Effective Strategies for Posing Wedding Groups

  Today's post is an excerpt from the book 100 Techniques for Professional Wedding Photographers, by Bill Hurter. It is available from Amazon.com and other fine retailers.

Tip # 30. Photographing Larger Groups

As people gather for large group portraits, have them put their drinks down before they enter the staging area, then arrange the group so that the bride and groom are the center of interest and everyone else’s face can be seen (tell everyone that they need to be able to see you with both eyes to be seen in the photo). Look for a high vantage point, such as a balcony or second-story window, from which you can make the portrait. You can also use your trusty stepladder, but be sure someone holds it steady—particularly if you’re at the very top. Use a wide-angle lens and focus about a third of the way into the group, using a moderate taking aperture to keep everyone sharply focused. Another trick is to have the last row in a group lean in while having the first row lean back, thus creating a shallower subject plane, making it easier to hold the focus across the entire group.

This is the “bouquet of flowers” treatment for groups. Shooting from directly above to capitalize on the symmetry of the composition, Dan Doke created a beautiful portrait of the bride and her maids. Using an 85mm lens, the perspective is good and normal. With a wide-angle lens, faces this close to the frame edges would have been distorted. 

Tip #31. Speeding Up Your Group Portraits

The best man and ushers can usually be persuaded to help organize large group photos. Be sure to have everyone make it sound like fun—it should be. One solution is to make your formal groups at the church door as the couple and bridal party emerge. Everyone in the wedding party is present and the parents are nearby. If you don’t have a lot of time to make these groups, this is a great way to get them all at once—in under five minutes. 

Tip #32. Control the Focus Field

Adjust the Camera Angle. With large groups, raising the camera height and angling the camera downward keeps the film plane more parallel to the plane of the group’s faces. Doing this does not change the depth of field, but it optimizes the plane of focus to accommodate the depth of the group. This makes it possible to get both the front and back rows in focus.

Adjust the Subject Distance. If your subjects are in a straight line, those at the ends of the group will be proportionately farther away from the lens than those in the middle of the lineup (unless you are working at a great distance from the subjects). As a result, those farthest from the lens will be difficult to keep in focus. The solution is to bend the group, having the middle of the group step back and the ends of the group step forward so that all of the people are at the same relative distance to the camera. To the camera, the group will still look like a straight line, but by distorting the plane of sharpness you will be able to accommodate the entire group.

Ben Chen used a beautiful spiral staircase as the framework for this formal wedding portrait. He lit the scene with his on-camera 580EX strobe bounced into the ceiling. Notice how each person in the group looks great—even the little ones. 

This is a fun group shot of a huge wedding party done by JB Sallee. Titled Jump, Damn It!, this is a straight-line composition. The group has a good dynamic created by the fact that over half of the group could not take directions very well. The up-and-down head heights produces its own kind of dynamic line that seems to work in this composition.

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Corrective Posing for Weddings

Today's post is an excerpt from the book Master Posing Guide for Wedding Photographers, by Bill Hurter. It is available from Amazon.com and other fine retailers.
It's important to understand that people don't see themselves the way they actually appear. Subconsciously, they shorten their noses, imagine they have more hair than they really do, and in short, pretend they are better looking than they really are. A good portrait artist knows this and knows how to reflect the same level of idealization in portraits of the subject. As a matter of procedure, the photographer analyzes the face and body and makes mental notes as to how to best light, pose, and compose the subject to produce a flattering likeness. Because they are always shooting under pressure, wedding photographers must master these techniques to such a degree that they become second nature.


Camera Height and Perspective

Camera Height. When photographing people with average features, there are a few general rules that govern camera height. These rules will produce normal perspective with average people.

When the perfect camera height for a head-and-shoulders portrait is used, the face is well proportioned and oval—as shown here.

• For head-and-shoulders portraits, the rule of thumb is that camera height should be the same height as the tip of the subject’s nose or slightly higher.

• For three-quarter-length portraits (portraits that include the subject’s figure down to mid-calf or mid-thigh), the camera should be at a height midway between the subject’s waist and neck. 

• In full-length portraits, the camera should be the same height as the subject’s waist. 

In each case, notice that the camera is at a height that divides the subject into two equal halves in the viewfinder. This is so that the features above and below the lens/subject axis are all the same distance from the lens and thus recede equally for “normal” perspective. 

