One of my buddies is a club promoter who has girls wear merch for his company and takes pretty mid photos with his phone.

I think I could do a better job with my camera and selfie ring lights, told him so, and he said to roll with him on Wednesday.

Where can I learn how photographing women works? I feel like there is an etiquette I don’t know and the special only trick I know is shooting from below the waistline - which I learned from a Brazilian dude.

Like, I just straight-up tell my girlfriend “stick your butt out” or “do a sexy pose”, but I feel like that’s probably unprofessional cause I would never imagine my anime cosplay photographer buddy doing that.

The only photographer commands I know are:"Turn your chin [direction]"and “Turn your hip towards me”

I was given, “Turn your hip towards me”, by a dude I know who throws photoshoots to replace what I normally tell my girlfriend. He made it sound like it’s the only move I need and explained that the models know more about posing than I do.

I also watched a YouTube video from a portrait lady, and she said you can tell people to, “sit comfortably”. I don’t know if that’s good for what we’re doing, though.

  • IAMATARDISAMA@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t know what you were saying when you described yourself as a GWC. “Guy with a camera” is not used to describe an amatuer photographer, but rather a pointed insult used to refer to men who use photography as an excuse to get a woman alone and generally be creepy towards her. Tip number one is to always aspire to be the opposite of a GWC.

    Second, taking good portraits, especially for fashion, is about more than having a good camera and good lighting. Being able to pose a model well is half of the art and takes just as much practice as learning how to use your camera. Models you see advertising high end fashion absolutely did not just improv off of “do a sexy pose.” You can practice posing by finding some reference poses online, and asking your wife/a friend to pose for you while you verbally try to direct them into replicating the pose. You’ll learn what kind of language works for you, and you’ll also get to see in real time how your poses change the character of an image. Character is important for fashion photography because your model needs to sell the story of the apparel.