I struggled to keep variety in my images earlier on in my career. Because I frequently made money with my photography from portraiture and weddings, I tended to get comfortable with a shot or series of shots and just “stick to the script.” Naturally, there is something to be said for reliability, and delivering a consistent product to clients who are looking to book me but haven’t yet – after all, customer satisfaction is inextricably linked to what their expectations were at the outset – but the downside of that “rinse and repeat” process is that it dulled my skills and stunted my growth as a photographer. Strictly money-motivated shooting takes a the risk out of photography. If I don’t risk taking a few bad images, I won’t find new ways to make great ones. Actually, there are related thoughts in my article about throwing away too many photos in the editing process, too, but stick this article out, I think it’s got more essentials in it.
Another HUGE bonus on this list is that these tricks will pay off big time if you don’t feel confident in posing people or couples. I’ll admit it took me a long time to get comfortable telling people how to move. If that’s the boat you’re in, or even if it’s not, the following checklist will maximize on every position your subject holds. Instead of having a list of 20 poses in my head, I can make 20 solid images with only two or three because these tricks multiply the usefulness of every pose. If in time you become confident with posing, these tips will increase your ability to introduce variety into your shoots exponentially.
What I have done to combat these low points and keep myself pushing the limits is that I have a modest number of key habits that I repeat in my mind while on a shoot. Here is a list I’ve been putting together for many years. It has a variety of ways to take a new look at what you’re shooting. Some are “in-camera” techniques and others are more interpersonal approaches. Most importantly, the majority of them don’t require any extra gear (though a couple do, if that’s what you’re into). If you use these tips in conjunction with one another, literally hundreds of combinations for variety are possible – I haven’t done the math, but it might even be thousands. Make no mistake, this is a HUGE resource if you need to add variety to your shoots. And let’s be honest, we all do, myself included. So let’s go.
The first is one of the easiest, and it is altering my point of view. There’s no fancy skill or editing technique that took years to learn about this first step, everyone can do it on their next shoot and it only takes a small amount of effort and creativity. If I take one image of a model, for example, before I consider moving my subject or changing a background, I remember to move myself 3 times. Much of the time, it’s probable that my first thought is the one I will like the best and keep, but not taking the other two eliminates possibilities that I will find something I like even better that I hadn’t thought of before. I try to get higher if I can, lower is always an option (sometimes to the point of laying down), or I will move laterally toward the profile. This isn’t rocket science, clearly, but keeping yourself from moving on too soon is the big takeaway here.
A logical progression from varying point of view, and one just as easy to accomplish, is to vary your image orientation, that is, take both portrait and landscape images. Simply put, it means turning your camera 90 degrees after you take a shot and taking another one. You could, and probably should do this in combination with every other technique listed in this post. It will at least double the images you come away with with no additional thought put to the images. One big advantage of making a habit out of this comes into play when it is time to print. Sometimes I find myself buying images intended for frames that already exist in my house. It would be a pity for a customer to want to fill a frame in their house with one of your images but pass on it because it isn’t the right orientation. Also, if you’re shooting an event where an album is a customary product, like a wedding or a party, you will do yourself huge favors in the design of that album because you will have an abundance of options for image placement on a page. Designing an album can be rather like putting together a jigsaw puzzle if you limit your options by only taking images at one orientation. The only other way around this problem would be cropping, and even though resolutions are high these days and it can be done and still produce a passable image, the losses to the framing of the image will be extreme either direction you go. As a bailout option, maybe cropping is an option, but the likelihood is high that you would lose too much at the ends of the frame, and for that reason it ought not to be your plan at the outset.
The third tip I have is to (while shooting in manual, of course) shake up your shutter speed. By that, I mean lower it for the purposes of letting motion blur into your images to convey, well, motion. If you can introduce a creative use of blur into your images, your subject will really pop. Contrast is what you want, a little bit of both. When everything in an image is blurry, (not out of focus, mind you, that’s entirely different), it will certainly look like an error and will be hard to know where to look when it is viewed. If nothing in an image has blur, it may not look like a mistake, but it will certainly look static (not moving), and “static” often equates to “boring” in people’s minds. The key with blur is to have both, and not necessarily in even proportion. Something static (whether subject or background) gives the impression that the object that is blurred is supposed to be blurred, and that has the potential to be more impressive than images with no blur, because those are more commonplace. My sense is that it’s not good to go overboard on this one, but not doing it at all is a missed opportunity in my mind.
