Types of Engagement Portraits

Today's post is an excerpt from the book Engagement Portraiture, by Tracy Dorr. It is available from Amazon.com and other fine retailers.

When planning an engagement session, you will have many stylistic options available to you. Those will be explored further in the next chapter. No matter what style you choose, however, you will have two main avenues for executing it: a formal approach or an informal approach. Although the formal session is usually shot in a more traditional studio setting, I suggest that you try to think more broadly of “formal” as your approach to dealing with the customers. The same goes for the “informal” approach.

FORMAL

The classic, traditional engagement photo is a formal portrait. In the 1800s, portraits were necessarily serious and formal due to the extremely long exposure times that were required by the photographic technologies of the day. As higher film speeds became available, portraits took on a somewhat happier vibe; the subjects were smiling and more comfortable, but still formal and looking directly into the camera. Since the digital revolution, photojournalism has deeply impacted the style of portraits clients desire, but there is still a large market for a more formal approach to an engagement portrait.

If your clients are interested in a more formal approach, or if you are more comfortable shooting that way, you will need to decide if the session will be done in a studio setting with multiple backdrops or props, or if you will go on location. Formal shoots are typically created in a studio sitting, but if you do choose to go on location, think about more formal locations—like a church or museum, as opposed to a beach or heavily urban setting that will define your shoot before you even begin. The location you choose will directly impact the formal mood of your photos. 

Choose your location wisely. Formal shoots often take place in a studio setting with lights and backdrops. Pose the couple carefully, and pay attention to every detail—from hand posing to hairstyling. You have total control in these situations, so take advantage of that. Photo by Nicole Knauber.

When posing your couple, make sure to look for every flattering nuance and try out several different poses. They should generally be looking into the camera and their body language should be less relaxed. Think of an upright posture, folded hands, turned-in bodies, and seated or standing shots. Their bodies and faces should be angled toward the camera, not straight-on like a mug shot. 

Formal sessions are not limited to a studio setting. Creativity may lead you to an unusual location that suits the couple's personality. Scout out the location to make sure it will enhance the mood, not detract from it. Photo by Evan Laettner.

Even though you don’t need as many exposures for formal portraits as you would for a more candid session, you still have the opportunity to use the digital media to your advantage. Keep shooting. Feel free to experiment with as many different poses and combinations as you like. You can always choose only the best one or completely delete anything that didn’t work. Ultimately, you are ensuring that the couple will have more selection in the end. Clients looking for a formal sitting will be more detail-oriented and will be looking for perfection. You don’t have the same kind of creative liberty to make artistic “errors” as you do in photojournalistic portraits.

INFORMAL

An informally styled engagement session can either be posed in a relaxed manner or it could take place as a totally photojournalistic shoot. You can also develop a combination of the two if you are skilled at directing and interacting with your clients. If your studio’s shooting area is limited in size, these types of sessions may work better on location. Additionally, the more relaxed atmosphere of an outdoor setting alleviates the stiffness of a traditional studio setting, something that is integral to a more informal approach. 

A session that is still traditionally posed but executed in a more relaxed, informal manner is the most widely accepted type of session today. In this type of session, the clients may still be rather traditionally posed, but you will develop the poses as you go. You should give the clients direction and talk them through each pose, but allow them to be comfortable and to be themselves. This contrasts with a purely photojournalistic type of session, in which you provide little or no posing direction but concentrate, instead, on capturing your clients as they really are. 

During your initial meeting with the clients, educate them about informal and photojournalistic approaches. See which one they are truly looking for. They may be confused as to the difference. 

Informally posed sessions are a popular choice. They allow you to modernize an old concept and flatter any couple or location. Photo by Evan Laettner.


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Designing Wedding Groups

Today's post, which offers some insights into designing effective group portraits, comes from the book Master Posing Guide for Wedding Photographers by Bill Hurter. It is available from Amazon.com and other fine retailers.

There are a number of ways to look at designing groups. The first is a technical aspect. Design your group so that those posed in the back are as close as possible to those in the front. This ensures that your plane of focus will cover the front row as well as the back row. Ensuring such an arrangement is a good habit to get into if you want your groups to be sharply focused.

The second consideration in designing groups is aesthetic. You are building a design when creating a group portrait. Norman Phillips likens group design to a florist arranging flowers. He says, “Sometimes we might want a tight bouquet of faces. Other times we might want to arrange our subjects so that the group looks interesting apart from the dynamics of the people in the group.” In other words, sometimes the design itself can be what’s important.

This is a carefully designed and expertly executed group photo by Kevin Jairaj. You have three subgroups set inside three arches. Each group is carefully arranged to create a V shape. The strength of the group arises from its asymmetrical nature (three, three, and two). Notice that the bride is the only one in a formal pose. She has good posture, with her weight on the back foot and standing erect. This contrasts with the tilted poses of the bridesmaids.

A third consideration is proximity. How close do you want the members of the group to be? Phillips relates proximity to warmth and distance to elegance. If you open the group up, you have a lot more freedom to introduce flowing lines and shapes within the composition. On the other hand, a tightly arranged group where members are touching implies warmth and closeness.

Composition Basics Still Apply
When working with groups, the rules of composition (like the rule of thirds) remain the same, but several key members of the group become the primary area of interest. In a wedding group, the bride and groom are usually the main centers of interest and, as such, should occupy a prime location.

Creating Lines and Shapes
Implied and inferred lines and shapes are created by the placement of faces within the frame. These become all the more important in group portraits, as they are the primary tool used to produce pleasing patterns within the composition and guide the eye through the picture.

