People Skills Required

More cameras, lenses, gadgets, & huge studios won’t make a model relaxed -

your professional energetic and fun attitude will.

I have the pleasure of renting my studio to a photographer who’s business is mostly photo journalistic editorial weddings. His background is world-wide journalistic news work and he brings that style to weddings – HIGH end weddings; weddings of the rich who fly the entire wedding party, family and guest to exotic islands. In the “off season” he brings his talents to Ford and Factor agencies in Chicago.

This professional has real people skills. As I write this he is working with a new 16 year old model sent to him from Factor Women (formerly Elite). His assistant, the makeup artist, and hair stylist are helping.  His energy is contagious and he’s hopping around demonstrating some moves…and I learned from him to tell the model to forget about “posing” but “just move”.  His chatter is positive and constant.  The air is full of the following phrases:

·         Nice nice nice

·         Beautiful look there

·         Oh that’s good!

·         Sell me that jacket!!!

·         Excellent!

·         Attitude! Just slouch into position!

·         Oh I like that a lot!

·         Enjoy – you are living the GAP life – sell me those jeans!

·         Awesome - perfect

·         Kick back that foot, no your left foot, no no your other left!

·         I like what you just did with your hair, pulling on it a little…

And the list goes on. The exact phrases really don’t matter as long as they remain upbeat, say what you want, and learn to be able to belch out several phrases that crescendo to an end without stumbling! ENERGY!  My point here is that he is connecting and feeding energy to the model.  I see a lot of photographers that struggle with this and the atmosphere is dull and unexciting.  Guess what?  It shows in the gestures from the model.  Your chatter needs to be not over done, but fun and professional.  There cannot be any inappropriate comments or innuendos.

How do you as a photographer learn this??  First off, I don’t believe anyone can multi-task, I just don’t.  Therefore when you shoot, you should be thinking about one topic – communication with the model and getting the shots you both want.  You must have an unconsciously competent technical knowledge of your gear and lighting. If you don’t and you are worried about and fixing things as the shoot goes, it’s a major road block of communication between everyone involved.  Get the set ready before the shoot and if you want to make changes in lighting and set, make the changes to ones that have been tried and tested and successful.  

Try this approach and over time you’ll see a big difference.