I had recently become a glamour photographer. I had a client, my professional lighting, and some posing ideas stored in my head. What could possibly go wrong?
I can almost hear the thought process that must have been going through my head during this shoot.
‘Nope that didn’t work. Okay then, I’ll turn her the opposite way.
Nope, not that either.
Okay, I’ll just photograph her front on.
Crap, that didn’t work either.’
What a struggle!
Did I flatter her body? Not even close!!
First of all, what was with my camera angle? Why would I position my camera directly in line with her area of concern, ie her belly?
But not only was the camera angle wrong, so was the lighting, the poses … in fact it was ALL wrong!
The worst part is these were my ‘best’ shots and I actually shared these images with my client.
I look back now and cringe.
If you want to know how NOT to pose curvy women, please consider this:
- DO NOT just wing it at your shoot and hope for the best. Do not turn your client this way and that, posing them without any idea of what you are doing. This also leads to your client losing confidence in your photographic ability and also in themselves. Make sure you have a game plan and know exactly how to flatter your clients. Not only will this save you a lot of time and frustration at your shoot, it will also save yours and your client’s self-confidence.
- DO NOT just focus on closeups. Plus size clients deserve to have pictures of more than just their face.
- DO NOT take an unflattering shot and expect to fix it with retouching in Photoshop. Could I have just retouched the above images and ‘fixed’ any issues? Sure. But that doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do. No one wants to be Photoshopped beyond recognition. Our clients expect us to get it right in-camera and as professional photographers we should.
- DO NOT just stick to one flattering angle, make sure you are capturing a variety of angles of the client. I remember years ago being so scared of photographing plus size clients front-on that one client became so frustrated and angry she said ‘why won’t you just photograph me front on?!’. She had a right to be mad, I was not giving her both what she wanted and deserved.
I knew I personally had work to do. I wanted to be able to photograph any body type. Not just the model types.
So over the years I kept records of poses that flattered. Which poses were good if the client had a tummy? Which poses if she hated her upper arms? What about if she disliked her thighs?
I took copious notes and would flick through them prior to a boudoir shoot to prepare. I never wanted to be at a loss as to what to do again.
It was so freeing to finally have a ‘game plan’. To feel confident that I could finally hide flaws and accentuate the assets of any client that entered my studio.
After a while I realised these notes would be useful to other boudoir photographers and that I needed to share them. So for that reason I created my Curvy Posing Guide.
Here are some of the flattering images I now create for my clients. What a difference having this information has made to mine and my client’s confidence!
I might be a bit biased 😊… but I have a feeling my 65 page Curvy Posing Guide will give you a new-found confidence in your ability to flatter all body types too.
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Click here if you would like to LEARN MORE.