Certain topics of discussion tend to get a lot of attention in photography
fora, equipment, lighting, composition, and occasionally even things that
you can do to improve your skill as a photographer. Models don't get a lot
of discussion beyond "Where can I find someone willing to pose for me for
free?".
I've been working for a while on the concept of making my subjects feel more
comfortable in front of the camera, but I'm realizing that it is just part
of the bigger question of how to teach your subjects to be better at
modeling. So, first, I will pose (heh!) this question:
"What to people need to be taught to enable the photographer to get better
pictures of them?"
I can see answers ranging from "The model doesn't need to understand anything,
it's the photographer's job to know all that and just tell the model what to
do" to "It's good for the model to understand at least the basics of how
certain poses and their position relative to the light affect their appearance".
I started out from the premise of "Photo sessions for the shy", and here is
what I wrote on the subject of making people feel comfortable in front of the
camera. I would greatly appreciate feedback, suggestions and further
ideas for future iterations on these topics:
For many, if not most, people, the idea of a photo shoot is both enticing
and intimidating. If you are like most people, you do not have any photos
of your self that are not horrible, which makes the thought of good photos
seem at best, a pleasant fantasy.
How many of the photos of you were taken by someone shoving a point and shoot
camera (or a cellphone) in your face, and then berating you for not smiling?
Even most movie stars are not going to look good in those conditions. Even
apart from the technical limitiations of the camera, the background will
probably be cluttered, the lighting bad, and very few people can give a
genuine, relaxed smile in those conditions.
One very important thing to keep in mind is that a good photograph of
you is not necessarily one that makes you look like a movie star. For me
a good photograph of someone is a beautiful photo, that looks like the
person being photographed.
The most important aspect of getting a good photograph of someone is
getting them to relax. It is hard to relax, however, when just about
every photo that has been taken of you sucks. What this means is that
the first step in getting good photos of someone, is to take, and show
them, photos of themself that simply do not suck.
Photos that don't suck start with basic technical details.
Making sure that the background is appropriate,
and not cluttered or distracting, decent lighting, correct exposure
and proper focus. There are shelves worth of books on this subject.
The next step is to take pictures where you don't do any of the things that
are pretty much guaranteed to make a photo of someone suck:
Don't insist that they smile, few things look worse than the rictus of a
forced smile.
Don't berate them for doing things wrong.
Don't criticize their appearance.
There are some things you can do to help them look good:
Be friendly, and accepting.
Give them constructive feedback, on what they are doing well, as what they
could do better.
Give them advice and suggestions on how to pose. If they knew what to do,
they'd already have good pictures of themselves.
The advent of digital photography, however, makes two things possible that do
more than just about anything else to help get pictures that don't suck of
someone.
It is possible to take hundreds of photos in a sitting. If you take a couple
hundred pictures of just about anyone you are almost guaranteed to get at least
a few where they don't have a stupid expression on their face.
The other advantage of digital photography is the near instant feedback.
After shooting for half an hour, you can load the photos on the computer, and
review them. Ideally, the photographer would go through and throw out the worst
clinkers first, but there is rarely time for that. Looking through the photos,
gives the subject a chance to see photos of them that are not only not bad, but
probably pretty good. There is a good chance that even mediocre will be better
than any photos they have of themselves.
If you don't believe me, look at what people put on their profiles on dating
sites. It makes sense that they're going to use the best that they have, and
most profile photos seriously suck.
The other advantage of the review session, and it's important to stress this,
is that it gives the subject to learn what does, and doesn't work.
Between being more relaxed, and having a better idea of what to do, the second
set of photos, tends to be a lot better, very few will suck, and many will
actually be good.
The third set is where the magic often really starts happening. The subject is
excited about getting good shots, is learning how to pose, and the photographer
and the model start developing a rapport, and creativity can start flowing.
However, at this time, people tend to start getting tired, taking photos is a
lot harder work. By this time, however, the model is a lot less shy about
taking photos, and the next time they show up for a photo shoot, has likely had
a lot of fun inspiration for things that they want to do.
There are a few other things to consider to. If the subject brings a good
friend, give the friend a spare camera and let them take photos. The two of
them will already have chemistry, and it will be easier for them to relate. You
can give constructive advice, suggest poses, correct the lighting. The other
thing that you can do, is stand off to the side with your camera, and
capitalize on the chemistry between the two friends, to get some great shots.
Another thing that I find works particularly well in group photos is after
you've done a couple of photos to set things up, have people do something
incredibly silly, like a Zombie photo. That relaxes people, the laughter is
still resonating, and right afterwards you can get some great group photos.
Similarly, never underestimate the value of being silly, even in a portrait session. For
that matter, some of my best photos can be described as "We were doing a fetish
shoot, and things got a bit silly".
