This weekend my sister @mcdougall and I did some mini sessions as a charity fundraiser. This was our first time that we have done anything like this, and it was a great experience. I learned a lot and had fun working with the families to get shots that they would be excited about. The two areas where we both struggled were posing and coaching complete strangers so that we could capture their personality and a natural smile. Anyone want to share some advice? Suggest some reading? We have some make-up sessions, and I would love to use some of your suggestions to improve for those. Thanks!
No advice, but how cool that you did that. Super practice and nice to give others great photos. I am going to offer up some family portraits for practice, I think.
I've only done mini-shoots with friends and I feel I need to give them more guides about what to do. Sometimes they have their own ideas, but I think the photographer must be the leading part in the process. It's a lot I have to learn.
Another advise - I think it would be helpful if you have a short conversation with the strangers before the shoot - about their job, way of life, interest. It's supposed that you will somehow feel what kind of people they are.:)
@egad I know this sounds silly but take a picture of a picture. I know many photographers do this. They search for family portraits and save the images. From there they will take a picture of the image they saved. Then they tell clients "give me a second let me make sure I got the shot." Instead they are going back to the beginning of the card to see the next pose. It helps to have your card completely empty before taking pictures of the pictures.
I always start up conversation with my clients make sure I know if there is anything special they want. They will say hand and hand walking or something along those lines. But when you talk to people you get them to relax.
I will tell them I'm shooting on 3 and then count One - Two and then shoot. It usually gets a laugh and a lot of "that was two" and so I'll go one more... Smile - Shoot.
Some people are naturally photogenic and I don't need to get them laughing but for group photos I find the miscount fire works well.
My dad was a professional photographer for years. When giving me advice on how to get kids to smile, he said "Don't tell them to say cheese, tell the kids to say 'boogers'" It works every time. It usually gets the parents to smile as well, just because they don't expect me to get their kids to smile/laugh so easily.
Make sure that YOU are smiling, it will help them feel more natural and their smiles will come more readily.
Use easily followed directions, such as "look at the top of THAT tree" or "move THIS much closer" (show with hands).
If you have someone make a huge fake smile, they usually will make a genuine one right after.
Have fun!
I've done a few paid shoots with models for hair styling, and the best thing I learned was to let them relax and not feel so self-conscious - if they thought too much about the shot, they started becoming posed... so I'd take photos while they were changing positions/angles, or while someone was talking to them, so I'd get them when they weren't thinking about the fact that they were bang-in-front of a camera, and they turned out to be the best, most natural, shots :)
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Another advise - I think it would be helpful if you have a short conversation with the strangers before the shoot - about their job, way of life, interest. It's supposed that you will somehow feel what kind of people they are.:)
I always start up conversation with my clients make sure I know if there is anything special they want. They will say hand and hand walking or something along those lines. But when you talk to people you get them to relax.
Some people are naturally photogenic and I don't need to get them laughing but for group photos I find the miscount fire works well.
Use easily followed directions, such as "look at the top of THAT tree" or "move THIS much closer" (show with hands).
If you have someone make a huge fake smile, they usually will make a genuine one right after.
Have fun!