Except for a self-portrait assignment in college, I've never tried doing a shoot of myself, by myself before. That changed last week when I decided I just had to take a picture of something and remembered I could take pictures of Zach and I! While it wasn't a difficult shoot I still learned a few things and had a great time doing it!
Set-Up
The goal of this shoot was to try something new and take photos of Zach (my husband) and I. Having never posed myself with someone else and taken the picture before, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity! We used two locations based on light and photo inspiration: our bedroom (the best lit room in the house) and our hallway (I had a couple pose ideas).
Set up mostly consisted of placing the tripod and exposing for light. You might be thinking, isn't that all the set-up needed for a photoshoot? In many cases, yes. But that doesn't make it any less critical! You can't take the picture you want if the camera isn't in place and exposed correctly.
Setting up the camera in our room was much easier than the hallway because there was more space to work with and better lighting. The hallway was more tricky because the space was narrow, I had the lights off to achieve more of a silhouette, and I had to have the tripod set really low for the shot.
Shooting
If anyone were watching us shoot I'm sure they would have been laughing at my frantic run from camera to pose! It's surprising how short 10 seconds feels when you're pushing the button and racing to "look natural." Zach likes to tell people about how I carefully smoothed the sheets, told him to be careful when he got onto the bed, and then when I immediately ran from the camera and (literally) jumped into position! Admittedly, hypocritical on my part.
My favorite photos to come out of this shoot are definitely the ones from our room. I love how the light fell and reflected against the walls and the easy care that passed between Zach and I! The only real hiccup we ran into in this location was struggling to think of how to pose. (More about that in a minute.) Another aspect I loved about doing this shoot is all the laughs Zach and I shared! I highly recommend taking pictures together as a date night. You can be as goofy or serious as you want and laugh together at how the pictures came out!
The photos in the hallway were already a little more intimate in nature because of the small space. I had also been inspired by a few photos online so we decided to take full advantage of it!
The shooting was a little more complicated here because there was less room to move around the camera and get back into position. (Shout out to Zach for being a trooper!) To help solve that problem I explored the timer settings in my camera and set it up to take 3-5 photos after 10 seconds with a 5 second interval between each shot. That meant I didn't have to get up and run back so often and we could get more poses, quicker!
Lessons Learned
The main lesson I learned during this experience was to pose myself like I'd pose a client. Seems obvious right? I think there must have been a mind block being in front of the camera vs behind it because the first few photos were Rough. I was really just posing blindly and hoping for the best. After getting past the initial model shock I realized it wasn't working and instead tried to picture myself in place next to Zach as I would pose a couple during a "real" shoot. How would I show connection and frame the couple? The mindset shift made all the difference and we were able to get some
really cute shots!
First photo
Favorite photo
The next lesson was to frame the image with where I will be in mind, not just where Zach was. Once again, this seems obvious. The problem I ran into was picturing myself in the empty space to fill the image. When I'm doing a shoot with a client I can see the subject and pose them where they should be. In this case, I wasn't there yet and had to think ahead.
Empty space
Filled space
All in all I learned a lot! I got to experiment with settings I don't normally use, I honed my posing skills, and I got to practice which is never a bad thing. I'm sure Zach and I will do more shoots like this when we're bored or the next time I have to satisfy the artistic itch!
