Assignment Details: Creative Posing

This month, work with a family you know to take their family photos.

Whether you have done a family photo shoot or not, don't worry! The 4 simple steps below will guide you through the assignment with ease. When you’re finished, you’ll be genuinely glad you took the time to complete it.

1. Choose who to photograph

Don't know where to start? Think of someone you know who may not have had their family photos taken before. Perhaps this would be a way you could bless your pastor's family. Maybe there's a family who you know is going through a hard time and would be encouraged by the gift of a photoshoot. Or perhaps a family in your homeschool group would enjoy having some photos taken for Christmas cards.

2. Plan your shoot

Lighting: Try to conduct your photo shoot on a cloudy day or late in the afternoon around golden hour. This will help you to avoid deep shadows on faces. Try to shoot with backlight (your subjects’ backs to the sun), or sidelight (your shoulder to the sun).

Outfits: Encourage families to color-coordinate (not necessarily match) for the added impression of family harmony and unity.

Posing: Need inspiration? Lenspiration members can view hundreds of example images (including captions with tips) on the Pro Posing Database. See the Related Training section below for more details.

3. At the shoot
Photograph at least the following four groupings:

1. Full family
2. Dad & Mom
3. All siblings together
4. Individual children

This assignment is titled "Creative Posing" for a reason! After taking the first grouping, try another creative arrangement of the same grouping using the resources in the Related Training section below for ideas. Then move on to the second grouping, trying different poses with that grouping as well. And so on.

4. After the shoot

Upload the photos to your computer, cull down the best photos from the photoshoot, edit them & deliver! Read "Sharing Photos Privately" from "How to Share Your Photos with the World" Course for ideas on how to deliver photos.

Orientation: Any

Photo Specs: High quality, so they can be printed. To print an 8x10 at 300dpi, the photo would need to be at least 3000px longest edge. So, the larger you can send to them, the better. Tack sharp, proper exposure, edited tastefully.

Assignment Awards:

In order to be eligible to be chosen as a winner, you must be a Lenspiration member. One winner will receive 1 free month of Lenspiration membership, and will be selected based on the following qualifications:

•  Variety of creative poses represented in the submitted photos
• Images are tack sharp, in focus
• Well exposed
• Tastefully edited

Bonus! We would love to add photos from this assignment to Lenspiration's Pro Posing Database. However, we recognize that the photos you submit for this assignment are primarily for the purpose of critique, and you may want to keep them exclusive to your portfolio. Therefore, any photos you submit for this assignment will not be automatically added to the Pro Posing Database. Instead, if you would like to submit your photos to the Pro Posing Database, please reach out to us via the Contact page at the same time you submit your photos for this assignment. If you plan on submitting photos to the Pro Posing Database, please refer to the Pro Posing Guidelines for a thorough review of our modesty & image quality standards. Lenspiration reserves the right to approve or deny any submissions to the Pro Posing Database based on our discretion.

Shoot to Serve Database: For this assignment, your submissions will be automatically added to Lenspiration's Shoot to Serve Photo Database. If you would like to opt out, please reach out to us via the Contact page at the same time you submit your photos for this assignment.