Another big, obvious, concern while on location, is light. In a studio setting, light is highly controlled; put out in one area, restricted in another, and under your creative command. With location shoots, you are at the mercy of your surroundings and a game of “find the good light” ensues. The simplest way to attack lighting while on location for a beginner is what I call watch the watch, or in less ambiguous terms, always be aware what time it is. Unless you’re on location in the arctic circle or something of the like, your days probably start with the sun low to the east horizon, find it high in the sky around noon, and end with it back at the west horizon. Especially if my shoot is anywhere within 4 hours either side of noon (so, 8am-4pm), I’m keeping shade handy. Of course, those numbers shift as the seasons change, but they do so gradually and not by a terrible amount. A building near by, a dense tree, whatever it is, gives me options. When I first started, I, like many others, was terrified of hard light. I ran from it as fast as I could – only “golden hour” shoots for me! Now that I know more about how to leverage it, I am not afraid to book shoots mid-day because I know I can find shade for some soft light and get creative with some hard light for multiple looks from the very same shoot. As a result of this, I am more available to my clients, instead of them having to work around me, the photographer who was stuck shooting at the easiest times to shoot. Don’t get me wrong, shooting at the golden hour is still highly recommended, but it doesn’t do much for your variety, the nature of this list. So watch your watch and pry yourself from the golden hour little by little so you can have more options.
Kind of piggybacking off the last one, if you do happen to be shooting at the golden hour, at least try to snag a few images with backlight, or even better, silhouette. Before I go on, this seems like a good place to tell you that I break basically all techniques into two categories: either it’s a “goldilocks” or a “turn it up to 11.” With some techniques, like the shake up your shutter speed technique you read about a few hundred words ago, I explained the thought behind the a goldilocks technique. In short: it’s not too much of an effect, it’s not too little, it’s juuuuust right. With other techniques, such as this one, if you do them only half way, they can be hard to discern from an error, and that’s not a decision you ever want to leave to your viewer to decide. This one, backlighting, is a “turn it up to 11” technique because you’ve got to be able to sell it. With a mediocrely-executed backlit image, a viewer is likely to think you’ve either made a poor decision by choosing to expose for the wrong part of the image, or worse, couldn’t figure out how to get it right. With a silhouette or extreme backlight, if your other images are fairly consistent, viewers will have no hesitation in believing that you meant to do it for artistic effect, and that variety in and of itself adds value. The latter is clearly the preferable of the two reactions.
We’ll throw another “turn it up to 11” down for the sixth on my list: use creative focus for details. Details are, in part, one of the biggest things that differentiates one person/couple/group’s images from another. For 99% of corporate headshots you shoot, your subject will be wearing a suit. Take a picture of them using the expensive pen they sign important documents as the main focus of one image instead. For 99% of weddings you shoot, the bride will be in a white dress, grab an image of the pearl earrings that her grandma left her in her will. For, dare I say, 100% of real estate images you see, there will be doors, windows, ceilings, and floors, take a picture of a steaming plate of cookies in the kitchen, or something else that screams “home.” Your client doesn’t want a picture of their face, their dress, or their house, that looks like everyone else’s, they want to be original, to stand out. The details that make their public image, their wedding, or their house ought to be the big takeaway, and the details are say ‘there is something special about what is going on here.’ So instead of pulling everything in focus, let the textbook “important” things go out of focus – even way out of focus – and shift your viewers attention to something a little oblique in the name of being original. Though this is a technique you should commit whole-hog to at least a few times in a shoot, it’s DEFINITELY something that is in danger of being over done, and the VAST majority of clients want the reliable shots first. If you leave a wedding without a picture of the bride because you were busy taking shots of the napkin-swans on the tables, you’ve gone too far. These shots ought to be seen as a veritable pinch of salt in a portfolio to add flavor, too much salt and you’ll ruin the dish.