Controlling the Perspective
As the camera is raised or lowered, the perspective (the size relationship between parts of the photo) changes. By controlling perspective, you can alter the physical traits of your subject.

By raising the camera height in a three-quarter or full-length portrait, you enlarge the head and shoulder regions of the subject, while slimming the hips and legs. Conversely, if you lower the camera, you reduce the size of the head and enlarge the size of the legs and thighs. If you find that after you make a camera-height adjustment for a desired effect there is no change, move the camera in closer to the subject and observe the effect again.

Tilting the camera down when raising the camera (and up when lowering the camera) increases these effects. A good rule of thumb for three-quarter- and full-length portraits is to keep the lens at a height where the plane of the camera’s back is parallel to the plane of the subject. If the camera is tilted up or down you will be distorting the person’s features. 

When you raise or lower the camera in a head-and-shoulders portrait, the effects are even more dramatic. Raising or lowering the camera above or below the subject’s nose height is a prime means of correcting any facial irregularities. Raising the camera lengthens the nose, narrows the chin and jaw lines, and broadens the forehead. Lowering the camera shortens the nose, de-emphasizes the forehead, and widens the jaw while accentuating the chin.

Correcting Specific Problems
Overweight Subjects
Dark clothing will make a person appear ten to fifteen pounds slimmer. While this is is something you could recommend for the engagement session, it’s beyond your control at the wedding. Therefore, careful posing will be an important tool for addressing the issue. Begin by using a pose that has the subject turned at a 45-degree angle to the camera. Never photograph a larger person head-on; it will only accentuate their size. Standing poses are more flattering for overweight subjects. Seated, excess weight accumulates around the waistline. Selecting a pose that turns your subject away from the main light is also desirable, as this will put more of the body in shadow and produce a slimming effect.

Thin or Underweight Subjects
When posing a thin person, have him or her face the camera more directly to provide more width. Selecting a pose that turns your subject toward the main light is also desirable, as this will put more of the body in the light and produce a widening effect.

Elderly Subjects
The older the subject, the more wrinkles he or she will have. It is best to use some type of diffusion, but do not soften the image to the point that none of the subject’s wrinkles are visible. Men, especially, should not be overly softened, as their wrinkles are often considered “character lines.” In the absence of light modifiers, you can also pose the subject so that the main light strikes primarily the front of their face, minimizing any deep shadows in the wrinkles and deep furrows of the face. 

In general, older subjects should also be smaller within the composition. Even when making a head-and-shoulders portrait, reducing the subject size by about 10–15 from how you might normally frame the image will ensure that the signs of age are less noticeable.

A good rule of thumb when making a three-quarter-length portrait is to keep the camera back parallel to the subject plane. This reduces subject distortion and helps keep horizontal and vertical lines true.

Eyeglasses
With digital capture, it’s easy to see if eyeglasses are captured with reflections. If you have a chance to retake the photo, have the person slide the eyeglasses down on his or her nose slightly. This changes the angle of incidence and helps to eliminate unwanted reflections.

One Eye Smaller than the Other
Most people have one eye smaller than the other. This should be one of the first things you observe about your subject. If you want both eyes to look the same size in the image, pose the subject in a seven-eighths to three-quarters view, placing the smaller eye closer to the camera. Because objects farther from the camera look smaller and nearer objects look larger, this will cause both eyes to appear to be more or less the same size.

Baldness
If your subject is bald, lower the camera height so less of the top of his head is visible. In post-production, you can also try to blend the tone of the background with the top of your subject’s head.

Double Chins
To reduce the view of the area beneath the subject’s chin, raise the camera height so that area is less visually prominent. You can also have the subject tilt their chin upward, tightening the area, and (if possible) raise the main light so that as much a possible of the area under the chin is in shadow.

Wide Faces
To slim a wide face, pose the person in a three-quarters view and turn them away from the main light. This places the image highlights on the narrow side of the face for a slimmer look.

Thin Faces
To round a narrow face, pose the person in a seven-eighths view, keeping as much of the face as possible visible to the camera. Turn them toward the main light to place the image highlights on the broader side of the face for a fuller look.

Broad Foreheads
To diminish a wide or high forehead, lower the camera height and tilt the person’s chin upward slightly. Remember, the closer the camera is to the subject, the more noticeable these corrective measures will be. If you find that by lowering the camera and raising the chin, the forehead is only marginally smaller, move the camera in closer and observe the effect again—but watch out for other distortions.

