Confidence in What You Do | Glamour Couture Portraiture

If you don't have it, your client won't have it either...confidence that is. As the photographer of women you have to show your Alpha female inside. And it's not enough to just feel confident, you have to show your excitement and love for not only what you do but also what you're about to do with this client, in your studio, right now. She needs to feel that you have been looking forward to this moment for a very long time. If you're feeling less than that then what are you doing here??

In order to get what you want out of your client, you have to give it yourself. If you want her to laugh uncontrollably, you have to show her how to do it FOR REAL. If you want her to show her power, her fierceness, you have to show her what that looks and even what that sounds like. Think of this: the next time you want a client to give you a particular emotion or look give it a sound. I say to my clients all the time, "If what I want in this shot was a sound, it would sound like this." And they get it. You will almost never work with a person that can naturally move and feel the way you want them to in an instant, if at all. It's not your client's responsibility to show up knowing how to be a model, but that's exactly what she wants to feel like....so help her. Show her. Make her feel it.

I'm a goofball so it's not hard for me to get into character with a client and show her what I want. I don't embarrass at all in my studio. It's my space and I'm the Alpha female so I can be as silly as I need to be and feel good about it. I feel comfortable asking for what I want from my client but it wasn't always like that. I recently attended a workshop (will blog soon) and was kind of "given permission" to take it even further and my A Game as increased 10-fold because of this. I thought I was giving 100% to get what I wanted out of my clients but I realized I needed to go 200% so I could get about 75% to 100% out of my clients. And it felt good!

The woman above and below didn't just walk over and strike a pose. She didn't just glare at me with that look on her face. I showed her. I stood there, put my hands on my face and glared at her. I parted my lips, I lowered my eye lids and I said "Uh" deep in my throat. And that's what I got. For the photo below I stood there in that pose, jutted my chin up and glared and her and said "what"...and it wasn't a question; it was a statement. I wanted confidence from her, but I also wanted softness. And I got it.

Give it. Feel it. Show it. Sound it. And then get it.