How to Pose a Wedding Couple (KJ Education)

if you are a professional photographer especially a wedding photographer and you struggle with posing I want to suggest to you that maybe your struggle has nothing to do with posing at all I have three tips that are gonna change posing for the rest of your career [Music] hey there I'm Caitlin Jaynes welcome to my youtube channel this is where we give education tips and tricks to help photographers be profitable and purposeful in their business while also showing some behind the scenes and sharing our faith in our family so posing is one of the most difficult parts of being a wedding photographer it is it's hard to make people do what you want them to do and to look genuine and authentic and I realized that the way I make people feel matters more than the actual tips and adjustments I do to their actual body to make them look a certain way if people don't feel great they're not going to look great when I started analyzing okay what is working with the way that I am talking with people posing them creating an experience for them how could I break this down and teach someone else and I came up with a solution and a solution is the three P's of posing and that is power praise and precision so the first P is power and you might think like what exactly does she mean by power will power it's something that I I've always thought of as being a negative thing but I've realized when you are working with someone even the most confident couple or the cut' most confident bridal party no matter what I have never run into someone who did not want me to be in control of the situation you are the professional you may not feel like it all the time but you are you know more about photography than anyone else who is surrounding you and you are in control of making sure people know exactly where to listen where to look how to act how to pose and if you don't create an atmosphere where you're demanding gentle Authority then you're going to get walked all over power is an accentual and essential part of the way your clients experience you so when it comes to actually displaying power in a realized situation like what does that actually look like well I had a dad at a wedding once watch me photograph the bridal party it was the father of a bride and he came up to me afterwards and he said Caitlin I love how you just gently command authority from everyone the whole group and I kept that phrase and you heard me say it prior to this gently commanding Authority like that's my ultimate goal at every single wedding it's all about confidence it's all about confidence and just knowing that you know what's coming what's coming next and you also know that you have nothing to be afraid of I think a lot of people have very negative experiences with wedding photographers a lot of wedding photographers show their stress in their when their voice so they're speaking and you can tell that they're stressed you can tell that they're tense and they're timid and they're afraid and it's coming through in their tone inflection so it's interesting but if you can control your tone inflection if you can talk positively but directly that's awesome instead of talking at someone guys get-together is so much more intense than all right guys here we go we're gonna get together really quick I'd rather work with the second person the second photographer sounds a lot nicer to me but maybe you don't put yourself in the category of being super bubbly like cheerleader personality and I get that question all the time from our posing course students and this was my encouragement to them if you are marketing personally which I hope you all are and if you don't know how to do that I have a whole course about that too but if you're marketing personally then a lot of times you attract couples that love who you are in the way that you show up in life and they are attracted to your personality and so for me the way that I engage with my couples matches their personality a lot but let's say you're not there let's say that you're not attracting couples that are exact personality and maybe you're not super bubbly and you don't have that cheerleader personality that's okay you want to make sure that you maintain the sense of power and gentle Authority by keeping everybody in the loop so maybe you're not saying all right guys let's get together because it really just doesn't fit you but you are telling them with gentle Authority what's coming next what they can expect these are the next steps we're gonna do and we're gonna do it quickly because I know that you guys want to get to the party you don't have to have a bubbly personality to show empathy towards your clients for me I know that if I look at the groomsmen and I'm like guys I know you don't want to be here that long I don't either we're gonna get this done so fast I promise just listen to what I say it'll be super easy what I'm doing in that moment I'm establishing gentle Authority by showing empathy to someone I'm telling them hey I get it I know that you want to go to cocktail hour hey I get it and know you don't wanna be in the hot Sun in like a three-piece suit let's do this super fast let's work together that is maintaining power that's establishing power and maintaining power and I think in a lot of ways photographers they just don't realize that these type of tips in this type of encouragement to show up with gentle Authority it makes every difference in the world those groomsmen listen to me and they I don't care how drunk they are I don't care how crazy they are when I show them empathy and I establish gentle Authority they're on my side and we're on the same team instead of me either being a timid photographer that doesn't know what she's doing or being a dictator that they're like gosh she's such a jerk I don't wanna listen to her there is a meet in the middle you don't have to be a cheerleader personality you just have to love people well and it starts by showing empathy maintaining positive tone inflection and letting people know that you're in control and you know what's coming next so the second P is praise and praise is probably the number one thing that comes naturally to me but I realized really doesn't come natural to a lot of photographers and the problem is I think a lot of people don't realize the power of silence and how much it can really kill a shoot so I talk in opposing chorus all about it we have a whole section about how the first 20 minutes of a shoot make or break the entire experience with your client and there's all these different things you can try and little ways that you can prepare them beforehand but overall your job as a photographer no matter how you start a session is to maintain your clients confidence level by praising them