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Group Posing

Lesson 10 from: Think Like a 10K Wedding Photographer

Scott Robert Lim

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Lesson Info

10. Group Posing

Lesson Info

Group Posing

It's very hard to arrange. I'm thankful that I was a graphic designer before I became a photographer, so I was used to arranging elements and so that was fairly easy for me because I've been doing it for twelve years. I've been arranging elements on pieces of paper, but it's the same thing with people, so I sort of had a feel to it beforehand. Okay, polls? What if when you want to do a group shot, the first thing you do is look for even lighting shade, something that has plete ly, even lighting. And even in this case, I didn't have even lighting because you can see some highlights on their hair. But it was the best I could do. This was the on ly place in the entire it was like smoking hot that day. It was like ninety or one hundred degrees. And so this was the on ly area. There were some shade and people could give me a nice natural smile without being fille burned up. Ok, so that's the first thing is they used fine look for even lighting and so sometimes all you got in this case, I've...

got a picnic table and I've got shade. That's it so that's what? I had them okay. So post subjects and even lighting no hot sauce, use a flash. I use a little bit of flash and there to create those rich deep colors see the color popping out on that. And so when you use your flash, you're able to really is off camera flash to really pop the color in this case. Also, what I do is I zoom. I've used the longest lens possible because what happens is when you use the longest lens possible, it compresses the image, which means when you use your longer lens, it brings the background closer to the subject and makes it look bigger. And then you get that blurred out effect like that. So in this case, I think I shot it at seventy millimeter ders. Okay, that's it. If I had longer, I would have shot it at longer. We looked even better with more blurrier background. And so in this case here, this was in paris this wedding, and they wanted to walk all the way across and get this. They had their wedding in this fourteen centuries mansion. It was a cat. Actually, it was really it was a castle there's, a real moat around the whole thing and whatever, but they wanted that in the background. So we got over the other side and I go well, you can't hardly see the matching at this point, so I had to just zoom it out at one hundred five millimeters, walk away back to bring that mansion forward same thing here? Well, no, this is not the same thing, but what makes things created for me like I have my basic poses but what gets my creative juices going to make me do something different structures structures get my creative juices going because then I could get my graphic design mind in and I can place elements in different places so what we did, we found this abandoned, you know, trains and so I got them up there, I had to pose every single person say they just don't naturally do this, you've got to do it and so you got you got this takes practice, teo actually pose and then because the problem is this you're gonna pose her by the time you get to be posing him. She's changed already she's walking over here doing something, doing her facebook or whatever. So you've got to really keep their attention going and you know if they say they don't move, stay right there, stay with me how you guys stay with me, everybody, I just need a few minutes hang in there, we're gonna get this done keep talking to him like that, right? And then I start posing everybody and by the time they're I get the picture but you gotta really talk it through to make sure that they don't move here's another thing it's like in on the beach and so I posed every single person, every single part literally lean forward. Okay, you guys go back to back. Okay? You go this way, you elf? Dude, you gotta lean on one leg, okay? Come over here. You in this as you're back there, right? Pop your hip for me out. Oh, thank you. Okay, dude, but your leg, every single person was posed by me and that's the cases which you got to do and so that's why? I said, you gotta learn how to pose one person before you composed a lot of people because they're not going to naturally fall into place like that. You've got to make it happen. Okay, interesting shot structures create different moods. Okay, let's say you got this is the bridal party. This is what I had to deal with and shoot it. They want me to shoot a big group picture of them. All I had was one six chairs, so I took the six chairs, put them across then I've automatically got three levels or more right so I got people on the ground then I got people sitting on the chairs and I got people above so one roller chairs convey your best friend when you're trying to pose huge groups you have automatically three levels and then make them do something. What do you think I said to them here yeah make a funny face that same thing right chairs that's all I had levels put them in the shade take a shot and then make him do something interesting this post every created a scene I saw this little cafe on the side they wanted something different okay let's create this romantic moment right? And so like oh, I'm killing myself right now because I should have turned her head more