In the same vein, that is: things-you-should-go-all-out-on-but-only-a-few-times-per-shoot, unconventional compositions can add variety and interest to a handful of images in every shoot, too. The first that comes to mind is the dutch angle, a technique in which a shooter abandons the attempt at a level horizon and tips their camera to extreme angles, in the neighborhood of 30 to 45 degrees rotated. More than that may start to look like a change in orientation from landscape to portrait or vice versa, but less than that would definitely look like a mistake. Another that I add in from time to time is adding a silly amount of headroom. The image might be 80% sky and 20% subject. These approaches, in moderation, can make some nice “B roll,” if you will.
One particular composition that I always keep in mind, though I wouldn’t designate it as unconventional, so that’s why it gets its own space, is filling your whole frame a time or two. This means getting close. Uncomfortably close, even.
Lens choice has a big impact on this technique, so if you’re going to try this one, please, please do it with a telephoto lens. I promise your clients won’t have an appreciation for the clown-nose look that comes with a wide angle lens at close range. I would say this technique works best for one or two people. Filling your frame would look strange with a family or a big group, but a certain kind of intimacy is captured when you’re up in someone’s grill. Ideally, they won’t have a good sense you’re doing it if you approach it with a telephoto lens (200mm or higher, ideally) and that will help to keep them appearing natural. If thy know you’re doing it, your subject will jam their chin into their neck as a response to you being too close – this is a normal, and unattractive might I add, reaction that will take place unless you’re being covert. This trick goes hand in hand with my previous insight on details. Eyes and eyelashes are very personal parts of the body – they are very distinct and unique, and also very physically sensitive. Because of those things, we generally don’t get literally eye-to-eye with too many people, and pictures that close up have an intrigue of their own because of the rarity. Be aware of what kind of client you’re working with for this one. The more self-conscious they appear, the less they are likely to love the outcome from this technique.
The 9th takes a bit of practice and you may or may not be able to do it at all (at least in camera), but when I am at a shoot, I am always hunting for simplicity in my backgrounds so they don’t distract from my main subject. Now, a good wide-apertured lens will blur just about any background for you, and a great aperture can make street signs melt into cars that melt into buildings, but since I’m not trying to sell you expensive lenses, I would encourage you to approach your backgrounds by looking for: simplicity of color. Color scheme can play a huge role in what the eye is drawn to. Think about an image of a crate of green Granny Smith apples with a Red Delicious thrown in. Your eye would invariably go right to the red because it breaks the color pattern up. The same is true in other niches like portraiture, if pops of even moderately-saturated colors are spattered all over your image – even if the background is blurred – they are going to draw the eye away from your intended subject, and that undercuts the impact of the image by a huge amount. The good news about this one is that if you are severely impacted by an environment to the point of not being able to stop this (I’m thinking, at a county fair or something with rides that are all lit up) then you can always shift colors in photoshop. This may be the subject of a future post, but for now, suffice it to say that it’s a LOT easier to shift colors in photoshop than it is to remove and replace entire objects, especially large ones. But if you can do it in camera first by being intentional, that will be even better in the long run. I’m a big proponent of using Photoshop or Lightroom in my images, but I’m not a proponent of wasting anyone’s (and especially my own!) time, so anything that can be avoided in post, ought to be – again, not because I’m a purist, but because I value my time and I expect you do as well.