Deep-Set and Protruding Eyes
To correct deep-set eyes, try having the subject raise their chin. To correct protruding eyes, have the person look downward so that more of the eyelid is showing.

Large Ears
To scale down large ears, the best thing to do is to hide the far ear by placing the person in a three-quarters view, making sure that the far ear is out of view of the camera (or in shadow). If the subject’s ears are very large, examine the person in a profile pose. A profile pose will totally eliminate the problem. Also, longer length lenses will appear to compress the visible ear, reducing its prominence.

Uneven Mouths
If your subject has an uneven mouth (one side higher than the other, for example) or a crooked smile, turn his or her head so that the higher side of the mouth is closest to the camera, or tilt the subject’s head so that the line of the mouth is more or less even.

Long Noses and Pug Noses
To reduce the appearance of a long nose, lower the camera and tilt the chin upward slightly. You should also select a frontal pose, either a full-face or seven-eighths view, to disguise the length of your subject’s nose.

Long Necks and Short Necks
While a long neck can be considered sophisticated, it can also appear unnatural—especially in a head-and-shoulders portrait. By raising the camera height and lowering the chin you will shorten an overly long neck. When photographing a male subject, pulling up his collar will also shorten an overly long neck. Conversely, lowering the camera height and suggesting a V-neck shirt (for the engagement session, for example) will lengthen the appearance of a short neck.

Wide Mouths and Narrow Mouths
To reduce an overly wide mouth, photograph the person in a three-quarters view with no smile. For a narrow or small mouth, photograph the person in a more frontal pose and have him or her smile broadly.

Long Chins and Stubby Chins
Choose a higher camera angle and turn the face to the side to correct a long chin. For a stubby chin, use a lower camera angle and photograph the person in a frontal pose.

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Posing the Bride, Groom and Couple

Today's post is an excerpt from the book Master Posing Guide for Portrait Photographers, 2nd Ed. by JD Wacker. It is available from Amazon.com and other fine retailers.

PSYCHOLOGY

Love Is in the Air. More than any other type of portraiture, wedding portraits should capture the love between the bride and the groom and from their family and friends. Certainly, recording images of groups and events on the big day is essential. But it shouldn’t overshadow the opportunity for you to create images that show love. Everyone is dressed in their best clothing, happy (well, usually), and having fun. Make the most of it. Be creative and be prepared to capture special moments that just happen and are nearly impossible to re-create.

Mutual Respect. Conduct yourself as a professional and let your subjects know they are important to you. Let them know that you want to create fantastic images that they will treasure forever, but don’t want to interfere with their wedding day. Have a plan and let them know what it is. They will respect you and be

more cooperative. It will be a win–win situation.

Keep Your Cool. Wedding Photographer Horror Stories could be the next best-selling thriller or reality show. Expect anything to happen and be ready to adapt. Make it clear that you are trying to do your best for them, but don’t argue or be agitated. Many of the people involved have a lot time invested and little sleep. So, be understanding. Also, be aware that many of the attendants won’t know what’s going on and may see you in a bad light.

Be creative, have fun, and be ready to capture images that reflect the unique character of the bride and groom.

MECHANICS

The Bride. Pose the bride as you normally would pose a woman, and make the dress and accessories work to your benefit, not against you. Accentuate the long, flowing, graceful lines of the veil and train. Define the waistline by separating the arms and the body and by twisting the body at the waist. If the bride is holding a bouquet, position it in the hand farthest from your main light source and slightly above waist level for three-quarter  and full-length portraits. With the other hand, try more formal, dance-like poses of the bride’s hands by bending the hand away from the body at the wrist, showing the edge of the hand, and elongating the fingers. Turn the bride away from the main light source to maximize dress detail.

The Groom. Again, it is the unique clothing that will provide new posing opportunities. Suits and tuxedos are more restrictive to movement, but encourage straighter posture that invokes a feeling of positive attitude. Use this attitude to your advantage. You’ll capture more dynamic images of the man, simply because he is more excited and more sure of himself as a subject.

The Bride and Groom. As opposed to most portrait sessions where you must build up the energy level, at a wedding all you need to do is be ready for it to happen. You can guide the couple into poses that encourage their natural interaction. As with any couple, the combination of the bride in a graceful S-pose and the groom in the strong C-pose will add artistic value to the portrait. Just have them look at each other and hold each other, or have the bride look at her ring or flowers and have the groom look at her. At these points, their expressions will be genuine and full of love. If you get them involved with their parents, the wedding party, and the guests, special moments will arise for you to record in wonderful portraits.

