that I had been photographing all day. It was bizarre. I was at a loss. I felt so bad. What do you do in those situations???

Luckily I only have to give 250 pictures. Still, they are not my favorites. The day was gorgeous which translates to crappy when photographed. Clouds are much better than blue sky. Blue sky tends to wash out. Also, people squint. The formals are either angry looking from squinting or blown out from shooting in the sun. Then we segway into indoors where it's just not pretty. Still, the Seattle WTC has a great view and I know I got some good stuff. I just had to stress the whole way through.