consistently I don't care if they are the worst models on the planet they should never be able to tell by your reaction to them they should never be able to tell that maybe they're not getting it as fast as your other clients they should feel awesome no matter what the way that I ensure that my clients feel awesome and that I am constantly praising them and encouraging them is that there's rarely a moment of silence during our shoot let's let's let me show you an example if I was go to grabbing a couple and I'm like you know am I Kameron front of my face and and they're posing and I'm like perfect guys you look great and then I'm silent for five seconds what do you think's going through their mind in those five seconds honestly if it was me I'd wonder like if they were nuzzling or spying at each other I'd wonder like am i doing this right like I feel awkward as it is but am I doing this right what do I look like so if you experience your clients to be doing a great job but then you pause with five seconds of silence I know for me whenever I've had my pictures taken I know that as a big chunk of silence makes me start to doubt what I'm doing and I fell in my own clients when I'm on a wedding day or during an engagement session that if I continue to praise him and I fill the awkward silence and I've trained myself to have a whole different variety of compliments that I can share with them I'm not giving them a chance to be self-conscious when I am praising them consistently I am just letting myself constantly push like encouragement and confidence onto them so that they don't ever have a moment of feeling like we're really bad at this this feels extra awkward I'm not going to try that pose because I don't feel like I'm good at this my clients never feel that way because I never give them a chance to now you might be thinking what it does look like practically Caitlin I'm gonna tell you practically don't judge me but when I first started shooting I literally memorized a collection of compliments and that might seem like oh that is not genuine that's not authentic but until I memorize like I memorize this because I ultimately wanted them to feel so good about themselves and what I found is that it became less about a memorize a list of compliments and more about a comfortability that I had during a shoot that I could talk to my clients I could encourage them without repeating the same thing over and over because if you're shooting and you're photographing a couple and you're like you guys look perfect get together a little bit closer a little bit of a nuzzle perfect that's awesome that's perfect how many times can you say perfect before they're gonna be like this girl's lying to me so I've memorized a lot of different ways to encourage my clients and to fill the silence in our posing course I talked about how you don't always have to just praise them and silence you can also banter back and forth with them you can joke with them a lot of times I get to know my couples and I hear little inside jokes or quirky things about their personality and who they are and I can throw in those little things here and there and so all of a sudden it's not just about making sure that I'm praising them it's just that I am I'm communicating with them constantly I'm never giving them a moment to feel like maybe I'm not good at this seems simple seems like something that every photographer should know right but you would not believe you wouldn't believe the amount of attire cuz I have either seen behind the scenes or I've seen it workshops that they will say perfect get together no instruction no praise pay attention next time that you're shooting if you give an instruction it's got to be followed by a praise even if they're not doing it right go ahead and get in there for a nuzzle perfect awesome that's exactly what I want okay now see what it looks like to have your eyes fall down on the shoulder alright there's so much I want to tell you but in the posing course I talked about how there are positive instructions and there's negative so when you are taking a couple's portraits and you want the bride to just lightly let our eyes fall over the shoulder you're not going to say okay look down sounds so awful but a lot of photographers don't realize it they don't realize how harsh that sounds I never tell a client okay look down I say I'm gonna have you let your eyes fall or let's try this it's more of an invitation to them and not demand these things all fall into the category of praising your client and creating this beautiful positive experience for them so they walk away feeling like we just killed that I thought we were gonna be awkward but we just killed that I loved working with that girl there's a lot of people who can't do this genuinely and it kills everything and I think genuineness in this constant praise comes from having a collection of things to say because if you are stumbling over one or two encouragement phrases over and over again it's just gonna get so stale so fast but like there are phrases that I say to clients that are like gosh can y'all just come show other people how to do this you're killing it or I'll say things like this is everything I wanted guys I'm getting excited let me back up and do one more a little pullback or I'll say things like have you practiced this this is so good for this for the wedding don't lose us do not forget this pose guys this is your pose this is it this is it this is yours every couple has a post this is your pose now it's not always true is that always like does a couple always have a pose maybe sort of kind up but like it doesn't matter because the goal of me saying all these phrases that I have come up with over the years is to encourage my client that they are killing it and they're good at this and they don't need to be nervous and they don't need to feel awkward they just need to focus on having a good time together and that's how I get images where clients look and feel like themselves and when they look and feel like themselves and they see their images and it takes them back to the way they felt during their shoot and the way they felt during their shoot was incredible because of the three P's of posing that's why I get referred back to you because of the experience that I gave them and the foundational pieces of the experience that I give my KJ couples is from these three P's of posing so now we've talked about power we've talked about praise we have to talk about the last of the three P's and that is precision and precision for someone who talks a lot like me can sometimes be a little overwhelming because I've got to really slow down and think through exactly what I want my clients to do a lot of times photographers are very vague in the way they give