*For more information visit AdoramaTV YT page, and of course you can keep up with Vanessa on Instagram @VanessaJoy.
In this lesson with amazing Vanessa Joy (via her awesome show “Breathe Your Passion” highlighted by AdoramaTV) we are going to talk about Vanessa’s typical engagement session, how she interacts with clients and poses them.
Vanessa shares: “Because this is usually the first time that my clients have been in a professional photo shoot, I try to start off with easy poses basically staying a little bit further away from them than I normally would and having them do things that are natural, like walking away from me, walking towards me maybe, being even a little bit flirtatious looking at each other and interacting with each other, rather than interacting with me as much.”
“After I get them a little bit more comfortable I’ll have them start looking at me for some photos and then I will have them interact with each other with a little bit more affection than just holding hands. When I posed a bride and groom, I love it when a groom’s hands are on the bride’s arms, and her arms are just tucked in nice and close with him, it just looks so much more connected for me than the typical arms around the waist, arms around the shoulders look.”
” After I feel that my clients are comfortable being photographed I’ll move in typically with a 50 mm 1.2 lens and photograph some more of the details. Photographing the bride having her looking at me, look at her fianc\xc3\xa9 maybe some of the details like the ring or anything else that will make for a cute photo.”
” I do like to photograph the groom as well so I try to make sure I pay attention to both of them even though a lot of the attention does tend to fall on the bride-to-be. “
“From there we’ll change positions, I typically try to do standing still, standing and moving positions, and sitting positions with my clients so they have a good variety, again having them interact with each other is great these tend to be the pictures that my clients like a little bit better, and will blow up or make big pictures in the album’s. The pictures of them looking at the camera do tend to be the ones that mom and dad hang on their wall! “
Vanessa continues – “So I want to make sure I get both of them. Both far away and then again both close up. I’ll do a little detail pictures, and then I’ll also have closeup pictures of them looking at the camera, again I want to give them as much variety as I can in the hour-long session that I have with them, and I typically spend a little bit longer than that even with the couple, usually shooting about an hour before sunset, so I have the best natural light .”
“Even though my style is a little bit more light and airy and soft and romantic I will do some that are a little bit more fashion-forward so some stronger poses just to give them again a little bit of variety.”
“Posing the hands is something I’d like to pay special attention to. Posing hands on the lapel and then the bride with her hands on her hip. After that I do get them a little bit closer together because again those are the types of photos that they have learned to expect from me so I want to keep those at the forefront of what I’m doing.”
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Watch the full episode with Vanessa Joy and Adorama TV: