Setting yourself apart from other photographers and booking clients who are attracted to your unique style is as much about creative exploration as it is about delivering a consistent product. No one sees the world quite like you do. Showcase your perspective with this prompt.
Train yourself to look for what’s different and unexpected
When you’re feeling low on inspiration, this prompt is a quick and easy way to inject quick variety into your shoot. Train your eye to find what’s unexpected in a scene, setting or moment, and you’ll have a valuable tool to boost your creativity whenever you need it.
How to use this photo pose prompt
When time is especially short, this prompt helps quickly spark creativity and add variety in any setting. To use this prompt, take the shot that’s obvious, and then look for what’s not.
Idea 1: Take a different angle
- Lie on the floor and shoot up.
- Get up high and shoot down by either getting higher yourself or lying the couple on the ground.
- Do a 360o spin by circling the couple: this changes the light as well as angle, e.g. backlit silhouette, direct light, rim light, soft light.
- Use furniture opposite to its intention: sit or stand on tables, lie on chairs, jump on beds.
Idea 2: Put things in the way
- Look through things at other things (rings, archways, hands in a heart shape).
- Shoot through things (leaves, grass, flowers, confetti, bubbles, prisms, fractal filters, Lensbaby, stained glass windows).
- Shoot from under things (get under the veil with the couple, get under a blanket with them).
Idea 3: Use creative depth of field
- Focus on hands, rings, shoes.
- Shoot a filmstrip sequence with focus on different objects or people.
- Focus on one, then the other: e.g. on him watching her as she poses for the camera, then swap.
- Stagger people at different distances.
Idea 4: Find a reflection
- Mirrors, windows, glass coffee tables, chromed or shiny things, photo frames.
- Focus on the reflection (not the surface). Beware of dirty surfaces pulling focus!
Creative extension
- Find a small space (e.g. 3m x 3m) and challenge yourself to find how many looks you can get in that single space.
- Switch to a lens that you’d normally consider inappropriate for the subject (e.g. a wide angle lens for portraits) and use the effect to spark something unusual.
Tag me @promptographerguide and use the hashtag #promptographerguide to share your favorite creative prompts.
Want this prompt in your Field Cards set?
All the info in this prompt post is summarized onto a single card in the Promptographer Guide Field Cards, with the details given in the accompanying Guidebook. All the ideas are given on the one card so you have a rich, comprehensive tool for sparking ideas. I’ve designed it this way so you only need five to ten cards to build a whole photoshoot.
If you want this prompt in your set, make sure you include Set 2: Creative Essentials in your Field Cards.