This means that no two heads should ever be on the same level when next to each other, or directly on top of each other. Not only should heads be on different levels, but the subjects should be as well. In a group of five people, you can have all five on a different level—for example: one seated, one standing to the left or right, one seated on the arm of a chair, one kneeling on the other side of a chair, one kneeling down in front with their weight on their calves. Always think in terms of multiple levels. This makes any group portrait more pleasing.

The bigger the group, the more you must depend on your basic elements of group portrait design—circles, triangles, inverted triangles, diagonals, and diamond shapes. You must also really work to highlight and accentuate lines, real and implied, throughout the group. If you lined people up in a row, you would have a very uninteresting “team photo,” a concept that is the antithesis of fine group portraiture.

Notice the different head heights in this group portrait. They’re like musical notes on a score. The photographer, Marcus Bell, arranged the group into five neatly organized subgroups to give the overall gathering some dynamics. It is very effective and an attractive means of photographing a big group, like the bridal party.

The best way to previsualize this effect is to form subgroups as you start grouping people. For example, how about three bridesmaids here (perhaps forming an inverted triangle), three sisters over on the right side (perhaps forming a flowing diagonal line), a brother, a sister and their two kids (perhaps in a diamond shape with the littlest one standing between her mom and dad). Then combine the subsets, linking the line of an arm with the line of a dress. Leave a little space between these subgroups so that the design shapes you’ve formed don’t become too compressed. Let the subgroups flow from one to the next and then analyze the group as a whole to see what you’ve created.

Dissect this attractive pyramid-shaped group by South African photographer Brett Florens and you will see three straight lines and three groups of three, using the center-most standing girl in two groups. Good groups are nothing more than a careful arrangement of subgroups linking shapes and lines.

Remember that arms and hands help complete the composition by creating motion and dynamic lines that can and should lead up into the subjects’ faces. Hands and arms can “finish” lines started by the basic shape of the group.

Just because you might form a triangle or a diamond shape with one subset in a group does not mean that one of the people in that group cannot be used as an integral part of another group. You might find, for example, that the person in the middle of a group of seven unites two diamond shapes. In a portrait like this, each subset could be turned slightly toward the center to unify the composition or turned away from the center to give a bookend effect.

This wonderful portrait is not only a good group portrait, but a storytelling image as well. The bridesmaids, intent and confident they can fix the flowergirls’ hair, are hard at work, while the younger girls look at one another incredulously. Notice, too, the interplay of cohesive lines within the composition, which keep your eye within the circle of girls and tie the individuals together in an integrated composition. Photograph by Kevin Jairaj.

Be aware of intersecting lines that flow through the design. Diagonal lines are by far the most compelling visual line and can be used repeatedly without fear of overuse. The curving diagonal is even more pleasing and can be mixed with sharper diagonals within the composition.

Also, keep an eye on equalizing subject proximity—don’t have two heads close together and two far apart. There should be equal distance between each of the heads. If you have a situation where one person is seated, one standing, and a third seated on the arm of the chair (placing the two seated heads in close proximity), back up and make the portrait a full-length. This minimizes the effect of the standing subject’s head being far from the others.

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The Money Shots

Today's post comes from the book Step-by-Step Wedding Photography by Damon Tucci. It is available from Amazon.com and other retailers.

Between the ceremony and reception, you’ll have some time to work with the bride and groom alone. We call these the “money shots,” because these are the portraits that brides and grooms will invariably fall in love with and purchase. This is your opportunity to create images that will remind them why they hired you. In most cases, you’ll only have about thirty minutes for this session, so work fast.

At the Church
We typically start with a couple of shots at the ceremony venue—perhaps on the altar, if we’re at a church. We do these quickly at the end of the wedding-party and family shots, because our thirty minutes of post-ceremony shooting time at the venue has usually expired at this point.

Going Off Site
Once we have left the ceremony area and gotten rid of everyone else (including all those "helpers” like Aunt Edna) we can slow down and breathe—though we still only have thirty minutes, so there’s no time to get too relaxed. If you must travel from the ceremony to the reception site, be mindful to negotiate extra time in the planning process to allow for this. Generally we do not venture too far from the wedding and/or reception site. Instead, we make
the most out of our environment.

When we leave the ceremony site, we look for little kissy moments and record the bride and groom walking from behind. We work around the lighting and do a few closer portraits. We encourage closeness with our posing. We may also do additional bridal portraits, since we do not have the restraints we did before the wedding, such as worries about people seeing the bride before the ceremony and/or marring the dress. This does not mean we will trash the dress, but brides are much less concerned about it at this time. This allows us to try more poses and be more adventurous with our shooting.

Finding Backgrounds
When creating these photographs, take advantage of everything in the surrounding environment. Do not slip into the tunnel vision some photographers develop when they put the camera up to their eye. Train your peripheral vision and know what is going on around you at all times. You must really immerse yourself to come up with the goods consistently (and by “the goods,” I mean better-than-average photographs). In the competitive market of wedding photography, this what you must produce to survive.

During this session, we employ simple but classic techniques. We also love to juxtapose things in unexpected ways, like picturing the bride next to a downtown mural or Harley-Davidson sign. The only rules you have to follow are making images that your clients will love. We try to incorporate fashion and photojournalism, consistently looking for moments that happen naturally. However, we are not afraid to set up a great shot. To keep things moving quickly, we usually work with one camera, a tripod if the light is low, three lenses (a 24-70mm f/2.8, a 16mm fisheye, and an 80-200mm f/2.8), and a reflector.

Excerpted from the book "Step-by-Step Wedding Photography" by Damon Tucci

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