Posing in Wedding Photography
To ‘pose’ or not to ‘pose’…..that is the question. The client will always say, understandably so, ‘no posing, I want a Photo-journalistic approach.’ I doubt anybody wants a wedding photographed in the style of 30 years ago….’turn this way a little, turn your face towards me, chin up a little, move your hand to the left’…..and on it goes.
But, as I hope to illustrate below, creativity involves the tiniest bit of posing. Eventually, all wedding photographers move away from a formulaic approach and start wanting to introduce some fresh ideas, some creativity, it’s what differentiates us. There could be many beautiful photographs just not taken without an element of posing – as they just don’t happen in the flow of events.
Take this example here with the gorgeous Charlotte. Charlotte was about to put the necklace on herself, in which case the photograph below would never have happened. All I did was to ask her brother to put it on, I positioned Charlotte where the light was the most beautiful, asked them to have a giggle and took the photo. Yes, the photo was already in my mind, the posing was as simple as ‘stand here and have a giggle.’ But it is a posed photo made to look un-posed…that is the key.
In this next example, the posing was as simple as ‘just look in the mirror at yourself and smile.’ I positioned myself, and took the photo. It’s a posed photo, made to look un-posed, but nevertheless posed. This photograph would not have existed otherwise.
And in the final photo, below (one of my favourites of the day), I can hear you all thinking ‘how did he pose this?’ I didn’t, this was a candid ‘one in a million’ shot of Charlotte’s dad taking a photo of his daughter on her wedding day.
As a brief summary, there are large parts of the day where ‘photo-journalism’ (the candid approach) is the only option to a photographer, in the church, outside the church before and after the wedding, in the reception….
But there are times where a tiny, very fast bit of posing, can produce some magic that otherwise would never have happened.
Back to blog Published September 29 2015