Strike a Pose!

anonymouscuban

So I've been watching the workshop that Sue Bryce did on Creative Live (thanks Diva :barb) for the last couple of weeks. I think she does an amazing job of teaching simple techniques on posing and directing the person your shooting to do what you want them to. My wife and I were just sitting around the house so I conned her into letting me shoot her through some poses. The promise of going to get sundaes always works like a charm. I took quite a number of shots, making simple adjustments to "flow" through poses. Here are the ones I like the most.

If you guys want, I can sticky this thread so everyone can post their own favorite poses and maybe it can serve as a posing guide for folks on Dgrin. Let me know what you think. BTW, would love to hear feedback on these.

Lighting consisted of an AB800 in a 60x30 softbox as main. I used a large white reflector as fill. Then an AB400 in a large strip softbox that was gridded as a kicker. I still have it setup so maybe I will take a pullback and post it in that thread.

Minor post work. Custom WB from gray card in LightRoom. Then in PS I sharpened using Smart Sharpen filter (80%, Lens Blur, 3.5px) and I then cleaned up some stray hairs and a small pimple she has on her chin right now (the horror!).

These are in the sequence I took the shots. We took the shots sitting on the floor in our living room. Used an end table for the first couple of shots. For the rest, she's just sitting or laying on the floor. What I was striving for in this were asymmetry to make the pose dynamic. I tried to avoid straight lines.

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Hackbone

Wow, I've got to steal some of these poses. Very nice job.

For those of you who don't do this start.......make a favorites folder on your desktop and save the images you like to that and review it right before a shoot or pick your favorites and print them out for the shoot.

This would make a great sticky.

FlyNavy

Excellent work. Great idea and what a beautiful wife!!

divamum

Yup. Awesome. What I love about the techniques that SB demonstrated is that the poses - despite being heavily directed - don't look STATIC. It's a very technical way of getting the looks that manages to stay lively and connected; I hesitate to paraphrase, since the *way* she does it is as important as what she does - the recent seminar is well worth buying, IMO. If you watch her - rather than copy the poses as such - it is much easier to see how to incorporate her *methods* into one's own style.

Alex you and Jen really nailed the "Kitty pose" on the floor! Also absolutely LOVE 8/11/12.

Nice work!

anonymouscuban

Thanks all. It was a lot of fun shooting and for all you guys that are married. I really recommend doing this little sessions with your wives. It's become our little play time and it honestly spices things up.

Diva... you're absolutely correct. It's better to get an understand the "theory" behind her posing methods that to just copy her. As I said, I watched her seminar several times, specially the parts where she explained and demonstrated posing to really get a feel of the what and the why. It really helped me a lot. I didn't have any visual queues for these shots. I did this all based on the concepts of what she talked about. The crazy thing is that I think I only had 3 shots that I tossed and that was only because focus was soft. I concentrated getting the pose right and it sped things up and I ended up with way less clicks and way more usable shots.

Thanks again for posting the link to her seminar. I would've never known of her if not for you.

Sam

This is soo well done, I have no words.

Sam

anonymouscuban

Sam wrote: »

This is soo well done, I have no words.

Sam

Thanks Sam.

Bilsen

Really wonderful.

Can you or Diva direct me to that seminar? I think it may be worth buying and if I do, she owes you the commission.

Doesn't hurt to have your wife as the subject.

divamum

Either of the Sue Bryce glamour seminars would probably be of interest to you, John. Seriously awesome stuff. http://www.creativelive.com/courses/popular

Thanks again for posting the link to her seminar. I would've never known of her if not for you.

Which means we both have Kinkajou to thank, since she's who clued me in initially

lilmomma

nice! i think the sticky is a FANTASTIC idea, i struggle with posing and i know i'm not in the minority.

Also.. bribing your wife with sundaes.. awesome