Directing Your Shoot

Quicklinks

Introduction + Telling the Story + Make the Connection + Relationships + 6 Tips for a Great Shoot + Prompts & Poses + Getting Feedback

Prefer to grab a cup of coffee and read this resource in its original magazine format? Click here or on the cover image for the online magazine link and be sure to open in full-screen for the double-page spread. You can also download it as a single-paged PDF from this link to make it easier to read on your phone. If reading it on a webpage is your jam, keep rolling! (p.s. Many photos below are within a slideshow, so be sure to click on the image first to see captions and then scroll through.)

Introduction

In the past, before vacation photography was a thing and we were making it up as we went along, Flytographer used words like “candid” and “photo-journalistic” to describe the look we were trying to achieve. We have learned over the years that this is confusing language, as these words reference images whereby the subjects don’t necessarily know they are being shot, like celebrities with the paparazzi or passersby in street photography. Although these words were an honest attempt to capture the spirit of our brand style, we now understand that words like “natural,” “authentic,” “story-telling,” “casual,” and “lifestyle” are more accurate. Flytographer is an invited experience, and what’s more, it’s a unique relationship built between you and the travelling customer.

To further avoid confusion around the interpretation of these words, we want to be clear that the experience of the photo shoot shouldn’t be one in which the customer is left up to their own devices to know what to do in front of the lens (unless they specifically tell you otherwise that they want to direct themselves). As in your own business, it is your job to make the customer feel comfortable being photographed (most people are not) and guide them through an assortment of prompts and poses to help bring out their true selves and personalities. By conscientiously directing them throughout the shoot, you allow them to reveal their emotions and connections for your camera. In the end, this is what we all want: photos that make people look and feel like themselves while also highlighting your city’s beautiful backdrops and your customer’s story within it.

Telling the Story

As photographers, we are storytellers. With Flytographer, we have the opportunity to capture people and tell their story when they are in the midst of an already significant part of their lives – their travels. Travelling gives them the time to leave the stress of their everyday lives behind and capture some magic. By choosing you as their photographer, our customers have been given the chance to bottle up some of that magic for themselves through your photos.

Those picture-perfect scenes don’t always just happen (although we love when they do). There will be wardrobe malfunctions, jet-lagged kiddos, crazy weather – but regardless of the situation, customers are trusting us to help create those magical moments and deliver beautiful photos. To get there, it often requires setting people up in fun, authentic, genuine poses by sharing with them a roster of prompts and ideas. Very few people can get in front of a camera and know just what to do, and it’s up to us to help them feel comfortable and natural.

There is no denying that some people are harder to pose than others; there’s always someone who will be grumpy, stubborn, self-conscious, nervous, arrogant, bored … you name it, we know you’ve seen it. No matter what, our job is to manage these people into having a great experience and even better result with their gallery. It requires patience, creativity, enthusiasm, a sense of humour, and huge doses of emotional intelligence and positive communication skills … is a photographer secretly a camp counsellor in disguise?

Make the Connection

With Flytographer, you often don’t have much communication with your customer before the shoot. So what’s the best way to establish a quick connection so you can get everyone feeling comfortable right away?

After you’ve asked them a few questions to get to know them, start by telling them who you are and how you will manage the flow of shoot, that you will be giving them directions and prompts to get them in the mood, and that you always have their back in terms of looking good.

Tip: Unless this is something that you are sure works for you, it’s probably better not to tell them to pretend you’re not there, because it’s truly impossible for them to do that. They invited you into the experience of this photo shoot, and they usually want you to help guide them. Often when you tell people to act like you aren’t there and then back off to make yourself “invisible,” it results in them feeling even more self-conscious; they aren’t sure what to do and are still hyper-aware of your presence with your camera pointed at them, in spite of your best efforts to blend into the background.

As well, let them know you’re going to get up in their personal space a bit so they are ready for that, and that this is your job as the photographer. Coaching them into poses is not, by definition, natural, but you can let them know that by giving them direction and prompts, you are able to capture their story more authentically by tapping into their emotions. (This sounds a bit touchy-feely, but it really is the goal of a successful shoot.) When you establish a true connection with your client by finding out who they are and letting them know what to expect, it gives you more freedom to create as they’ll have a deeper trust in you.