instruction they say a lot of maybes a lot of Ohm's maybe some kindness sort of let me let me just paint this picture you're photographing a couple and you're trying to have them sit down for a pose which is we all know sitting shots can be a little tricky and so they're sitting down and you say to them maybe uh can you kind of like kind of like move your legs maybe a little it's like what are you saying good what are you what are you wanting them to do actually let's be precise let's very clearly say to them perfect your knees are actually gonna move back towards that direction right there like that tree move your knees towards that tree tilt your chin and your nose more towards me just like that awesome and take your elbow and put it right on his upper thigh when you give those specific instructions it's just like praise you're not leaving any room for them to get self-conscious so Trevor you're literally sitting like this alright so more weight on this side you're gonna be sitting like this leaning kind of leaning back on him a little bit and I'll sitting shots are very hard so it's I have to adjust you it's not cuz you're doing it wrong okay oh that's so good okay that's perfect so let's do you can lay one on his leg that's perfect and his one arm is gonna be behind you you can actually prop your left knee up just a little bit so you can bend it yeah oh that's perfect so before ty comes and throws leaves in your face I'm gonna have you both smile at me okay so you're smiling here perfect let's get your heads just a little closer together perfect there you go smiling now he's gonna be you don't even have to nuzzle just look down at her and let's see you're laughing towards the car over there Oh My heavens that's perfect listen you can laugh at me one more time so she smiled at me awesome precision can oftentimes be a hang-up for photographers because when you're posing if you're thinking about power and thinking about praise and it's like oh and I think about precision sometimes photographers don't technically know what needs to change and so they can kind of get muddied and they kind of like murmur and in their words and you don't actually know exactly what they want and so this does come into technical posing to be able to look at someone and say that right arm needs to be adjusted that head needs to be tilted a little bit that person's weight needs to be tilted back so I understand you need technical knowledge but once you have technical knowledge you have to use specific adjectives you have to be very specific and what you're actually adjusting so that no one is left wondering what do I do with my hands where exactly am I looking are you talking to me you're talking to her anytime that you're not precise and they are unclear you take their confidence down one notch and you've got to work really hard to build it back up so if we can avoid that then we will find ourselves in situations where our clients feel awesome you look awesome and all of a sudden people walk away from shoots loving their total and complete experience with you so when you take these three piece so power gently commanding Authority praise making sure your clients never have the opportunity to feel insecure because you're constantly encouraging them and precision giving them very precise descriptive detail into what need them to do when it comes to posing and adjustments when you combine those three things also with my four core poses you literally could take every wedding portrait you would ever need in 10 minutes while also giving your clients the experience they dreamed of in a wedding photographer if you don't believe me you can ask Tyler he has watched me do it and I don't know how many dozens of weddings but it's true it it never fails me my systems my posing techniques have never left me in a situation where I haven't had a happy client your chin can come down a little bit yes oh my gosh smiling here girl you're you're gonna be the prettiest bride oh my gosh you can let your arms go fling your arms around his neck it's the end of your engagement session yes okay oh okay okay so Alyssa how did you feel coming into your engagement how did you when did you start feeling less nervous because they're advance that's why hi you're so sweet what did she do that made you feel it's like I knew you already that seriously so helpful because I do talk a lot but I realized sometimes when you talk about though and you give people instruction a lot of people like instruction because they don't want to be like what do I do with my hands I don't know what to do y'all are the best guys wedding day is gonna be a people okay this is literally and I'm not exaggerating this for the sake of a YouTube video this is all you need to grow your business because it's marketing it's creating experience is creating trust and it's creating friends like I have never experienced the type of growth in my business that I have when I started implementing this into every single sheet that I did this is the secret sauce that has made me who I am today as a wedding photographer and I'm excited for you to go out and try this to grow in your posing to grow in your power your praise your precision suit your clients walk away with an amazing experience with you that they I want you to be more than they ever expected you to be as their frittata and this is the number one way to do it so this content in this education from this video just one small piece at the entire KJ posing course if you struggle with posing and this was super helpful and you want more you want to learn more I have so much more that I can offer you in a KJ posing course but maybe you're just ready to watch a little bit more training online we have a free webinar that's linked below as well as access to the KJ posing course if you're interested in that there will be more episodes like this more videos like this where I'm sharing tips and tricks that I have learned after 10 years plus of being a wedding photographer I'd love for you to see them so make sure you subscribe below and I will see you next time [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Katelyn James

Views: 18,094

Rating: 4.9589443 out of 5

Keywords: Wedding Photography Education, Katelyn James, wedding photographer, Katelyn James Photography, posing tips for weddings, wedding photography, wedding photography tips, learn wedding photography, wedding photography tips for posing, Posing tips for wedding photography, posing tips for wedding photography, how to book more weddings as a photographer, find more clients photography, how to grow your wedding photography business, Wedding photography poses, how to pose a couple

Id: H8wwXg73efk

Length: 18min 38sec (1118 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 02 2020