*click here for yesterday’s post in this series*
As if posing isn’t daunting enough when you first get started, how about posing FIVE PEOPLE all at once? posing families is a whoooole ‘nuther topic alltogether. But first, I’ll start by saying that when posing families…
Although you’re working with individual people, you need to think of the family unit as one subject, not a bunch of separate poses.
Direct contact – No matter the poses you go for, always try to incorporate direct contact through touch. Hands on shoulders, arms around waists, any way that you can get everyone in physical contact with each other. This will convey emotional closeness.
Straight across – You can pose a family straight across but you have to be creative to make it work without looking static. Add chairs or get everyone doing something fun like resting on each other’s shoulders. Place the tallest (usually parents) in the center and taper out from there.
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Huddle – With the parents seated, get everyone else to huddle around and squeeze in for a tight shot. This is a great time to get some laughs, tickles and otherwise awesome expressions.
When shooting this pose, be sure that you’re not shooting wide open with your lens. As in the photo on the right (oops!) you’ll see that Ryan in the back is out of focus. A good rule of thumb is to set your aperture for how many you have in the shot (within reason of course). So there are 6 in the photo on the right which means that if I hadn’t forgotten to check my settings, I would have set it to f/5.6.
Squeeze in - A variation of the above ‘huddle’ shot but this time, everyone’s just piled on to one couch, bench, picnic blanket. The idea is to get everyone outside of their comfort zone and into their personal space. Not a good pose to jump into from the get-go. A good one for once everyone’s gotten buttered up and in a happy mood. I like to shoot these up high for an interesting perspective.
Clusters – If you have a very large group (like a family reunion) you can arrange people in clusters of their own family units and then pose those clusters together. Or you can do what I do and just say no to huge families! lol.
Clusters revamped - On a smaller scale, you can take a family and pose them in individual clusters. For example (and I regret that I don’t have an example of this!) You could use an archway and have the parents learning up against one side, pulled nice and close as if it were only them and on the other side, pose the kids together in likewise fashion. This makes the statement that although they’re a family, the parents still have their own beautiful relationship and the kids do too. I love it when I see it but haven’t done it yet myself.
There are many different poses for families if you check around on the internet. And if you’re ever in need of some really horrible ideas, check out the Awkward Family Photos site. Never ceases to make me laugh my sock off!
