The Thanksgiving Season has brought Sterling Photography International the perfect time to thank our friends, family, clients, and benefactors for their support and trust. This year has brought us uncountable blessings, and one of the best is our elegant new website, created by Orlando Website Design.
Please visit our new website pages and find images and words that will inspire you, not only about weddings but about the beautiful relationships that surround us in our lives.
We also send out a very special Thanksgiving Greetings to our bridal couples: “Thank you for letting us do what we do best.”
Our Thanksgiving Gift: A Few Secrets Behind Sterling’s “Tender Touch” Portraits
We are grateful to make a living through sharing your moments of joy and celebration.
So, take a trip down memory lane and join us as we look forward to another great year of gratitude—and gorgeous wedding images like the ones we share in this week’s blog.
Every wedding, Sterling gives couples some time for the bride and groom to make some memories while the ceremony is fresh in their minds and before the party has tired them out. During such portrait-making, couples can share moments that reveal their emotions comfortably in front of the camera.
A Favorite, Playful Pose We Call “Teddy Bear”
The “Teddy Bear, “Warm, cute and cuddly.
As experts at the famous Knot resource for weddings have said, “Unless you’re a movie star or a model, having a photographer following you around is going to be a fairly new experience on your wedding day.”
Thus, to help you avoid feeling awkward, Sterling shares some suggestions, and comments within this blog for those moments when you might, especially as a couple, become camera shy. The Teddy Bear Pose is an intimate moment that celebrates a wedding couple’s thankfulness for each other. During the Teddy Bear Pose, the groom snuggles the bride as she looks softly over her shoulder. This creates a moment that is formal and yet tender. And the stance sets up a basis for many different expressions. Likewise, it is a couple’s pose that looks different when Sterling shoots it from different angles or levels.
Helping You Find Your Own Trend On Traditional Bridal Customs
On the one hand, we do not mean you should copy these portraits. That would be similar to what we call the Pinterest effect, wherein couples want to pose exactly like some folks in a wedding they saw online, including cutesy props.
It is so much better to do your own thing. For more information and inspiration, check out some of the hottest trends in wedding photography at this reliable resource.
In these images as well as the images at that forenamed resource you will see the secret: Let your own magic as a couple flow. Sterling will bring you extra security as he gives you prompts, guides and suggests natural poses that fit your style and body shape.
Introducing the Tender Touch Portraits
The old days of standing stiffly shoulder-to-shoulder, forcing grins at the camera are over. The new styles of photojournalism, reportage, and gentle pose-prompting have replaced those old cliche and frozen portraits.
A Specific Sterling Name for a Trendy Session: “Tender Touch Portraits”
A Teddy Bear Pose with A Fun Twist as the groom might kiss her shoulder.
During the Teddy Bear Pose, the groom snuggles the bride as she looks softly over her shoulder. This creates a moment that is formal and yet tender. And the stance sets up a basis for many different expressions.
Likewise, it is a couple’s pose that looks different when Sterling shoots it from different angles or levels. We named the pose in the first bridal image above left, the “Teddy Bear” because it is a soft snuggle with the bride displayed in front of the groom. In the image below, notice the angle of their shoulders and her gentle hands softly at her waist. You see parts of each face, hers in profile and half of his face, forward. It’s easy to see why we call this stance the “Teddy Bear.”
Yes, We Know the Classic Poses, But We Customize Them
Remember, such “poses” are not for everyone, and not for every body type or emotional style.
But do not worry, Sterling has thousands of ways to help make you look your best. (And you’ll have fun with the poses he designs just for you in your session of Tender Moments!)The hottest trend today is for us to make portraits that are full of emotion. We at Sterling Photography International call our versions of these emotional couple’s shots, Tender Touch Portraits. There are many of them, but today, we bring you variations on one particular pose that is special.
We Never Force A Pose–However, We Play with Poses in Your Comfort Zone
A Special Note: At the core of modern wedding photography education is that “every couple has a unique comfort zone.”
The Teddy Bear pose might not work for every couple, but it’s an example of how a pose can get a Tender Touch Session going. Sometimes a pose like the one above transforms from formal to playful. And that’s a good thing. Note the soft and gentle way the groom clasps the bride’s waist from behind.