towards the camera and him the other way but any way's ok, but that I had to pose every single one of those people every single one you sit down you two sit down together oh, you lean okay, okay, you guys talk to each other every single person I had to post it's not that easy it's not that easy, but with practice you keep doing it, then you can create something like that here this was that made these air, those amazing dancer people they came up to me and say, hey, scott, we want to do a couple freezes I had no idea what a freeze wass right? Because it's a dancing move right and so okay great right ok, well find me some shade and so hey did they went into his freeze right? And I was on my stomach taking this picture create different angle for it and they naturally pose themselves into that there'll awesome hiking so easy just like went into it themselves that was the easiest posing ok, look, a creative angle you don't got anything you wanna do something different, you get on the ground and you showed up uh shoot up and you have them lean forward and do something interesting to be creative about it. Okay? Um here I'm creating different by putting the groom lower and moving him forward and having his men in the background again these guys are awesome. They just pose that way. They're all dancers, so they just like food kind of all leaning with one leg, right? But if they don't you're gonna have to do that with the men because they're going to stand up really stiff and straight. Okay, you got to take a high angle sometimes so when everybody's on the same level you're not gonna be able to see them unless you raise your camera up really high and so this is the case here where I had them all together leading together and I took my camera real high and I shot it so I can see everybody if I didn't have my camera angle high it wouldn't be able to see everybody saying here this was like way up here so I could see everybody in that school bus so she was a teacher and so what she did was rented a school bus take everybody around him okay, now I'm taking a lower angle where I'm using stairs instead of shooting up on the stairs I'm shooting down below and separating her by bringing over her to the wall here again I'm using stairs chairs, that's all I had these guys are taller than me so what I gotta do is I gotta get them down spread them out then I'm standing on top of a chair also on top of that so I not only have my cameras that's more than that I'm actually standing on the chair so I can create this distance between them if I didn't know his head would be right over his head and that doesn't look cool so you gotta get raised the angle so you could create distance uh between the subjects sometimes the bride and the groom are going to come up to you I'm going to say we want to get a picture of the entire wet a guest all of the guests what do you do? You have to take a higher angle so you find anywhere where you can get above and shoot everybody so you're you know I'm above them and I'm doing this looking right to get that higher angle once you go higher than you can see everybody okay movement through a scene again so you khun create a scene and then you can have them move through the scene and create some kind of emotion there that's what I did here same thing I had them run at me I took a slow shutter. Okay, this is great if you want to have them move but the bridal party is large if you want to keep them together I have them hold hands or link arms because what happens if you have them run through this scene when you do it she's way over here she's faster because they don't run at the same rate but if you have link hands then they're going to stay together and they're going to make sure you got the shot if they're linking hand and so I do arman are so this is a particular post that I do just to create something free interesting background I have them lock arms okay let's haven't do that. Okay, all the ladies come up here stand up here. We're going to shoot this way here, okay, so stand right here and lock arms okay yeah, you get okay, so yeah, go arm in arm okay now on the count of three I want you to walk this way and I want you to give me something really sexy and exaggerated okay and look at each other and have fun smile ready go click click click click click click click right that's not good enough you didn't sell me go do it again all right so do it again one more time come on grab one wants something some laughter haha fun just going to have the best time of your life ready go sell it still in there you go bam bam bam bam there altogether thank you very much c they're all together at that point and not there's not one straying off so I can keep them organized because if you have them do that by themselves it's not gonna work like I guarantee you one person this like this this is what's gonna happen is that they're going to just go crazy but in this particular case I wanted that to happen. It wasn't necessary for me to get everybody but I wanted that feel of running through a scene. Okay what? This is the worst case scenario ever bright light um and you've got to shoot this photo so what you've got to do is use to light stands and you've gotta create light on each side here with two light stands if I had my eye on camera flash on lee this distance is farther away than these two so let's say I was taking a picture of you folks okay? And it was really bright light