Relationships

You are in a relationship with your customer. It may be as brief as the time on shoot, or it may blossom into a longer-lasting friendship, but the relationship is real. It can be somewhat tricky to insert yourself into the existing relationship the customers have with each other, but always keep in mind that they have invited you in and expect it to be as rewarding as possible given the short time you have together.

Emotions are everything. You want to make your customers feel all the feels every time they look at their gallery, and you do that by getting real emotions to come the surface during the shoot. That might mean asking them to say something funny or sweet, to hold hands or touch each other on the arm or waist, or to look deep in each other’s eyes and remember why they fell in love with that person. The important thing is to take control of the shoot with appropriate prompts so you can trigger all this emotional magic to appear in front of your lens.

What’s another relationship that matters for your Flytographer shoots? It’s the one between your customers and their surroundings. For our shoots, the city should be treated like another person. The customers have chosen you to capture their magic while travelling, and that includes featuring the background. Whether that looks like stately architecture or lush greenery, sparkling oceans or sweeping vistas, your location is exotic and exciting to them and they want to remember how it felt to be there. Their vacation in your city is important enough to them that they are investing time and money to have it captured by you.

6 Tips for a Great Shoot

Tip 1: In your initial text a few days before the shoot, be welcoming! Send a few local recommendations along with a personal sentiment, like how much you are looking forward to meeting them and sharing your love of the city. This gets them excited and creates points of conversation for you during the shoot. If you are in a busy city and it won’t be safe for them to set bags/jackets to the side, it’s also helpful to remind them to have a plan to leave these extra things at their hotel as you won’t be able to carry anything. (Flytographer also tells them this, but multiple reminders never hurt!)

Tip 2: The day before the shoot, send another text to double-check that they know how to get to the shoot location and remind them to be there 10-15 minutes ahead of your start time. This pre-shoot meeting can be a huge asset in creating comfort with you, setting shoot expectations, setting the mood, and asking a few opening questions. This is also a great time to ask about any insecurities (after you’ve built a little rapport). You’ll be able to avoid any potential things they’ll dislike in-camera instead of having to cull out or remove later in editing.

Tip 3: When you meet, talk about your shooting style and how the shoot will flow. Every photographer works differently, and people are always more comfortable when they know what to expect. Many customers haven’t done professional shoots before, and if they have, are often used to a more traditional style (stiff posing, studio lighting, flash and fill). Flytographer has a different style that encompasses natural, authentic moments with prompts and direction from the photographer. Try to avoid stiff, stagnant poses unless the customer specifically requests something formal.

Tip 4: Make the transitions intentional, especially during a short shoot when moving locations takes up precious time. It’s your job to guide customers on how to transition easily from one prompt or pose to another so it feels comfortable and natural for them.

Tip 5: Show rather than tell. If you have a pose or idea, demonstrate it so they can mirror you. If customers are feeling a bit nervous, and especially if there are language barriers, listening to detailed instructions can be tricky, so a visual example will allow them to understand you more quickly. Never worry about looking silly! Laughing at yourself only helps to break the ice, and if you’ve done the pose/action first, the customer feels more comfortable to follow.

Tip 6: Don’t make assumptions about gender roles or your customer’s level of comfort with public intimacy. Always ask if they are comfortable holding hands/hugging/kissing/dancing on the street. Many cultures frown on public displays of affection, and even individuals from countries where this is not an issue may still feel personally uncomfortable with being intimate in a public space. If your customers are fine with a degree of public affection, ask them to show you how they would hug or hold each other normally – you can then see who (if anyone) takes the lead, who wraps arms around their partner while the other snuggles in, etc. These clues will give you some insight into their relationship, allowing you to direct them more mindfully during the shoot.

Above all, have fun! You are acting as a host and customers are with you not only for amazing photos, but because they are interested in your city and your experience living there. Share tips, stories and recommendations – you’ve just increased the pleasure of the whole experience for them tenfold!

Prompts & Poses

We have crowd-sourced favourite prompts and poses from our Flytographer family and compiled them here for you. They are sectioned off by customer type into handy PDF files that you can download and save to your phone for easy access. Be sure to scroll through the slideshows for great photo examples!

