Let’s face it: as senior portrait photographers, posing is an incredibly crucial part of our job. We could take the most perfect photo technically but if our seniors are uncomfortable or don’t feel flattered, who cares? Our job is all about creating and building confidence for our amazing seniors. On today’s podcast episode (episode 50, by the way!!), I’m sharing tips on how to confidently pose seniors. I wish I had known all these tips when I first started out, so I hope they help you!
Where I began…
When I first started my business, I’m not joking when I say I had no posing experience and literally said, “okay, now smile” as directions for my seniors. I would sit at stoplights looking at Pinterest and hoping to retain the posing ideas I JUST saw. And much like cramming for a test, it never worked. I would freeze up during my session and my seniors weren’t as comfortable as I hoped, so the photos were never as great as I wanted. Obviously, I knew things had to change. I wanted a system that would help me create a variety poses for my seniors.
My posing flow
So, it did. Now, I use a posing flow that focuses on six main poses. You read that right: ONLY six. From there, I can make small adjustments and I never run out of posing prompts. I’m more confident, my seniors are more confident, and our portraits together and more beautiful than ever.
So what is my senior posing formula? It is a set of criteria that creates variety using six core poses. Those six core poses are standing, leaning, moving, squatting, sitting and laying! In each of these core poses, I am running through the other parts of the formula to create variety. Things like my composition, lens choice, their expression, and other micro changes make a huge difference in the final variety. Read more about my flow here! And don’t forget the free guide: 1 pose 50 ways!
Other Ways to Confidently Pose Seniors:
By using my posing formula, I go into every single session with confidence. This means I’m confident and my seniors are too. Here’s a few more ways to pose your seniors with confidence beyond the posing workflow…
Have a Game Plan! Workflows in all areas of our business allow us to stay prepared and ahead of the game. Posing should be no different. Have a mental or physical checklist that you run though during your session.
Start simple! I start every single senior session with the simplest poses first! This gives my clients time to warm up, get a little more comfortable with me and by the end we can try some more advanced posing! Overcomplicating things in the beginning will make your clients lose trust and confidence fast.
Demonstrate the poses yourself! We need to be able to demonstrate what we want our clients to do. Practice makes perfect, so make sure you know how to direct them and demonstrate!  So practice your poses and see how it feels to be in the poses yourself.
Communicate! Talk, talk, talk throughout your entire session. Not only should you be talking them through the poses, but really get to know them while you’re there, too. Get their minds on other topics and you’ll find they’re more at ease.
Be their hype girl! In addition to talking to them, hype them up! Encourage them, tell them they are doing a great job, show your excitement and show them the back of the camera so they see what you see! Seeing how the photos are looking will give them the confidence to keep going.
Want more help with posing?
I have a brand new course called The Senior Posing Academy (to be released soon)! This course will teach you the importance of posing, the entire posing formula and show you exactly how this formula works on senior sessions!