ok, if I was shooting here to get you every everybody's frame, my flash would be how far away like ten feet away, but I couldn't move my flashes in closer if I have one here and I have one here, if I have the distance to my subjects, my flash becomes four times more powerful, okay? So even moving something just a couple feet could make a huge difference in power. I want to get into the inverse square law because we don't have time right now, but just trust me, so if you are in this situation and you need to shoot in this extremely bright light you're going to need just trust me, you're going to need a lot of light, okay? So in this particular case I had to flash is they're probably on half power each and that they're close to illuminate the subjects they're and I even had one on camera flash too, just to fill it. So if you're in this situation and you're for shooting a group like that, make sure you have to light stands or you got two assistants holding your flash for you off to the side so you could get that light really close instead of far back okay. Using umbrella one outdoor event. Uh here, right. So I'm shooting a group. This is just one umbrella. I'll go over this lighting a little bit later too. Is that one umbrella? One flash, but the trick is, let me show you the formula. I've gone over this in my lighting lecture too, so I'm gonna go over really fast because a lot of people seen this already. So what you do basically is you just put your eyes so high that six this is why I said it's important for you to get a high I s o because sometimes you need to shoot it. Hi, I I s so in this case I do is that sixteen hundred that made my flash sixteen times more powerful so I could put it through one umbrella, get that put it on one quarter power. If you're ten feet away, it should do the job for you. So that's the formula. So if you're twelve feet away or ten feet away, just don't don't ask me any questions. Just do it works. You could figure out the madly get my other lecture and you'll understand why I put it at a quarter power, and bam, you should have enough power to do it, okay? And so outdoors the obr ella out night gives me this nice huge soft light so when you're outdoors you khun take a great light if I had on camera flash here this shot would not look the way it's going to look but because I could use this off camera huge light coming down um I can get a shot like that right? We'll go over the flash techniques a little bit later this is more about posing so we'll just kind of broke through that so one thing is that group shots really reflect your positive energy when you're going to get an entire group to give you the same emotion the photographer said something because they naturally don't do that so when you want to create this energy there you look at these people doesn't that remind you of me when you see the expression on their face because I am trying I am getting that energy out of them making them laugh doing something so that they will give it to me so group shots really reflect your positive energy and how what you create to the scene and what you make them do here I'll tell him to do a air kiss see that look you're not going to get that look until unless they buy into the photographer taking the picture it just won't be the same so this was an indian wedding and I you know like I've been with them for several days or whatever, and so we had a great relationship, so they're giving me a genuine smile here you're not going to get it that special extra sauce unless they buy into you. They have to buy into what you're doing. This is a scene that created were just threw some flowers on them and made them, um, kind of pretend that they had the best time of their life throw flowers on them, shoot it, group shots can make you or break you. Why do I say that? This? Because when you do a group shot that's the time everybody who's thinking about having a wedding next is watching you. Every time I went to a wedding, I said, I'm getting two weddings out of this and I would perform for those people who were interviewing me and when's the best time that you can let people see your skills is during the group shots, everybody sees you, the groom, that the groomsman that's getting married next, the bridesmaids that scaring mess that's when you're getting your having a job interview during your group shots, so if you're creating positive energy and you're doing a great job, people going to come up to you, I'm sure they said this all can you're awesome? Yeah, they haven't even seen your photos. But they like that positive energy that you're giving them and that's what's gonna get you the most weddings. We go into the business side of it. That's, what's gonna get you rave, so don't take thes group shots lightly. It's really what's gonna put you over the top.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Master Flash Guide.pdf
Day 1 Segment 1 Best Job in the World.pdf
Day 1 Segment 2 Headshot & Posing the Groom.pdf
Day 1 Segment 3 Posing the Bride.pdf
Day 1 Segment 4 Posing the Bride & Groom.pdf
Day 2 Segment 1 Crazy Stupid Wedding Light.pdf
Day 2 Segment 2 Lighting Review Group & Dancefloor.pdf
Day 2 Segment 3 Wedding Workflow & Money Shots.pdf
Day 2 Segment 4 Starting from Scratch.pdf
Day 3 Segment 1 From 0 to 5K.pdf
Day 3 Segment 2 5K and Beyond.pdf
Day 3 Segment 3 Creating a Luxury Brand.pdf
Day 3 Segment 4 Seventeen Ideas to Change Your life.pdf

