Chicken Shit and The Art of Posing and Using Movement

1/17/2019

The Art of Posing and Using Movement

It's been 10 years since I've started my journey as a model and it has been a crazy ride. There have been so many different phases of my modeling, but there was one moment that COMPLETELY CHANGED MY CAREER!

After modeling for a few years I shot with a model scout, who was fantastic. While shooting, he only had one major criticism: I was posing, not moving. This shook me to my core. It was the best advise I've ever received. Every shot was pose-pose-pose; I was thinking not feeling the moment. I would scour fashion magazines for poses rather than create my own. When I learned how to move, that's when my career took off and changed my life.

By not thinking, just feeling the moment, I was able to create more elegant/graceful images that brought out everyone's work and made me a better model. Feeling the moment and being authentically myself suddenly gave each shoot a personal touch.

Some questions I ask myself when I am on a shoot (to create movement):

How are these clothes supposed to be worn?
What makes these clothes unique that I could show off?
How do I feel about this shoot?
What's the vibe we're going for? (Sassy, bad-ass, classy, commercial)
What brings out the setting/location or everyone's work?
This shoot, in particular, heavily relies on movement. With the large and bold clothes, heavy makeup and elaborate location, there could be so many ways to shoot this look, but to stand out you need use a lot of movement to separate yourself from everything.

Some tips for creating movement:

No one moves like you do. Everyone has a different body and their flow is different. Use that to your advantage. For me, I'm pretty tall with long limbs, this allows me to create more angles with my arms/legs. Use whatever your body naturally has to your advantage.
Practice! Practice! Practice! Work on your movement in the mirror. Try on different clothes you own (with different shapes and patterns) that would create cool movement. From there you can see how to move specific body parts to achieve the look you want.
Don't be afraid to over-exaggerated. Often times over-exaggerated movements during a shoot will look less crazy through the lens.