How to Feel Comfortable in Front of the Camera

Here is what I see when a couple walks up to me on the day: two people bracing. Shoulders a little high. One of them already laughing nervously, the other gone quiet. They tell me, sometimes before we shake hands, "we're so awkward, we hate having our photo taken."

Good. We have something to work with.

The people who think they photograph badly are usually the ones who've only ever been told to freeze and grin. Of course that felt wrong. Holding still while someone aims a lens at your face is a strange thing to ask of a body. The discomfort isn't a flaw in you. It's a flaw in the instruction.

So I throw out the instruction. We're going to do something else entirely.

This is the question I get most, every single time. What do I do with my hands? They suddenly feel like two foreign objects bolted to your wrists.

Here's the secret: you never have to think about your hands, because I will always give them somewhere to be. Touch his jaw. Pull her in by the waist. Hold the coffee. Fix his collar that doesn't need fixing. Walk and let them swing the way they always do.

Hands look strange only when they have no job. Give them a job and they relax, and the rest of you follows. I'll never leave you standing there guessing. The second I see you start to wonder, I'll hand you the next small thing to do.

I don't pose people into shapes. I prompt, and I move you.

That means I'm not asking you to perform a feeling. I'm giving you something real to do, and I catch what happens in the doing. Walk toward me and tell him the worst thing about the morning you got ready. Whisper the thing you're not allowed to say out loud at the reception. Squeeze her three times and watch her try not to laugh.

You react. I'm already shooting. The expression on your face when you're busy reacting to each other is the one you actually want, and it's the one you can't fake on command. So I never ask you to fake it. I ask you to do, and the look arrives on its own.

I've spent twelve years learning exactly which prompt loosens which kind of person. Quiet couples, loud couples, the partner who's certain they're the awkward one. I read it fast and I steer from there. You don't have to manage any of it. You just have to play along.

If the idea of a camera on your wedding day makes your stomach drop, we fix that before the day ever comes. We shoot an engagement session first.

Think of it as a practice run with no stakes. An hour or two, somewhere that means something to you, just the two of you and me. You learn how I work. You hear my prompts. You feel yourself stop performing and start responding, usually somewhere around minute fifteen, and you'll feel the exact moment it lands.

By the time your wedding arrives, the camera isn't a stranger anymore. I'm not a stranger. You already know what this feels like, and you know it feels good. Couples who do a session first walk into their wedding portraits loose, because they've already proven to themselves they can do this.

By the time we're shooting your portraits, you've half forgotten I'm working.

I keep it moving. I keep talking. I'll make you laugh, and I'll catch the real one. There are no long silences where you stand frozen wondering if it looks okay. The pace itself is what relaxes you: too much happening to get self-conscious about any of it. I'm steering the whole time, so you never have to wonder what comes next.

You'll get a stretch where it stops feeling like a photoshoot and starts feeling like the two of you, on a good day, with someone you trust nearby. That's the goal. Not a performance of your love. The real thing, while it's happening.

You don't need to be photogenic. You need someone who knows how to find the real you and stay out of your way once they have. I do that for a living, and I love it.

Come tell me you hate having your photo taken. I'll take it as a challenge, and I'll win. Let's plan your session.