N E V E R D R AW A B L A N K

15 POSESIN 5 MINUTES

B Y K A T E L Y N J A M E S

This is important! When you’re posing a couple at a shoot, you have to remember that they are probably more nervous than you are. If you show up and are visibly nervous and unsure of yourself, they will not be confident. In fact, they will be the complete opposite of confident. When photographers are nervous, their couples follow suit and they lose confidence in their photographer’s ability to pose them in a natural way! So the first step to being confident in your posing is to RELAX! Take a deep breath and remember the follow-ing things :

1. TAKE CONTROL : They need you to be in control. They hired you because they know that you know more than them. They want you to be the one directing and leading!

2. TAKE A BREATHER : If you’re getting nervous, losing your train of thought and on the verge of draw-ing a blank, then take a little break. Tell your couple to take a couple of minutes to relax while you change your batteries.... and then just squat down with your bag and regain your composure!

3. HAVE A GAME PLAN : If you’re constantly nervous before your shoots, you need to approach them with a game plan in mind. You need to know what you’re going to do before you even arrive. Some photog-raphers are great at “winging it” but that may not be your strength. It’s totally fine to start with a set of poses that you know really well and feel comfortable with!

RELAXstep one:

Welcome!Hi Friends! If this is your first piece of educational content that you’ve ever received from us, WELCOME! We’re excited to help you grow in your photography business!! We have so many other resources for you to check out once you’re done reading this! For example, we have over 100 Blog Posts dedicated just to helping photographers! We also have an entire site dedicated to education with FREE resources as well! Our hope is that by edu-cating others, we can shave years off of the learning curve. This Mini-Guide is a resource that will hopefully equip you to feel more confident in your posing at your next shoot! Whether you’re photographing a wedding, engagement session or a couple’s portrait ses-sion, you’re going to be equipped to pose continuously without drawing a blank! Enjoy this resource and welcome to the KJ Education family!!!

V I S I T T H E K J E D U C A T I O N S I T E

SO, WHAT’Syour

GAME PLAN?

So what is a “set” you may ask? Well, instead of thinking of poses as individual commands,

I like to think of them as “sets”. Sets are a group of posing transitions that flow together

seemlessly. This concept was formed out of our Posing Evolution system! If you want to

learn all about our 4 CORE foundational poses and how the entire Posing Evolution works,

you can access our Mini-Guides on the back page! Today we’re focusing on how to make a

fast, simple game plan that can always come to your rescue for fifteen minutes! When you

start to think of your poses in “sets” instead of individual commands, you’ll start to see that

you can shoot double... sometimes even TRIPLE the amount of images in any given time

period! The trick is to memorize poses that easily flow into 2-3 other poses automatically!

I’m going to be sharing some of my favorite “Sets” so that you can have a visual guide for

how to put this into action! I’m also going to be giving you some verbal cues that I would use

in order to guide my couple into these different poses without stopping!! Photographers lose

so much valuable time during shoots just stopping to re-adjust into a compeltely different

pose when really, they just need to learn how to create smoother transitions! All of the poses

on the next page should be able to be done in a matter of 5-7 minutes! You’re barely even

moving their feet!

CREATE YOUR “SETS”Developing Your Game Plan

Meet John & Megan...

“Alright you can both look right at me and smile. Perfect!Now go ahead and turn into each other and allow your foreheads to touch.Awesome! John go ahead and place your left hand around her waist and nuzzle in. Let your nose touch her temple. Megan you can lightly place your left hand on his chest and smile right at me! That’s it!”

“Now go ahead and twist into each other. Chest to chest with your foreheads touch-ing! This may be a little awkward but just laugh it out! That’s it! Perfect! Now lets go ahead and wrap those arms around each other (I step closer for a tighter shot) and now you can both open up your chests towards me and smile right here! Nice!”

“Megan go ahead and place that left hand around his waist and I want you to give me a little laugh! John you’re just laughing at her laughing at nothing. Got it! (I’m now backing up) Ok you guys finally share a light kiss! And now lets have you hold hands down by your sides and John just lightly kiss her forehead! Not lets relax for a second! For the next set, I’m going to have you move your feet a little!”

“This next pose is similar to a “Prom Pose”. Go ahead hold hands with your right hands and wrap your left hands around Megan’s waist. John can nuzzle in and Megan is smiling at me! Now Megan you can lightly laugh at the ground to the right (I’m backing up for this shot). Awesome! Now lets make this a little more serious. John I’m going to have you do a blank stare out into the distance while Megan, you’re just letting your eyes come up to me. That’s perfect!”

“John you can wrap those arm around her waist. Megan, I’m going to have you hold your hair under your earlobe and laugh at John’s shoulder! Great! Now lets transition into another pose. John’s hands can be in his pocket while Megan holds both hands around his elbow.... both smiling at me... and that’s exactly what I wanted!!”

“John you can place one hand in your right pocket and hold Megan’s hand with your other hand. Both of you can take 2 steps apart. Megan you can twist your hips away slightly and hold your hair back at the ear. Now keep this pose but scoot together so that Megan is leaning on John’s shoulder. Megan can smile at John and John, you’re looking at me. Last but not least, John keep that right hand in your pocket but throw your left hand over Megan’s shoulder. Megan you can hold his hand while you walk and laugh together!

5 TIPS FOR

SPEEDW H I L E P O S I N G

1. DON’T STOP TALKING : Always engage with your couple no matter what. Silence kills confidence!

2. DON’T LET IT GET STALE : 10 seconds for one pose is plenty. If you hold it too long, it will start to look forced and less natural!

3. MOVE ON : If you’re shooting and it’s taking you forever to focus and find your composition... just move on. Don’t keep saying “Hold it! Hold It!” for 5 minutes. Instead, just let them move to a new pose so that you don’t lose their confidence and then come back to that specific pose later!

4. THINK AHEAD : This takes practice but it works! As soon as you take a shot or two, try to visualize what the next transition would be to save transition time!

5. DON’T MOVE THE FEET : If you keep your subjects feet in one place, you’re more likely to maximize your pose options faster than if you were moving their feet constantly!

SELECTING &

SHADEB Y K A T E L Y N J A M E S

N A T U R A L L I G H T S E R I E S

SHOOTING INMASTERING

RING SHOTSB Y K A T E L Y N J A M E S

THE BASICS OF

SHOOTINGDETAILS

B Y K A T E L Y N J A M E S

10 WAY TO SHOOT IN

LIGHTB Y K A T E L Y N J A M E S

N A T U R A L L I G H T S E R I E S

HARSH

and

B Y K A T E L Y N J A M E S

P H O T O G R A P H I N G

THE TALL

THE TINYCREATING FOREGROUNDS

B Y K A T E L Y N J A M E S

S O L U T I O N S F O R

SHOOTINGthe dress

B Y K A T E L Y N J A M E S

THE BASICS OF THE

POSINGEVOLUTION

B Y K A T E L Y N J A M E S

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