Each month, Heather Lahtinen of the Flourish Academy organizes a camera club meetup for local photographers throughout the Pittsburgh area.
I bent my paws-must-outnumber-human-feet rule for this month's camera club to learn more about (gasp!) posing couples. I know, shocking, right? Hear me out though because the techniques and tips shared by Heather for this particular meeting went far beyond weddings and engagements; many of them can apply to your pet photography session as well, especially if you plan to join in photos with your furry friend and significant other.
Mike and Kim, who are already married, volunteered to be the evening's models. Heather again opened her sprawling homestead property to the Flourish Academy community who spent a few hours learning about flow posing, including how to capture a variety of portraits within a condensed time. She showed us ways to capture upwards of eight images within one pose using subtle changes in the couple's poses as well as her position.
In addition to Heather directing Mike and Kim and offering her expertise, we were also encouraged to pose them and provide some silly prompts and directions to help create natural smiles (and laughs). It's never a dull moment when this group gets together! I'd say just getting together with some of my photography friends made this meetup worthwhile in itself.
Throughout the evening, we moved about several spots on Heather's property, talking about finding the best light, how to adjust our settings to account for things like backlight, and how to adjust the positions we were shooting from to block out unwanted parts of a location, such as too much sky or distracting objects.
As always, a big thank-you to Heather for hosting this month's camera club on her beautiful homestead property, Soozie Harrison of Studio Soozie for her posing assistance, and to our models, Mike and Kim, for being patient participants.
If you’re interested in attending a camera club meeting, the details can be found on the Flourish Academy Camera Club group on Facebook. Click here to join and keep current on upcoming events.