{3} Working with Models

Working with models can either go great or it can go terribly wrong. The trick is to let go and be comfortable, and make them feel comfortable. If you are stressing the whole time the model is more likely to stress with you. The the shoot before the last I did I ended up getting really stressed, mainly because I was photographing my sister so when I got frustrated I expressed it to her.

I have started to find some easy tricks to eliminating stress when working with models. Make sure to take a breath and think about how what you say is going to affect them. Give clear directions so that there isn't a lot of confusion. Make sure that the area you are shooting in is prepared before you start shooting.

Prepare your pose index prior to starting the shoot, know what you want out of it. If you are doing a shoot for the people in it, make sure to know what they want from it before you begin. When working with families, understand that children won't always do exactly what you want them to do. You have to work with the child and the family, do things their way. The best advice I was ever given when photographing children is to get on their level. See what they are doing and get interested because they will cooperate much better if you do this. 

Here are some examples of my photos that include people:

This is from the frustrating shoot. It was the best shot of the day!

This one is really old from 2011.

This one makes me laugh, reminds me of Marcia Brady!

I have tons of other people shoots though I think this pretty much sums it up. I intend on having a ton more people shoots as soon as I get my DSLR back. Once that happens, there will be many, many more examples of my portrait photography.