Guide the couple into natural poses than encourage interaction.

The Wedding Party and Families. The number of people involved at a wedding can be astronomical. You can’t expect all of them to feel well and be excited about having their portrait taken. Work quickly and efficiently, but still pay attention to detail. An assistant can be very helpful when posing groups. One of you can handle the camera and lighting while the other arranges the individuals and helps them pose. Order of importance and height are two major factors when arranging groups at a wedding. Place the most important individuals closest to the bride and/or groom. Sort individuals and couples by height to ensure that everyone is seen and has his own space and that the group is balanced as a whole. The bride and groom are obvious centers of interest and can serve as the focal point in a more interactive style of portrait.

Whrranging group shots, place the most important individuals closest to the bride and  groom.


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Working with Reflectors

Today's post is an excerpt from the book Doug Box's Available Light Photography: Techniques for Digital Photographers. It is available from Amazon.com and other fine retailers.

REFLECTORS
Photographers use reflectors to bounce light onto the subject or scene. They are available in different sizes and with various surfaces that can be used to intentionally affect the color of the light, making it warmer or cooler.


I use reflectors in many ways—to fill in the shadow side of a subject, as a main light, as a kicker light or rim light, set opposite the main light to add roundness or create tonal separation, to illuminate the background, and more.


Typically I use either a 32-inch round pop-up reflector or a 42-inch Scrim Jim with a reflective panel. However, almost any material with a reflective surface can be used as a reflector. A pop-up or folding windshield shade made of silver Mylar is a perfect emergency reflector. Covering a piece of cardboard with aluminum foil will work when you’re in a bind as well. When doing commercial or product photography, I often used small pieces of foil or Plexiglas mirrors to light a small, dark image area. At a wedding, I once used a white tablecloth to reflect light onto the shadow side of a bride’s face.

In many scenarios, a flash in a small softbox would work just as well as the bounced light from a reflector—or better—but we are learning to use the light that is available.
 

This image shows how a reflector should be positioned when it is used as the main light for a standard portrait. Many people position the reflector lower, creating an uplighting effect that is not flattering for every subject. The lower position is best used for producing fill light or when you have the open sky or sun as the main light. Note the surface of this reflector. A soft silver tone is easier on the model’s eyes than a very shiny silver modifier. Also, the light that is produced is softer with this type of reflector.

Top and bottom—If you use a gold reflector to create fill light, the shadow side of the face will take on a warmer hue. This is hard to correct. I usually use a silver or white reflector for fill. A gold reflector can create a warm main light or a kicker or hair light. Here, I used a 12x12-inch gold fold-up reflector about 30 feet from the subject. I had to move that far away to pick up some direct sunlight to illuminate the subject’s hair. Exposure for both images: f/2.8 and 1/250 at ISO 160.

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Engagment Session

Today's post is an excerpt from the book 50 Lighting Setups for Portrait Photographers, Volume 2: Easy-to-Follow Lighting Designs and Diagrams, by Steven H. Begleiter. It is available from Amazon.com and other fine retailers.

CAMERA DATA
Camera: Canon 40D
Aperture: f/4
Lens: EF 24–105mm at 47mm
Shutter speed: 1/30 second
ISO: 200

ASSIGNMENT
My nephew was getting married and was meeting us for a brief visit with his fianceé. I hadn’t planned to take a portrait of them but thought it would be a nice change to create an engagement photo. They were leaving early in the morning to head back to Los Angeles, so I didn’t have much time to plan the shot—nor did they have time to dress for the session.

LIGHTING AND POSING
I picked an open shade area to avoid any high contrast. There wasn’t much light (f/4 at 1/15 second), so I increased my ISO to 200 to bring it up to 1/30 second at f/4, helping me to avoid motion blur. I set my Canon 530EX flash on the hot shoe, with a Gary Fong diffuser. I then switched my camera to shutter priority (Tv) mode with the camera at 1/30 second.

I had Trevor and Mari turn to each other and asked Trevor to wrap his arms around Mari. I took about three pictures before they had to leave. The rest was a transformation in Photoshop.

POSTPRODUCTION
When I imported the images into Lightroom, this one stood out. I decided to play with it in Photoshop and see if I could dress it up and present it to them as a canvas print.

