Have you ever had a model step up in front of your lens, assume some standard pose and (much worse) put on that modelling face? No matter what you do now, she’s gonna stick to that pose and that I-am-sexy-and-wild-yet-arrogant-and-completely-bland-expression. Perhaps you manage to break the habit for a click or two, but as soon as you adjust your aperture for half a stop and look back at her (or him!!!) things have magically snapped back…

First of all: This is NOT the models fault, it is entirely the photographers fault! Being a photographer is not all about fiddling with your gear, it is to a large extent about working with people, with talent, with crew and getting the best out of them. So you have to be able to tell your model the right things, enabling him/her to perform up to spec.

It has been my experience that many models, when they started out had the bad luck of having to work with some hack photographers. The sort of shooter which got into the game because they thought they’d meet more pretty girls that way and think that the bathing suit calendar at the mechanics shop represents the aesthetic summit of contemporary photography… you get the idea. So they try to get just that out of the newcomer models, who in turn are really just hoping to build their book. After a while, always being asked to look and pose that very same way, things start to stick.

There are a few simple techniques, which actually come out of film directing and will work like a charm on almost anybody. Let’s have a look at the following shot:

There’s life behind Tatjana’s eyes and contact with the viewer in this one. You can tell that something is moving her. Try to figure out what I might have told her to get the performance and then hit the jump to read what the secret is…

… there’s no secret. I told Tatjana a little story to imagine and an action to execute. I’ll tell you in a second what I told her exactly, but let’s first look at what a shooter without directing skills might have told her. Likely the word brooding, or agressive, or uncomfortable would have come up. That more or less describes the mood I wanted to get here. But what’s wrong with those words? They all are adjectives! They describe an emotional result of some situation. It is called result-oriented directing… “I need you to look really sad” or even worse “Be really uncomfortable”. Nobody can deliver a decent performance from that direction. You simply can’t just call up an emotion at your will. No one can. If you tell a model or actor for that matter to look sad you will get some weird facial expression, resembling the clichéed look of a cartoon character. Basically a smily face with an upside down smile :-(  This is called acting with a capital “A”… overacting if you will. Have you ever looked that way when you were sad? Has your ex BF or GF looked at you like that when you told them it was over? I don’t think so!

There are two techniques you can deploy to get a convincing performance:

1) Make up a little story, surrounding the mood you are after and tell it as vividly as possible to your model. It doesn’t need to be all elabourate, it just needs to be a base for the emotion you want to see behind the models eyes. In the example above I told Tatjana to imagine that she was some sort of fallen celebrity, strung out on booze and that all the sudden a Paparazzi photographer (in this case me) showed up, trying to catch her in her worst state of mind.

2) Give your Model something to do. Or more precisely, direct with verbs! Don’t ask her to be agressive or angry or sad (all adjectives!!). Give her an action, to execute. - give her a verb. In this case I told her to hide her anger about that fact, that she is being photographed at this moment. “Don’t let me see how hurt you are!”. Now she has something to do. She doesn’t really need to feel hurt, she just needs to hide that potential emotion from me. She has something to do!

So what happens? The model is given the chance to draw up the story in front of her inner eye. She is given something she can potentially relate with. In addition she’s give an action to follow. As in the example she will try to compose her face to not show any emotion, at the same time she is very focused on me/my camera (I am part of the story after all). She starts to forget about the dress, the crew standing around, all the technicalities. She is just there with the lens and the viewer can tell that something is actually going on in her head. You are already winning at this point!

It can be a fine line sometime, but with the combination of both directing strategies I always get compelling performances out of the models I work with. Obviously, when working with amateur models or other non-model-people you are asked to take portraits of, these techniques come in very handy. With very talented and experienced models like Tatjana in the example above you are already doing well as it is. With a little bit of good directing you just get that extra notch out of your shoot, which separates you from the rest.

Let’s look at another example to clarify things:

I am sure you would agree that we have a lot more than an empty meaningless expression going here, wouldn’t you? For this shot (part of a series revolving around the theme war and destruction) we wanted to convey the idea of a refugee, who is willing to share the little she has.

Now, ask yourself before you read on: What could I tell her to get something like this?

What have you come up with? My version goes like this:

1) Story: Imagine you are in a refugee camp, you haven’t eaten for days and have just been given your daily ration of bread. Along comes a little boy, lost his parents and is even worse off than you are yourself. There will be no more food given out today and you can tell he’s just skin and bones. You want to help him.

2) Action: Try to offer him half of your bread, but be careful not to scare him off. Try to gain his trust first!

Seee? Step 1) is fairly straight up. You just need a little imagination. Could have been a completely different story as well. Step 2) again has no adjectives, no fake emotions. We had agreed that the camera was the small boy. Very instinctively after my direction the model went on her knees, as you would with a kid when you feel that you are intimidating. She is trying to achieve something here. As a result intention and emotion automatically come to her face. Just the way it should be!

There’s more to be said about this topic but I’ll leave it at that for today! If I sparked your interested I can highly recommend some continued reading: Directing Actors by Judith Weston is a fabulous book outlining exactly what I talked about today. It is intended for film directors but the basic principles apply to a photographer just the same. Go get it, it will work wonders on your craft!

In any case, try it out. Can’t hurt, right? In my opinion the photographer owes it to his model and client and to himself to give proper direction. The whole project will benefit from it and everybody involved will be in a better position afterwards!!!

Feel free to start a discussion in the comments, I’d be happy to elabourate on this!

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Posted by nicolas_henri on August 11th, 2008 :: Filed under Artist Technique, Photography, Photogs at work!
Tags :: directing models, directing technique
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