Engagement photo shoots are an essential part of the wedding photography experience. Not only do these sessions provide an opportunity to capture the couple’s love and joy, but they also allow the photographer to build a relationship with the couple before the big day. However, posing for engagement photos can be a daunting task, especially for those who are not used to being in front of the camera. In this article, we will provide a photographer’s guide to engagement poses, offering tips and tricks to help photographers create stunning and natural-looking images that capture the couple’s unique personalities and love story. From traditional poses to candid shots and everything in between, this guide will help photographers create engagement photos that their clients will cherish for a lifetime.
Video: Simple Posing Framework for Engagement Poses
With so many ways to take couple’s portraits, how do you decide on the right poses? Photographers will usually run through a memorized list of poses during the session. However, in this video, I’ll be showing you a simple guide for stress-free engagement poses.
Capturing the right poses can be a stressful part of couple’s and engagement photography. There are just so many to go through. Rather than a list of poses, I’ve created a simple posing framework for a stress free couple’s shoot in 4 easy steps. Let’s jump right in.
Step #1: Foundation Posing for Engagements
Begin each session by teaching clients the Foundation Poses. Foundation Posing consists of the 5 basic feet positions that serve as bases for the majority of engagement poses. From here, directing and guiding my clients becomes incredibly easy and simple.
For our example, we begin building our final look by starting our couple off with the Closed Pose.
Related Reading: The First 5 Poses Every Photographer Should Learn
Step #2: Set The Intention For the Engagement Session
Are you looking at a romantic scene with the beautiful sunset, or a silly and playful moment between the couple?
For this step, describe to your client the image as you imagine it. Doing this will set the vibe and help bring your clients into the right moment and mindset for their engagement poses. Sometimes the best engagement poses are the poses that the clients interpret themselves.
Step #3: Micro-Posing
Rather than big changes in between each image, focus on small and simple engagement posing adjustments. For this, we want to keep in mind:
- The eyes and where they’re looking.
- The hands and what they’re touching.
- The distance between the couple.
- The emotion of the photograph.
Changing each of these small nuances can drastically shift the feel of your engagement poses. Check out this sequence of photos as well as the simple directions I’d give as we move from shot to shot. We began with a closed pose from our foundation posing.
Engagement Posing Cues:
- Pull each other close, look at her, and look at me.
- Pull back a bit and look at each other.
- Then touch foreheads.
The basic closed pose is still the same, yet we get a series of natural photos with simple engagement posing directions and changes.
Capture The full Story
To capture a variety of images and tell a complete story, capture “Wide, Medium, and Tight” photos. Keeping the same foundation engagement poses, simply move away to capture a wide shot, then move in closer to capture the details. No need for drastic changes or a crazy list of shots.
Add Movement and Motion
Movement is an icebreaker as well as an engagement pose. Getting your subject moving can loosen them up and help the session be more emotive and uninhibited. Plus, it invites the opportunity for candid moments to pop up for you to grab.
Attempt to capture more dramatic poses – like this lift for example – to provide varied poses in the same location. Make the most of the time you have with your clients by adjusting posing and composition based on your light and surroundings, getting in tight for portraits and zooming out to capture the environment.
Understand Emotion and Intimacy
Love and laughter can be elicited from couples with direction. Asking them to tell each other what they most love about one another can cause feelings to bubble to the surface where they can be captured. Laughter can be provoked by asking the couple to say silly things to each other.
Intimacy can be shown by keeping couples literally connected. Tangled limbs and maintaining a point of contact are a couple ways to do this.
More Inspiration From Pye
We discussed and taught you our Foundation Posing Framework and showed you the first 5 couples poses every photographer should learn. In the video below, you’ll learn 20+ couples poses in less than 10 minutes to take your couple’s photos to the next level. You’ll soon learn it’s all about the posing and direction you give your clients to elicit genuine and authentic emotion.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this article/video. A simple engagement posing framework is incredibly important to keep the energy and flow positive and stress-free throughout the photoshoot. With this knowledge, you should know how to naturally interact with your couple in order to produce candid moments. Directing your subjects on where to stand, where to place their hands, and which direction to face will lead to a more cohesive shoot and prompt your clients to have faith in your process.
For a full guide on posing, check out the Complete Posing Workshop on SLR Lounge Premium. There, you can also find Incredible Engagements to learn how to capture stunning couple’s and engagement portraits.