I exported it to Photoshop and duplicated the background layer. My first step was to crop the image to a square (like the old Hasselblad format), getting rid of the excess background to keep the attention on the couple. Once that was done, I checked the levels and constricted the histogram slightly by sliding the arrows toward the middle.

At this point, I converted the image to black & white using a black & white adjustment layer. Creating this layer brings up a dialog box with color sliders. If you recall the old days of using color filters to alter the black & white tones in your film images, this will look familiar. By sliding the yellows and greens to the left I was able to evenly darken the background to bring out the subjects. Sliding the reds, blues, and magentas to the right lightened their skin tones.

My next task was to lighten their eyes (it was an early-morning shoot, after all!) and brighten their teeth. I used the quick selection tool to select the teeth and eyes on both subjects. I used the refine edges command (Select>Refine Edges) to tweak the selection. Once I was satisfied with it, I used the hue/saturation dialog box to desaturate the tones in their eyes and teeth (–43) and increase the lightness of these areas (+32). You can’t go too far without the change looking artificial.

I then selected the spot healing brush to get rid of a few stray hairs. To remove the dark circles under their eyes, I selected the dodge tool and set it to shadows at 50 percent. I also wanted to soften their faces slightly, which I did using the surface blur filter (radius: 12; threshold: 7).

The last item on my list was removing the Pepsi logo from the t-shirt. I used the polygonal lasso tool to select the Pepsi logo, then eliminated it using the clone stamp tool. It looked good to me, so I flattened the image and sent the file to Canvas on Demand, who shipped the final artwork directly to Trevor and Mari in Los Angeles. (When I visited them, I saw that they did a beautiful job framing the canvas print and hung it in their guest room—a high compliment!)

Editorial note: Please purchase the book to see the full sequence of images and screen shots from this session and postproduction process.

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LED Lighting

Today's post is an excerpt from the book LED Lighting: Professional Techniques for Digital Photographers, by Kirk Tuck. It is available from Amazon.com and other fine retailers.

TWO PRACTICAL APPROACHES

As with any new lighting instrument, photographers have had to learn how to leverage LEDs to maximize the benefits. I divide my use of the LEDs roughly into two approaches. The first approach uses LED to support or enhance the existing light; the second uses LED as the primary source of light.

Augmenting the Existing Light. Many assignments move quickly and call on me to improve the light I find on locations, not to totally replace it. In these situations, I depend on battery-powered units that are small and lightweight. Just as one might use a battery-powered flash to add fill light to a scene that’s predominantly lit by ambient light, I can use one small LED panel to add just the right amount of fill light or accent light to a scene.

Using this approach, a wedding photographer might want to use a tungsten-balanced, battery-powered unit in a ballroom to bring the light level on a bride up to the same level as the ballroom’s background so the contrast isn’t too extreme. A portrait shooter who does lots of outdoor portraits might need a little extra fill light in an open-shade location (to make sure that eyes look good and wrinkles are minimized) and find that a little LED panel—or two linked together—is a good match for daylight color temperature. Having an assistant hold one a few feet over to one side of the subject is a quick, convenient, uncomplicated, and aesthetically “just right” solution.

In fact, that’s just what I did with this portrait of Jana. She was standing under a covered patio with sun and trees in the background. To add soft light for fill and bring up the level of illumination, I used four small LED panels, covered with diffusion material, on a stand to the side of the model. These provided just enough illumination to make the photo work for me.

A corporate photographer might be tasked with capturing people at work. With the right small LED panel, she’ll be able to add just enough fill to counteract the unflattering top-light of the ubiquitous office fluorescent lights—without the unwanted attention caused by multiple flashes, extra cables, and battery packs. Anywhere that a little supplemental lighting may make the difference between a good photo and a great photo is a natural situation for smaller panels.

I started the setup by snapping together four of the DLC DV 60 units. I knew I’d need the power to get close to matching the sun. Note that they were covered with a very light magenta filter to match the daylight. Then I added a sheet of diffusion material over all four lights. This softened the light and made it easier on Jana’s eyes. I positioned the light as close as I could to Jana, as you can see in the overall view of the shoot setup.

LED as the Primary Light Source. The other way to use LEDs is to implement the larger panels that run off household A/C current in the same way that studio photographers now use electronic flash and softboxes. As portrait photographers, we’ve spent years sitting people down in a studio and aiming electronic flash units in large softboxes at them as main lights. We used additional small softboxes and flashes for background lights and hair lights and even fill lights. In most cases, all of these can be handily replaced by LED panels and modifiers.

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