I’ve never shot in a studio with a model before therefore I was wondering how interacting with a him or her would have been. I was fortunate enough to have extrovert and photogenic friends as models but it turned out pretty difficult to recreate the poses and generally the ideas stuck in my head. The key to overcome this problem was good communication with the model and a relaxed and comfortable model. A good starting point to start shooting was showing pictures to the model that explained what was I looking for. Explaining to the model what emotions and what background story I was trying to achieve has been very important. Standing behind a camera, being illuminated by studio lights and maybe being watched by other people can be at first intimidating, therefore I decided to sit down my models at first. In the following pictures I told Stefano to just relax and do everything he wanted to feel comfortable and relaxed.
After a long day of school Stefano immediately loosed his tie and started unbuttoning his shirt. While he was doing that I took some pictures. They look natural and emphasize his feelings. He looks tired but at the same time he is relaxed. The way he sat down and the way he looked at the camera while being photographed shows a certain extroversion and comfort of which I’ve taken advantage during the photoshoots.
Another important thing needed to achieve natural poses and portraits was constant movement. Making the model continuously move not only makes him more part of the photoshoot and more comfortable but creates dynamic, more natural and not fake portraits.
Trying to achieve dramatic poses with shy models isn’t an easy task, but showing them good photos about them reassured them. Hearing what they don’t like about their photos and trying together to fix those things also helped. What I learned with these photo shooting is that portraits are about understanding the model and good communication with them.
After a long day of school Stefano immediately loosed his tie and started unbuttoning his shirt. While he was doing that I took some pictures. They look natural and emphasize his feelings. He looks tired but at the same time he is relaxed. The way he sat down and the way he looked at the camera while being photographed shows a certain extroversion and comfort of which I’ve taken advantage during the photoshoots.
Another important thing needed to achieve natural poses and portraits was constant movement. Making the model continuously move not only makes him more part of the photoshoot and more comfortable but creates dynamic, more natural and not fake portraits.
Trying to achieve dramatic poses with shy models isn’t an easy task, but showing them good photos about them reassured them. Hearing what they don’t like about their photos and trying together to fix those things also helped. What I learned with these photo shooting is that portraits are about understanding the model and good communication with them.
