Minimising potential flaws...

heatherfeather

In a perfect world, every single bride wears a size 6... has a sweet little button nose... really should wear a strapless dress... has a perfect complexion... confidence....straight white teeth....and a mother to match.

So lets talk about reality:

-Share your tricks and tips on how to accentuate your bride's good sides and deemphesise the flaws.

-Balancing photoshop... How much can we do and still retain the individuality of the person?


I have my own take on these questions, but I am really looking forward to your responses!


So.... lets talk.
:lust

Scootersbabygirl

For me, learning angles has been important. Learning to make sure that the neck isn't lost, even if the bride is like me and has a double chin, and learning what stances look the best on a person. I love having gorgeous brides and grooms to work with, but I also love having ones that present a challenge. I recently had a bride who had one front tooth discolored, and I for every closeup picture I had to clone the other front tooth, flip it, and then lighten it up a bit to make it look natural. It took some time, but I wanted to make sure that she looked back on her photos with pride.

I've also found that the photos of brides and grooms come out the best when there's emotion there. It doesn't matter if the bride has a bit of a double chin - if she's got love in her eye and is smiling at her brand new husband, you don't even notice the flaws.

divamum

:lurk

mmmatt

Yeah, it is about the bride so you need to feel them out if they have potential to be a "tough one to shoot". I have done heavier couples and the emotional beautiful captures that I loved were far from her favorites because of body features diplayed a certain way. I see beauty a little different than the masses I think! Shooting an e-session helps a lot in these situations. Trying to look at things from the other persons perspective is difficult but required with some people. Long lenses and oblique angles help a lot with brides who are curvy or heavy and being conscious of a persons "best side" is helpful in most every situation. Side lighting can create deceptive shadows that add interest and hide flaws. I aim for emotions in most cases so I sometimes miss those things unless they are in the front of my mind. Nice thread Heather, I'm due to go through these things in my mind and am also catching some popcorn with Diva on this one! Actually off to shoot an e-session in an hour with some non-supermodels so hopefully I will be able to show some good examples in a day or two!

Matt

divamum

Matt, that session you did with your friend "Jill" sticks in my mind as WOWZA examples for making a curvy girl look fantastic in all ways in every shot - you seriously had it goin' on there! Care to repost any of those and/or figure out how you did what you did that worked so deliciously well?

Agnieszka

Ha! Gonna stickinize this post .... I didn't have any good ideas for my bi-weekly threads recently ()

mmmatt

divamum wrote: »

Matt, that session you did with your friend "Jill" sticks in my mind as WOWZA examples for making a curvy girl look fantastic in all ways in every shot - you seriously had it goin' on there! Care to repost any of those and/or figure out how you did what you did that worked so deliciously well?

Too funny that you remember her name. We are actually due for another session and haven't gotten around to it yet. She isn't all that hard to shoot though. She is gorgeous! It's just her curves get her a little more attention I think than she would like sometimes and these were shots for professional use so we wanted to temper things a bit up top and give her a little less of the hourglass shape on both ends. These are from a few years back, so my processing especially wasn't quite dialed in at this point. Don't think for a second I didn't shoot a lot of crap this day either! These were the keepers and there were plenty that weren't. The keepers though used complimentary angles.


One easy way is to hide part of the subject


A creative crop never hurts. Even though I don't really show it here, bringing up the arms like this will raise the bust line and that can help some women out.



Again with a crop. All the attention is on her face here.


This is full body, but note how I have her turned. This is an oblique angle and works well. she is leaning into the wall but I straighteded her by tilting the frame. This is also shot with my 70-200 @ 149mm which helps compress things a bit.


This is a similar shot at 24mm. if you keep the more sensitive areas near the center lines and keep your lens parallel to your subject you get less wide angle distortion which can make things go whacky on you.


The rest I think you can do the math!









hope that helps!!!!

Oh... here is a straight-on angle for comparison




Matt

heatherfeather

^Wow Mmatt... You really rocked that shoot. Excellently handled. That trenchcoat worked so well, I think I need to get one, lol.

smurfy

Matt, gorgeous work!

I try to shoot larger brides from a higher angle or vantage point, and hide parts of their bodies behind the groom at times. Veils are a huge help to hide part of the arms, cheeks, and create diagonals leading to the eyes. Also, telling them to angle their body, with one shoulder towards you and the other away; to separate arms and elbows slightly from the torso, and use shadows to your advantage.

Here's a distant overhead shot of a heavier bride.

emeraldrose

Great thread, It's something I've been thinking about since I've had 2 brides not "perfect" lol. How about grooms as well or how about when the bride is 5'2" and the groom 6'2" lol.