Working through a pose sequence
Okay. We set up the spot in five minutes last lesson. Now we've got a person standing in it, and you've got maybe ten to fifteen minutes of their patience before things go sideways. So this lesson is about what you actually do with that window of time.
Here's the thing nobody tells you going in: a "pose sequence" isn't a list of ten cool poses you memorized off the internet. It's more like a loose path you walk your subject down, and you're adjusting the whole way based on how they're doing. If you walk in with ten rigid poses and no flexibility, you'll spend the whole session fighting the plan instead of watching the person in front of you.
Start easier than feels necessary
I always start with the most boring pose in the world: subject facing me, weight on one foot, hands doing something (we covered that a few lessons back, so hopefully that's not new). Not because it's the best shot. It's the warm-up lap. Nobody's nervous about standing there normally. You're getting your exposure dialed in, your focus confirmed, your subject used to hearing the shutter, all while they think you're just "getting settled." You are. But you're also getting real frames, and sometimes the warm-up shot ends up being the keeper because the person hasn't started performing yet.
From there I move through a sequence like this, roughly:
- Straight on, relaxed. The boring one. Confirm your settings are right here.
- Slight turn, weight shifted. Have them turn their shoulders maybe thirty degrees off camera, chin back toward you. This is the one that reads as "professional" to most people even though it's a tiny adjustment.
- Something to do. Hand in a pocket, arms crossed loosely, leaning on something if you've got it. Task, not pose.
- Eyes somewhere else, then back to you. We covered this whole idea in the eyes lesson — have them look off, laugh, look at a person standing near you, then bring their eyes back to the lens on your count. This is almost always where your best frame lives.
- Close-up, just from the chest up. Step in physically instead of zooming if you can. Changes the energy of the shot completely.
That's it. Five stages, and you can run through all five in under ten minutes once you've done it a couple times.
Shoot more than you think you need
At each stage, don't take one frame and move on. Take five or six. I know that feels like overkill when you're new and every frame feels precious, but the good one is almost never the one you carefully posed. It's the one a half-second after, when they're transitioning out of the pose and their face relaxes for a beat. If you only take one shot per stage you will miss that every single time.
Watch the clock, not just the light
I'll tell on myself here. I once chased golden hour up the canyon, timed it out in my head, figured I had plenty of runway, and got there about ten minutes too late because I didn't account for how fast the light actually drops once the sun ducks behind the mountains here. It's not like the flatlands where you get a long fade. Up against the Wasatch the light just goes, and you lose your usable window faster than you'd think. Now I plan backward from sunset with a real buffer, not an optimistic one.
Same principle applies inside a pose sequence, just on a smaller timescale. You've got a window before your subject's patience or your kid's cooperation or the light through your window runs out. Know roughly how much runway you have and move through your sequence with that in mind instead of lingering forever on stage one because it's going well.
When it's not going well
Sometimes stage three just isn't working. The pose feels stiff, the person looks uncomfortable, nothing's clicking. Don't marry a bad pose out of stubbornness. Skip it, go to the next stage, come back later if there's time. At the end of the day your subject's comfort matters more than completing your checklist in order, so.
One caution worth saying plainly
If you're working near a window for light, watch where you're asking people to stand relative to furniture edges, floor lamps, anything with a corner at shin height. You'll be looking through the viewfinder, not at the floor, and you'd be surprised how easy it is to back someone into a coffee table while you're both focused on the shot instead of the room.
Before next time: try running the five-stage sequence on someone in your house, even just in a doorway with decent light, and time yourself. See how long it actually takes you versus how long you thought it would.