Blog

11/12/09
When I am shooting a person's portrait or a fashion photo shoot or photographing bride and groom at weddings, I always keep them in the "loop" and I always keep them engaged by talking to them - all the time, the entire time.

When I am shooting a person's portrait or a fashion photo shoot or photographing bride and groom at weddings, I always keep them in the "loop" and I always keep them engaged by talking to them - all the time, the entire time.

I want my subject to be feeling great - I want them to be confident and happy, enjoying their time in front of my lens as much as possible, because that translates into better and great looking portraits and photographs.

I tell them about what I am doing, why I am doing it, I ask them - what they have done over the last few days, we talk about the weather - basically anything , as this keeps them engaged. The danger is that during a photo shoot, if at anytime there's a period of silence, they start to get worried that something's wrong and that it's their fault. They have no idea what I am seeing through the viewfinder, and if things get quite, they start to get concerned and they start to get edgy - and within few minutes they're totally out of loop.

When I am shooting a portrait, fashion shoot, I always talk to them - the whole time. If I stop to move a light, I tell them why - if I move them around - I tell them, I also keep giving then constant verbal encouragement - "that's great, fantastic, right on the dot, what a great shot, great smile, you look brilliant" - doing this at all times makes them more conformable and gives them extra confident, resulting in those "wow" looking images.