I had another shoot with one of my favorite clients, Sync Equestrian. We shoot together a lot!
For this photoshoot, the client asked to showcase a variety of horsewomen – as in, not professional models. Instead, these are professional horsewomen, with the exception of Natalia, the CEO of Sync Equestrian. We decided on natural light, as we wanted a soft look, out in the field with the horses.
Posing groups together can be hard. It’s tough to get three people posing naturally at their best, and it feels awkward to set them up and have them hold it while you set up the next person. It’s easy for them to get distracted, too, and then you’ve got to pose them again!
Add in dealing with a herd of nosey horses, and it’s a very tough environment!
That being said, getting great photos of a group isn’t impossible, just challenging. Here’s a few tips for photographing a group in a horse pasture, but they could apply to other environments as well!
Posing
Let’s talk about posing really quickly. And we have to be quick, because people tend to either forget your instructions, or get stiff trying to hold the position.
If you’re not working with professional models, don’t expect perfection in group settings. Give everyone a run down of how mirror posing works (“See how I put my hand? Do that“), and then learn people’s names, so you can tell the correct person.
Set up things very basic, “Andrea and Samantha, lean your backs against each other, Rachel put your hands on your hips,” and then do individual adjustments. Always tell people they are doing great. Getting photographed is really stressful for most people, do your best to put people at ease and make it fun. Whether they are stressed or happy, it will come across in the photo. Think of the subject’s experience as the number 1 priority.
This also means have an idea of what kind of poses you plan to do before the shoot. Look up poses on Pinterest if needed. Create a mood board. Don’t show up unprepared, your client will feel it, and it’ll make them uncomfortable.
Now that I’ve said that, let’s go over my tips for a group photoshoot.
Framing
Framing can add interest to your image. We did this shoot around the horse pasture, so naturally there were lots of horses around. Instead of avoiding them, I just added them right into the image.
The neck of the horse is a graceful arch, making it perfect for putting our subjects under. The additional horse on the left fills in the empty space nicely, too.
This technique has been successfully used by many fashion photographers as well, although usually with single models. I love horses for being horses, but they are also a great architectural structure to have in the foreground, as I love their organic flow.
Look for Enviromental Textures
This photoshoot was in a pasture, but keep an eye out for an interesting textures! I saw potential in this tree that was growing over the fence line – With the sunlight coming through behind it, it made for a fantasy-like setting.
Set People on Different Levels
There’s two ways to interpret this, but it basically comes down to: Don’t put people in a line. People standing in a line are boring. It’s fast to photograph groups this way, which is why it’s so common, but it doesn’t create compelling images.
Instead, think of creating either triangles, or groupings.
Triangles: Look at people’s heads. How can you position people so their heads would be the points of a triangle? Lower someone, or raise someone. Give someone a chair, or lift someone up in the air. You want the eye to circle the image.
Groupings: Section people off. In groups of three people, two people are together, and the third is slightly apart. Two people are doing one thing, and the third is doing something slightly different. As you add more people, it becomes more complicated, but try to section off people so they aren’t just in one big blob together. If you have four people, two together, and two individual. Five people could be two groups of two, and one separate. Play around with it and try out several different groupings.
Get Individual shots
Despite it being a group photoshoot, it’s still an opportunity to break everyone apart and get individual shots. No one is going to regret having a variety of different images. Plus, if you’re selling the photos, each individual shot, or difference in grouping, is another opportunity for a sale.
Individual photos doesn’t just mean one shot of everyone, it also means different pairings. I did a shot of each woman by herself, but I also grouped them together in pairs. If you have multiple people, pair them off. Kids together. Women together. Men together. Couples together. Friends with each other.
Or if this is a commercial shoot, don’t worry about the relationship between individuals, and just mix them around.
The more you test different ideas, the more usable photographs you’re going to have, which makes for a happier client. If nothing else, just keep thinking, let’s try something new. And if that new thing is working, lean into that.
Good luck, and always keep testing and trying things!