Engagement Session Tips: Posing Like a Pro
You’re engaged! This is so exciting! You’re probably making a list of “to-do’s” for yourself and researching the perfect venue to say your vows, searching the web for vendors to work with and planning out decor! A BIG part of celebrating your day and creating lasting memories is photography and let’s face it, being in front of a camera might just bring with it a fair amount of trepidation!
Even if you find the perfect photographer, the idea of “posing” can be daunting and make you nervous. No one wants to look “stiff,” “awkward,” and “posed” during their engagement or wedding portraiture!
As a wedding photographer, I get to work with initially nervous couples who have the same fears as you! I pride myself on being able to teach my couples just a few of the basics of posing right off the bat, which makes them feel more confident and eventually leads to a relaxed, FUN portrait session. I realized that not all photographers offer this in their sessions, so wanted to write a little blog about some of the most common and effective posing tips I share with my clients to make their portraits turn out relaxed, candid and beautiful! This way, even if we don’t have the chance to work together you can go into your engagement or wedding feeling less nervous about your photos.
I know many of us are visual learners too, so following each posing tip I’ll include an example photo demonstrating how the tip looks in a portrait!
PosingTip #1
Stand with the majority of your weight on the leg furthest from the camera.
When you feel relaxed and comfortable while standing talking to friends, do you ever notice how you naturally put the majority of your weight on one leg? This relaxed way of standing ends up bending the knee of the leg with less weight on it and gives a calm, comfortable look to your stance.
The number one thing that will make the biggest impact on how natural your portraits look is how you stand and place your weight on your feet!
If you and your fiancé stand facing each other, put your weight on the leg furthest from the camera. For guys, just shifting your weight to that back foot is enough. For girls, to add a little more of that feminine “s-curve,” you can bend the knee of the leg closer to the camera a little more dramatically, even popping the heel of that closer foot up off the ground. This gives a much more relaxed look to your images than if you were both standing flat-footed, with even weight distribution to both feet.
That little pop in her knee makes all the difference!
Bending her knee here also puts them even closer together, making this portrait a bit more romantic!
In this image she is wearing a long dress, but even so that bent leg looks awesome!
Posing Tip #2
Don’t let space creep in between your bodies and keep your hips or belly buttons together and touching.
When you think of love, do you think of people cuddling in close together, or sitting far apart from one another? Being close with those we love is the natural communication of that love, so for this reason during portraits it is important that you two are snuggled up and physically touching during almost every image.
If you are facing each other, make sure your belly buttons are touching and that there isn’t any gap between your waists. If you are standing back-to-chest, ensure your back is fully resting on the chest of your partner and be sure to close any distance between you two. If you are hip to hip facing the camera, ensure your hips are touching or that you are holding hands to create an intimate look that communicates your love easily in portraiture.
It might be a bit strange at first, but snuggling in close will make for images that illustrate the love you two feel for each other and this is what your engagement and wedding photos are all about!
Having the groom cuddle in nice and close also can produce some natural laughter which always looks more candid than “forced smiles.”
Snuggling in! You can just see the love these two have when he holds her tight!
See how close their bodies are to each other? Even though they are both looking at the camera, the shared love they have is obvious!
Posing Tip #3
When you have your arms resting on your partner’s shoulders, lower the arm closest to the camera just a bit so that your face can be clearly seen.
Throwing your arms over your partner’s shoulders is a fun way to get close and show a lot of intimacy in an image. Snuggled up forehead to forehead, eyes closed, just enjoying each other also creates a romantic portrait that most brides would love to have in their portrait gallery.
To make an image like this look natural and relaxed, drop the hand closest to the camera just a bit, which will create an attractive bend in your elbow and will frame your faces instead of blocking them with your upper arm.
If you are nervous about how your arms photograph like I and many women are, a bend in the elbow is also a more aesthetic look to an arm rather than having it straight, so this tip is both practical and for looks too!
This tip is especially useful if you plan to do any “lifts” during your portrait sessions, as you will most likely have a lot of weight on your arms during a front lift (see photo below) so a bend in the arm closest to the camera will make this pose look more relaxed and again will help to show off the emotion in your face rather than blocking it with your upper arm.
Her right hand in this photo is down his arm enough so you can still see the neckline of her gorgeous blouse.
The bend in her elbows make it so you can see their epic kiss!
In this close up, I still had her lower her left arm a bit so that the arm of her jacket didn’t coverup her pretty scarf!
Posing Tip #4
When going for a more romantic look, instead of fully closing your eyes, just let your eyes “fall downward” looking toward your shoulder or hand.
No one wants to look asleep in photos! If you and your partner are all cuddled up together, it can be a natural thing to let your eyes close and soak in all that love. With photography however, the difference between having your eyes fully closed and letting them just fall downward is quite large.
Having your gaze fall downward prevents your lashes from fully touching which gives that romantic and soft look to images, whereas letting your eyes fully close tends to communicate sleep. Especially if you aren’t directly face to face with each other you can let your eyes fall down to look at your shoulder, which also turns your face to more of a three quarter profile - one of the more attractive angels for a face.
There are a few exceptions to this however, such as when you are sharing a kiss or if your faces are super close with both foreheads and noses touching. In these instances let your eyes close all the way, otherwise you might get dizzy and go cross eyed!
Here the bride is letting her gaze fall to her left shoulder.
Here is an example of the groom letting his gaze drop toward her hand which is on his chest.
In this one, his eyes are falling down toward her cheeks, and hers are toward the foliage at their waist.
Posing Tip #5
Guys’ hands always look better in the pocket rather than just hanging out by the leg.
Have you ever noticed that in almost every fashion magazine the guys have at least one hand in their pant pocket? This just looks more natural and is probably the reason why guys’ clothing always has such great pockets (jealous!).
In most poses, your hands will be interacting with each other - holding hands, caressing the face of your loved one, or resting on the waist pulling each other into one another.
However, in walking poses or even some more relaxed standing poses, one hand will be just “hanging loose” with no direction. If this happens to your guy, just have him pop it in his pocket. There isn’t some “special” way to do this either, just however he would normally hang out with his hand in his pocket is exactly how he should put it in his pocket during portraits. A lot of times before pictures even start, he’ll be standing like this, so compliment him on how he’s already a posing master!
He looks just like a model in this shot with his hand in his pocket and looking relaxed!
His right hand is resting in his pocket here. It wouldn’t have quite the same look if his arm was just hanging by his side.
Even with his hand in his pocket he’s still showing off that amazing watch!
Bonus Tip!
A great way to get the most out of your portraits is any time you decide to kiss in front of the camera, it takes being quite comfortable to kiss in front of a camera, so maybe save this for once you are feeling warmed up and relaxed, but once you do kiss and before fully pulling away, keep your faces close to each other and let that natural “I just kissed my love” smile spread across your lips.
The intimate, post-kiss smile is one of my favorites to photograph as how could your face not light up in the most beautiful and genuine smile after sharing a kiss with your partner!?!
Try it out! I think you’ll love how it looks!
The Kiss!
The Post-Kiss Smile!
I hope you enjoyed these tips and that they give you confidence that you will have beautiful portraits during your engagement session and for your wedding day!
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