In October 2012, I released my first Posing Playbook, focused on Kids Who Don’t Do Posing. Since then, my team and I have received some pretty wonderful feedback and quite a few requests for a family-focused version. And, while it only took three years, I finally finished writing one – and the Family Posing Playbook is now officially available for purchase! (Download Here!)
Photo by Stacey Stricklin, shot at the San Francisco Portrait Photographer’s Workshop
This new posing guide is aimed very squarely at photographers who photograph families. It has more detail around each type of potential set up, and there is also an additional Family Posing Playbook Quick Reference Guide with just the poses and bullet point reminders so you can refer to it easily while on shoots.
I initially built the Posing Playbook…for Kids Who Don’t Do Posing as a printable item, but I found that most people were using it as an on-the-go reference guide. So, the new Quick Reference Guide that comes with the new Family Posing Playbook was built specifically for the purpose of easy referencing while on a shoot, without having to wade through all the detailed information about each pose. It is designed to be printed, laminated, and ring-bound—or simply save it to any mobile device you might bring to your shoot; it is compatible with all devices. Or you can do both!
I like that the entire Family Posing Playbook is based off real-world experiences. It’s one thing to say “this is how everything should go,” and it’s quite another to work with a variety of personality types, challenging situations and resistant subjects—and to show exactly how you can work in so many of those situations to still create a great final shot. I detail every component I considered in each scenario, most especially lighting, technical settings, posing, and expressions.
When you purchase The Family Posing Playbook, our first 200 downloads (and we are almost halfway in at the time of this post!) get a FREE $60 lifetime song license, thanks to a rather generous offer from Triple Scoop Music. AND, like our Lush Albums, 10% of all proceeds go directly to Beautiful Together, which works to identify and complete specific and measurable projects that tangibly improve the lives of orphaned children in the United States and Africa. Beautiful Together also shines a light on children living in extreme poverty, foster care, or orphanages through a combination of on-the-ground work, professional photography, video profiles, and social outreach.
These donations really do make a difference, as you can see on Beautiful Together’s Fully Funded Projects page, so we’re excited about these new contributions!
I am always happy to partner with the (very) talented team at Triple Scoop Music. I personally have used their music for years, I’ve even built a Top 10 Favorites list with them—they were the first company that I found to have royalty-free songs that I would want to listen to on my own, in the car, or while on a run. I’d never been able to say that about royalty-free music before. Like, at all. But they have such talented musicians and such a range of sound; they have truly good music offerings, I just love incorporating their original sounds in my work. So a big thank you to them for this very kind offer.
Posing Playbooks for All Kinds of Portrait Photo Shoot Situations
I liked having so much feedback from our Posing Playbook…for Kids Who Don’t Do Posing. We knew just what to expand on and what would make sense to add—in this case, the separate quick reference guide. I really feel you can use either the Posing Playbook…for Kids Who Don’t Do Posing or the Family Posing Playbook, based on what you’re most focused on photographing, and find that you have two very different, useful resources based on the work you are doing.
Here is a little preview from the introduction to the Family Posing guide:
“When I first wrote The Posing Playbook … for Kids Who Don’t Do Posing, I tried to incorporate all of the main things to consider when posing children. There are often a few factors to consider: location, lighting, styling, interaction, mood, expression and, of course posing. The most prominent issue with that last factor, posing, being rather interesting as most kids don’t really do posing.
Guess what: families don’t really do posing, either. But even as people aren’t often professional models, they are often amenable to being move this way and that. So, how do you adjust them to showcase them as flatteringly as possible and keep their expression fresh so you can showcase them as attractively and as naturally as possible – while also keeping the shot well-framed, well-lit and showing off what matters the most: who they genuinely are at heart, and how they belong to each other?
This book, like my original one for just kids, is all about creating a reference book of past “wins” – challenges I’d faced and how I was able to resolve them to produce attractive and natural-looking poses using a variety of techniques, which I share in detail, along with before and afters, metadata, what lighting I used, and any interpersonal techniques I utilized to shift the mood or refresh expressions. I also share any interactions I may employ in certain situations – and any other helpful technical information that could come into play in that scenario or any others like them. This comes complete with bullet points to quickly reference the main considerations of each pose.”
It is my sincere wish that the Family Posing Playbook helps you fast track a lot of that progress in your own work. You can purchase it here or feel free to contact us with any questions! I look forward to hearing from you.