In the portrait at the right, we know that shoulder is going to get kissed, and she is holding her breath for it. And oftentimes it is the moment right before the expected kiss that captures the most emotion for the lens. This is true for lips as well as shoulders, as the images demonstrate.
Our Best Advice for Couples: Be Authentic in Your Portraits!
The key to a moment that thrills a photographer is authenticity. As photographers, we are honored when you share your love with each other with those relaxed and tender looks and touches. We want you to forget about how you “should” look on Instagram and Pinterest.
Sterling inspires you to trust each other and just breathe. You are just enjoying each other and the moment. Sometimes teasing, playful embraces and even passionate kisses are the results of the “Tender Moments Portrait Sessions”–and those are good things too.
It’s His Day, Too. A “Tender Moments” Portrait from Sterling, starring the Groom. Their relationship glows with anticipation.
Cheek-to-Cheek: Not often the Best Story-Telling Image
In this image, left, look at her shoulders again. See how she has rotated them to him, making a sort of a “T” bone formation between his shoulders and hers. By the way, he counters with a foot pushed out and a slight dip at his back shoulder, supporting her as she leans back a bit.
This is what we call “relationography” in that the groom is the star of the moment, but we see special details of the bride, like the back of her hairstyle and the ornament in her hair. We would not see those details if they were posed cheek-to-cheek.
And a true professional with 25 years of photographic experience and education, can set these parameters up in seconds, like Sterling. And sometimes he can make memories of mini-stories of action moments because he focuses on the beginning, the middle and the end of an action moment–like a kiss or the bouquet toss. That is because Sterling is above all, a story-teller.
Thank You for the Tenderness, the Warmth, and the Stolen Kisses
We have heard the saying that if you pursue your passion, then you never work a day of your life. Sterling understands this because he loves his work so much it doesn’t seem like work. As you make your memories for a special day, we are honored to capture them for your keepsakes with our cameras, lenses, and talent. And when couples zone in on each other and play in front of the lens, they inspire us to create fine images.
When a kiss is stolen, in a Tender Moments” session, we do not stop it, critique it or adjust it. It just happens.
By the way, in between shots, if you “feel” the urge to do so, Sterling often coaches you to talk, whisper in each other’s ears, or steal a kiss or two. This keeps the images from looking too frozen.
We do not want to photograph just a “pose.” We want to catch your moments of genuine affection and joy.
This defines our term, “Relationography” at its best—a picture of feelings. Our images do not simply reflect people, but their relationship to each other, and the emotion of the moment.
Thanksgiving Inspires Sharing: We Love Fall Weddings!
In the image below, the bride and groom are about to kiss, and Sterling’s camera has caught the moment just before their lips meet. The kiss seems paused or interrupted. Psychology has named this type of moment the Zeigarnik Effect.
This simply means that skilled photographers can capture a moment of interrupted action just before the accomplishment of it. According to science, such strong moments are locked into our brains with more intensity than the moment when the action is completed. “Now known as the Zeigarnik effect, it was found that because interruption during a task that requires focus, “it can, in fact, improve, rather than hinder, a person’s ability to remember it afterward.”
Artists and photographers have been using this effect in their images for generations. In the image below, we can see the groom’s intense and purposeful expression. Likewise, we can see her smile as she anticipates the touch of his lips. A heartbeat later we will not be able to see either expression.
The Zeigarnik Effect — A Trend in Modern Photography
There’s no better place to spend Thanksgiving than in the arms of the person you love.
The most common example is in DaVinci’s famous Creation of Man masterpiece. The index fingers of God and Man are almost–not quite–touching. It’s as if a skilled photographer caught the moment of creation just before it was completed.
The Zeigarnik Effect states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed ones. Bluma Zeigarnik, a Russian psychologist in first noted, studied and named the Zeigarnik effect.
Another example of the Zeigarnik effect is created if a person leaps into the air. We want the photo to reflect the person in the air during the jump. And we find it instinctively more interesting, intense and memorable than the “landing,” after he or she has completed their jump.
A Final Note on Thankfulness 2018
As we stated above, this week we are especially focused on thanking those couples who have entrusted us with their wedding memories throughout our 25 years of photographic work.
In fact, we made a Thanksgiving promise to thank the–almost–forgotten people who have given us a moment of friendship, help or beauty in front of our lens.
Thanksgiving is about heartfelt moments like the ones captured for wedding couples by Sterling.