I saved my favorite on this list for slot #10. I truly believe all on the list are important and can take your photography to the next level by increasing the variety you walk away from shoots with – after all, the more you deliver the more likely it is your client will find something they are over the moon about. But I digress, the reason that #10 is my favorite is because it is a little sneaky, and it is far and away, the one thing on this list that has paid off big time for me, especially with clients that are less comfortable in front of a camera, which, by the way, are the vast majority of normal (read: non-model) people that “want” photos taken. The key is to prepare yourself to get the shot after “the shot.” People expect you to take photos of them on a shoot. Even subjects that are comfortable in front of a camera are generally comfortable because they understand what their face looks like when they move it – but even if they are happy with the way they look, they can still come off looking slightly unnatural and posed. The thing to do as a photographer is to take the picture they expected you to take, and then drop your camera down as if you are done with the intention to pick it back up again and fire a shot off. This little sneak attack is pure gold. For those who are uncomfortable in front of a camera, they think the shot is over so they relax and start looking normal (that is, comfortable) and that’s when you want to be striking. For those that are comfortable because they are highly-trained-pose-ninjas, they, too, will look EVEN better because they will look more authentic. This is the trick I’d hold above all others on this list, but of course, if you can learn use it in conjunction with any/all of the others, you’ll be swimming in gravy, and possibly even some more clients and therefore money.
The next two that follow logically are both about the oft-dreaded task of posing a subject. So I’ll start with what I call the “un-pose” and follow it up with the “anti-pose.”
When I think of “posing” I think of a highly directed set of instructions, and I also panic a little inside because I don’t have 50 poses logged into my memory ready to fire off at any given moment for any level of subject. As a photographer that works with a lot of people, it’s a miracle I can survive with how little I like and want to pose people. But I have two ways of dealing with it. The first, is the aforementioned “un-pose.” By this, I mean that instead of trying to conceptualize something super complex, I ask for one thing at a time. I’ll take an image as a person or couple stands all by themselves first – by the way, my first few pictures of a shoot are usually destined for the trash anyway just because people we work with (again, not models) tend to “warm up” to being a subject as we go. That said, I will ask my subject to move ONE body part at a time every few images to shake things up. Even if it’s only one body part, I can move it 3 or 4 times before mixing up the whole thing. Take the human head for example. Directions sound like what you think they would sound like: “Ok, look up. *snap* Look down and to the left. *snap* A little less. *snap* Look over there at that big tree. *snap* Look into the camera. *snap* Now look 5 feet above it. *snap*” etc. When I started, I would try to do these big, complex moves, and I was missing what was right in front of me, which was that my subject had made 8 moves and I had only captured one image from the process. What a nasty oversight! I want to kick my younger self for it. By the time a shoot is over NOW, I’ve got a MUCH bigger spread of options than I used to and I can then be more scrutinizing in the editing process, and therefore, deliver a better product.
The anti-pose is my other technique for more natural results out of your average subject(s). I think of myself like the director of a (very) short film. A non-moving film that is a fraction of a second long, actually. So in this mindset, I have to put my trust in my veritable actors, so to speak. Instead of bossing them around like dogs (SIT!… NOW STAND!… SHAKE!…no not that last one), I give them a directive and let them figure it out. Thinking of these on the spot usually is better than bringing a list in my pocket because the more it seems like I’m inventing things, the more likely the subject is to feel like I’m not into some creepy role-play I’ve been heavy-breathing over late at night for the past month. It’s got to be quick, and even ridiculous things like “Phil, give me your best James bond look.” or “Stacy flip your hair around like those cheesy herbal essences shampoo commercials.” or “Jim, sneak up on Rebecca and whisper something in her ear that she wouldn’t want you to tell me.” will get you significantly more natural looks. The thing about doing this, and why I call it the anti-pose, is that it’s not even asking for what you want. Even if Phil has the best daggum James Bond look in the whole state, the shot I want is going to come either before the look, when he’s laughing at himself thinking about what he’s going to do, or when he is done with the look, either pleased with his accomplished performance, or laughing at himself because he was so terrible at it. This one is a huuuuge win win. I don’t have to pose, the shots look better, and everyone is having a good time helping me get way more natural looks. This tip takes a little practice and personality, and you may develop a repertoire over time, and that would be fine. The thing is, it is similar to the shot after the shot in that it’s not about the shot you ask for, it’s about what they do before during and after that make for good variety.