bonus material with enrollment

10 Percent Discount.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

mc
 

There are a few courses in CL that just keep giving - they exceed expectations - on numerous levels. This is one of those courses. For context: I am not a wedding photographer; i do not aspire to be a wedding photographer, but i saw a re-broadcast of this course and thought i have got to put the pennies together to order this as someone aspiring to be a better photographer. Here's why: The title: think like... In a lot of business and coaching approaches, the way to get better we're told is to be around people who are further ahead than we are - who are as close to where we aspire to be as we can get. Think Like a 10k wedding photographer is an invitation to get insight into how i'm already thinking in this headspace or where i'm not. is this course for you: If you're not already a 10k/wedding (or gig) photographer, there is likely something of value here for you. THE COURSE the course is v.grounded - from the ttitle again - that this is a course about photography as a business - and how to get to a place where one is thriving in that business. It's clear there are steps to getting up the ladder towards 10k, and Scott Robert puts all the milestones in to understand when to up prices, how to pace gigs, how to schedule weddings, how to start. But this course also excels at covering off what's included in creating an excellent wedding photography experience for a particular type of shoot: luxury, glamour, style. This is not documentary wedding photography - though the skills learned here can be applied in that space. Here - just take a look at the photos - people who want what Scott Robert Delivers want to be glamourous, exciting. And Scott makes the point - that looks "natural" but it's constructed, and so we have to know how to engage with people in order to construct these results. Thus the course offers Posing and Shooting techniques for photography - using natural and flash light using flash and video light posing men; posint women; posing groups how to get the checklist of wedding shots from dress to cake. And how to get the business. This course is worth the money just to get the tips for posing - you'll use them right away whether you're doing corporate shoots or what in the us is "seniors" portraits. THE KIT A particularly inspiring element of Scott's work is how minimalist the kit seems to be. No strobes; just speedlights. Lightstands and umbrellas. And small video light(s). Considering the shots he gets that seem so constructed, it's fantastic to see that they are constructed fundamentally with a set of modelling principles about the human form that work work and work. The BUSINESS As said the progressions for the business side to move from a starting photographer to a 10k photographer are clear. The detail is good. The motivation, unflagging. Participants who want to get there need to do the hours of practice. There are a couple people who have used Scott's methods to get from starter to 10k shooter so it's possible to see their path. - One who was a videographer mayn't be as inspiring because already pro etc, but it is cool to see a pro in video testify to the value even for him of scott's approach. LESSON the best advertisement is word of mouth you have to have the work to get that endorsement. Scott is the one person on CL where you'll hear him say he's not working on his social network particularly, but on the quality of his portfolio and referals within jobs to get the jobs - it's plainly working for him. For him, it's clear he wants to be regarded as the best photographer - not the best customer service that trumps adequate photography. THE INSTRUCTOR As other reviewers have commented, scott's attitude is amazing. He has a burning entrepreneurial spirit and a drive to be successful to support his family - which means getting to a point where he's shooting fewer weddings for more money in order to have more time with his people. Nice. No matter what area of photography you're in, there are insights to be gained from this course. Related Courses There are a lot of wedding photography courses on CL. The others i've seen are Wedding Cinematography, Doug Gordon Wedding Project, Master the Business of Photography (which turns out to be based in a wedding business) and Start and Grow your Photography Business (also based around weddings). These all have good things to teach. The biggest contrast to Scott's is Sal Cincotta's Business of Photography - in that course while there is a goal for his teams / shooters to be professional and get all their shots at the wedding and deal with the unexpected well - and there are great tips for how to cover your butt if there's conflict about being able to take a shot or who wants what shot - the focus seems to be way way WAY more on the sale in the studio and selling all kinds of prints. This is v.much the flip side of Scott's work where the focus is on getting the wedding (and why he actually likes 5k weddings more than 10k weddings - fascinating). For scott, it seems the 10k is about figuring out what the package is in terms of what's the difference between 10k vs 5k - and what you promise to deliver in that experience vs SC's focus on what are the materials produced that are worth that charge. And how the wedding can be used to hook people in for life - for portraits, baby photos, seniors etc. Kevin Kebota's class similarly has some nice stuff around bonuses vs discounts. I can see a very interesting panel discussion on pricing btwn sal, scott and kevin... For scott, it's not about shooting the lifecycle and getting money off prints: he does weddings - some engagement and boud. around that, but it's the Wedding that is the star - the quality and amazingness of the images - not the number and size of prints. Perhaps this is a weakness in the course not to go into that part of the deal - but i didn't find it so. What's great is that he has a dropdead line in the sand too: if you're doing X and you're not getting to Y by Z, do something else! fantastic. he even has a part time shooter plan. COol. He also knows how and what to outsource: so will you. He's also cool about how long it will to take to start making a real income. (and what's the difference between a 3k and 5k wedding?? you'll learn). Why would you buy this course? If you're a WEDDING photographer, shooting under 10k /wedding then this will be interesting - lots to learn about what's possible in a wedding context, and seeing examples about how "natural" can be constructed. If you're just considering weddings and want to understand what it would take to make a living or part time living as a photographer here IF YOU WANT TO LEARN ABOUT POSING -- there are lots of CL classes involving posing and philosophies of posing so why this one? 1: Robert is v.good. that simple: the way he's translated everything he's learned about posing into heuristics - in other words rather than memorising poses, you learn heuristics about what to set up for any shot to get more from it. Fantastic. 2. Posing in the context of a live wedding under pressure is a litle different than in studio 3. We see posing for different lighting conditions/contexts for an event - in this case a wedding. Powerful stuff. What's also cool in the demos is that you don't have him doing tethered shooting, but focusing on teaching posing and having the class learn it. That's cool too. IF YOU WANT TO LEARN LIGHTING - and not spend much on lighting kit and get great results this course is inspiring. INSTRUCTOR - v.engaging - doesn't suffer fools, i'm betting; expects committment to do the work to get to aspirations. EXCELLENT. heck i watched most of this with a friend who just found Scott so compelling, in particular how the posing section worked, it was just that engaging. hope that helps. good luck on your mission.

Kerry Sleeman
 

This is the best Creative Live Course I have purchased, well worth the Money! Scott is fantastic and has a lot of great advice! Even though I am not a wedding photographer I am a Boudoir Photographer and has given me a lot of ideas to help my business. ! Thanks Creative Live Amazing!

Student Work

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