We're Awkward in Front of the Camera
"We're Awkward in Front of the Camera"
In almost every email, phone call, or inquiry, I get some kind of version of this.
“We're really lanky, and we never know what to do with our hands. We aren't the most photogenic people. We don't really know how to pose ourselves; do you help with that?”
So here's the thing I say back, and I actually really, really mean it:
I'm awkward too! I hate having my photo taken! That's a large part of why I'm the one holding the camera. I also take a lot of photos, so I promise there is going to be a lot of good ones.
If you've been putting off booking a photographer because you're dreading the part where someone tells you where to put your chin, this post is for you. Plus, I’ll be using a real-life session I shot as an example.
Why this isn't actually your problem to solve
Feeling awkward in front of a camera isn't a problem. It's a completely normal thing to do when feeling so watched (especially by a stranger) with a random lens pointed at your face while you're asked to look “candid and fun!"
I don't think anyone is bad at being photographed. I think some photographers are just too formal, and formality is sadly super contagious. If I stand you somewhere, change your arms, and tell you to hold still and look at each other? OF COURSE you're going to feel like you're doing something wrong or awkward. You're pretending intimacy on demand for someone you met literally an hour ago. Thats why it is my job to make you comfortable!
"I don’t have a right to tell a man how to hold his wife"
This is the line I keep coming back to, in whatever pronouns fit the couple in front of me. I cannot, and will not, direct your love. You already have a way of kissing each other. A way of staring. A way of holding, and a specific way of leaning into each other that has been created over the years without even really thinking about it. I can't change that, and I shouldn't try to fake it either.
So no! I'm mostly not going to tell you where to put your hands - ohhhhh which brings us to the hands.
About your hands
Your hands are your hands. Use them.
Hold the person you love. Hold their face, their waist, their arm. I know it almost sounds… too easy? But that is seriously what I say. Be in love. Hold them. Love them. Boom, bam, done.
So what actually happens?
Here's the real sequence, because "documentary" scares some couples into thinking I'll just stand there silently and leave you stranded.
We talk before the day, on video. I do a ton of calls with my couples before I ever even show up. You’ll already know who I am, how I talk, and what the vibe is. You're not meeting a stranger on the most emotional day of your life (cause hello? That gives me anxiety too!). You’ll meet someone you already know and have spoken to.
I use small cameras. Not one enormous lens in your face. Half the time people don't register that I'm shooting at all. I promise.
We walk, and talk. That's most of a couple’s session, to be honest. Walking, talking, stopping to talk more. I'm as ADHD as it comes, so there will be a lot, I promise. I make bad jokes, and then I’ll ask you to do a lot of slightly random things. Very rarely will I say “Stand exactly here and do exactly this.” As someone who was raised with the ever-common “Sit still and say cheese!” I promise you, it’s the last thing that I will do to you.
Then you forget. At some point you get so busy yapping to me that the camera stops existing. That's the whole trick. There isn't a more sophisticated version of it, it really is that simple.
Emma & Grant
All of the photos you’ve seen so far have been of my two favorite people: Emma and Grant. And when I say they were nervous… they were really nervous. Giggling, unsure what to do with their hands, and on top of that we were on the Oregon coast (on Cannon Beach mind you!), with people around, which made them self-conscious about being watched.
So we didn't start with photographs. We started with talking. We'd already called multiple times and talked each other’s ears off. Really, they just needed to know me in person. Once we met, I just kept our earlier conversations going. Theres no “If I say this they’ll be more comfortable!” It’s not some secret game or trick… it’s just conversation, the most human thing we have in common.
The photographs from that session became some of my favorites I've ever taken. Not because anything got fixed, but because at some point they stopped worrying about how they looked and how they were being perceived, and just laughed and had a ton of fun. That's it. That's the entire before-and-after.
so now, see what it looks like
the best photo of them all, talking about their life ahead
a little sneaker wave on 120mm film
dipping their toes in at Cannon Beach
In love with how she looks at him
“Wow. Tucker is the best documentary photographer in Oregon” Wow you are so kind!
“You just one a million dollars… GO"
A black and white of emma laughing at a joke
35mm Film of them spinning
Me, Emma, and Grant, at the end
In twenty years, you're going to want to look back at these photographs and see who you were. Not who you were pretending to be.
I'm Tucker, an Oregon-based documentary wedding and elopement photographer shooting film and digital. If you've read this far because you're the awkward one — hi! Me too. Let's make it fun.