**EDITOR’S NOTE** One of my ProTeller contributors, Steve Dalgetty, included the same “anti-pose” concept and offers a few great examples of the way he goes about it in his guest-post, The Portrait-Power of a Good Fart Joke!
My last 3 suggestions are all gear-related. I didn’t want to close gear out of the conversation altogether, but I also didn’t want to write a long list that was useless for the person just starting out or on a lower budget.
This may not be cost-prohibitive if you own a variety of lenses already, but the first way I get variety in a shoot that depends on my gear is to change focal lengths. I know many photographers use zooms, and many use primes. I personally have made transitions back and forth a few times between the two in my career. I see both sides, and these days, both types of lenses live in my kit. If you use a zoom, take images that are both close-cropped, and some that involve a lot of environmental elements. If you shoot primes, it’s going to mean changing your lens, which once upon a time I thought was the end of the world, but have learned since that it is worth the admittedly very little effort. Changing lenses or zooming not only gives you a variety of looks in terms of field of view, but it also gives you variety in terms of lens compression, which is inherent to all lenses and different depending on how wide or telephoto a focal length is.
The 14th on the list is to use off-camera flash. This is admittedly far more of an advanced idea to drop than the majority of this post, but it is also a way to get your images to stand out by looking very next-level. Although flashes are majorly thought of in the context of a studio, and that’s true, that is their primary function, even on location, you can use a flash to get a very different look. There are so many things to write about using off-camera flash, I am struggling to know what to say and what to avoid for fear of opening up a can of worms that isn’t related enough to this list. I offer you two places to start if you have the capabilities (or want to invest in) an off-camera flash system, and they are: increase the number of light sources you have, or fill in shadows. The easiest way to use a flash outside is as a fill. By setting it to underexpose an image a little bit, you’ll gain detail back in shadow areas and make times of day that are hard to shoot because of harsh shadows a little bit more attainable. The other, more creative but more challenging way to use an off camera flash on location is to use it in conjunction with already existing ambient lights, like the sun for example. If you’re only using the sun as a light source, adding a flash in from a different direction can give you a more complex two-light set up where you only had one before. The options increase, and with it, your ability to offer variety follows.
The last of my hot tips is also light-centric and varying degrees of gear-dependent – it has to do with the ability to mix up your shoots by using light modifiers. On the cheaper end of this spectrum, and I do mean spectrum, there are about a thousand light modifiers out there, are two examples of available light modifiers: scrims and reflector discs. A scrim is a piece of fabric or plastic that diffuses direct light, and a reflector disc is a collapsible disc that is used to bounce light from one place to another. Reflector discs can also be used as gobos, or flags that block light and create shade. Manipulating light is a more advanced skill that will truly put some distance between your work and the “amateur” look, and these two tools are inexpensive and easy to use, a great place to start. The other two modifiers are flash-based and my first pick would be an umbrella for diffusion purposes, and a snoot, for restricting purposes. A white umbrella will spread the light from your flash out drastically, giving it a softer appearance when it is direct, and a snoot is a tool that turns a flash into a spotlight, making only a very targeted area brighter. Any of these tools and the thousand like them will add options for you to keep in your bag of tricks and keep your ability to mix things up on point.
So that’s it! Phew! I hope you find that you can keep these on hand and whip them out to throw gas on the fire of your next shoot. Actually, if you want it to be real easy to whip them out, try out our 15 tricks cheat sheet! To recap without any context (though the cheat sheet has some), the list is:
1. Alter point of view
2. Vary image orientation
3. Shake up shutter speed
4. Watch the watch
5. Backlight/silhouette
6. Creative Focus
7. Unconventional compositions
8. Fill your frame
9. Simplicity of color
10. Shot after “the shot”
11. The “un-pose”
12. The “anti-pose”
13. Change focal length
14. Use off-camera flash
15. Use light modifiers
If you used these in combination with one another, I guarantee you that the variety you walk away from shoots with will skyrocket. That will undoubtedly lead to better images, more clients, and more money. Happy shooting! Leave a comment below if you try these things and they work out for you, or if you have something you think I should have put on the list!