Please feel free to add your prompts and poses ideas to our private Team Flytographer Facebook group – start a thread or add to an existing one.

Getting Feedback

We understand that receiving customer feedback is important to you, both because you are genuinely interested in what your customers thought about their experience and because positive feedback on your profile and the ability to share photos equals more business for you. It can be frustrating to not receive feedback when you know you had a great shoot, but we have some Flytographer-tested tips from other photographers to help you increase the chances of receiving it by making only a few simple adjustments to your routine.

2 DAYS BEFORE SHOOT:

The better you connect to a customer and give them an outstanding experience, the higher the chances they will leave you feedback. Remember that a good experience starts before you even meet the customer! This means that you must send them a connecting text 2 days before the shoot to introduce yourself. In it, greet them by name (so important!), offer a city tip, remind them where you are meeting and when, and suggest the most efficient way for them to get there (if relevant). Always end your text by saying how excited you are to meet them.

ON THE DAY:

Start things off right by being 10-15 minutes early to discuss shoot goals. (Never, ever be late, as this makes it 100X harder for you to get the good feelings back on track.)  Make them feel valued by reading the Shoot Scoop ahead of time and noting details they wrote about themselves or their hopes for the shoot. On the shoot, keep up the positive chatter, ask questions, be engaged, find out what they want and what they are comfortable with, and give them clear prompts and directions to bring out their real emotions for the best possible photos. The more fun they are having, the better – it will be the happy feelings they remember more than tiny details of what happened on the shoot.

AT THE END OF THE SHOOT:

Be sure to thank the customers for spending time on their vacation with you and tell them how much fun you had. What’s next?

1. Let them know that you will be choosing the most amazing photos from their session and editing them, and Flytographer will send them their downloadable gallery within 5 days to their inbox. (Never tell them when you send photos to us or give them any other timeline other than this!)

2. Tell them that when they receive their gallery, there will be a link in that same email for their feedback. Explain that you would love to know what they thought and that their feedback helps you improve as a photographer and to let others know what to expect when they book you. Once they’ve had a look at their photos, they just need to click on that link.

3. Follow up with a text soon after you part ways (even within the hour!) with another personal thank you and a tip or two about your favourite place for coffee or where to go for dinner. This is also a chance for you to remind them again about the feedback link coming with their gallery email and have it be in writing for them for easy access. (Tip: make yourself a handy script in your phone notes that you can copy and paste, with edits easy to personalize.)

We want feedback as badly as you do! We also want to share photos and find out what the customer thought. Flytographer follows up three times with a customer after a shoot if we don’t hear from them; after that, we assume they are too busy and/or not interested in writing. In the end, however, sometimes people will simply not leave feedback, no matter what, and that is just a reality we all have to accept.

Also note that neither Flytographer, nor you, the photographer, will publish photos anywhere until the customer has given their official written feedback and expressly told us we can share. We understand that wedding industry standard is to collect sharing permission upon the signing of the contract (which is prior to the shoot), but Flytographer is an innovative online business made up of many photographers that we launched to the world in 2013 (vacation photography is still an unknown concept for many), so to earn people’s trust, it is important that we give our customers the opportunity to first complete this “new” experience and view their gallery before giving permission to share. As well, some people are very protective about their privacy and we completely respect that, and therefore would never preexempt anyone from the joy of a vacation shoot for it.

For more details on our sharing polices, please visit your Flytographer Dashboard and click on “Photo Sharing Policies” in your Resources tab.

RECENT UPDATE: All feedback that is rated 4 or 5 stars now automatically goes on your profile along with a beautiful thumbnail image from the shoot. For feedback rated 3 or lower, Flytographer contacts those customers to see how we can help make it better; we may also contact you for more information or be in touch otherwise to let you know more details from their feedback.

Here’s to each of you for being a valuable member of our global team and building this exciting business together! 

Good luck with all upcoming shoots! We hope you can use the tips in this resource to continue giving our customers the amazing experiences and outstanding galleries our photographers are known for. 

Questions? Please email us at photographer@flytographer.com.