Wedding Photography Posing Guide The Bride's Eyes

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One of the most difficult parts about being a wedding photographer is the fact that you deal with ordinary people who more often than not aren't used to being in front of a professional photographer. That means they can easily become intimidated at the sight of your huge DSLR and 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. If you want to capture emotion, and that is part of your job description, stick to a few basic rules. If you notice the bride and groom aren't model material and do a really bad job of posing even if you give them clear directions, don't push it. Chances are you're just going to make them even more nervous and uncomfortable. It's best to stay somewhere in the background and snap candid, authentic moments of emotion, which usually are quite a lot during the wedding day. Even so, you won't make it shooting candidly the entire wedding and even if they suck at posing, the bride and groom are still going to want some classic portraits.

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And this is where your posing skills come in. You should try to relax the bride and groom with a few jokes to help their bodies and look less stiff. Even so, now and then even your best jokes will fail in achieving this goal. That is the time to stick to portraits, and particularly focus on the eyes. As Al Pacino once put it in one if his famous films, "the eyes never lie". 9/10 times the bride will be the emotional one and that's what you want to capture.

Use a long lens, anything above 85mm, and have her look straight into the camera a few times, and make sure you use the right lighting. I recommend natural for most wedding portraits, particularly if you want to be less intrusive.

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Here's a video tutorial from Academy Photography with a few more details.

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