From the course: Creative Business Portrait Photography: Posing Your Subjects

Introducing the anchoring technique

From the course: Creative Business Portrait Photography: Posing Your Subjects

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Introducing the anchoring technique

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- [Instructor] The first posing principle that I want to introduce here is what I refer to as anchoring. Now, we've already been slightly introduced to this, but let me dig a little bit deeper. We talked about this idea of how often when we start to photograph someone, they don't know what to do. They don't know what to do with their hands. They don't know where to stand. They don't know how to walk. And when you're in front of a camera, it can be kind of intimidating. It can make people nervous, uncertain, anxious. And often I like to think of this as an unanchored moment. And as a portrait photographer, what I'm looking to do is to try to create a scenario or a situation where they feel confident and comfortable and anchored. And so in this case, the unanchored moment is Steven out here on the road. Once he has touched down, suddenly he is anchored, he is connected, he is calm, collected, cool, (chuckling) and it creates a good photograph. Let's look at another example. Here we have someone kind of standing. We're on a boat here, New York's in the background, and they're just kind of drifting. They are unanchored. Yet if I say, "Hey, you know, what if you take down one of your arms, like, for example, your left arm and lean against the railing," suddenly there is a touchpoint. Do you see how that touchpoint really changed everything? That also allowed to create an interesting shape in the body, and I changed my composition of course a little bit as well. But often we start somewhere that isn't necessarily great, and then we can move somewhere a little bit better. I also changed my exposure settings to get a little bit of a better exposure. And this brings up the point that portraiture and photography in general is an iterative craft, and we have to embrace that. We have to embrace those unanchored moment, those rough beginnings. This is a portrait of Chris Burkard, a wonderful friend and photographer. He was about to go on an expedition. I wanted a photograph of him with his bike. And so we set his bike in front of the garage, and he stood there. (chuckling) And it's really a bad photograph. I mean, he's a cool guy, it's a cool moment, but it didn't work. So what I needed to do was to anchor him into the scene. You really don't often want someone just sort of standing in front of something. You want them part of what's happening. And so we removed his bike rack. I changed my composition. I had him lean on his bike, put his hand on the seat, and now it looks a little more interesting, intense, connected. And if I reverse engineer that a little bit, you can think, here's the start. And a lot of times, you just start to say, "Okay, we got to get some momentum going." And then we try something out. I know I need him to connect to his bike. Also, while I was figuring out some camera stuff, he happened to hose off his driveway. So, it is what it is, so you work with what you have. So I take the next picture where he's anchored, but he's not anchored enough. If you've ever gone sailing or boating, you know that you can really set an anchor at the bottom of the ocean or a lake. But here, the anchor's still drifting a little bit, and the composition isn't great. So what I do is get a little bit lower in my camera height. I get a little bit closer so I'm cropping out unnecessary elements. And I ask him to really lean on his handlebars in the front. And you can see now how the lower camera angle, it's almost like we're looking up at him a little bit, and it creates a more soulful, beautiful, strong portrait. Let's look at another scenario. In this case, I'm photographing the picture of the Detroit Tigers. There he is, Daniel, with another friend. They're standing in front of his old vintage van, which is really cool, but it's a really kind of bad photograph, two guys and a car. So what I need to do is to create some touchpoint, some anchor. And in this case, what I do is say, "Hey, what if you lean against the front of your car?" And so now he's leaning. I have him looking out of the frame. I obviously also recompose the shot. So, posing isn't just about making someone move in a different way. We're combining this with all of the other tools and techniques that we have as photographers. Then I had him get inside of the van. I thought it'd be cool if he touched the steering wheel, but the anchor wasn't quite set right. And then I said, "Well, lean into the steering wheel." And that was much better. Here's another example, leaning against a door and then sort of leaning into it a bit more. And then I converted that one to black and white. Or often maybe you have someone standing and you say, "Hey, what if you lean against the wall?" That lean, that touchpoint, creates a sense of confidence and calm in the portrait subject often. And what that can do is to help us to create better frames. Okay, well, now that we've been introduced to this topic, in the next movie, let's take a look at a handful of examples so that you can really learn how this principle works so that you can then apply it to your own work.

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