Couple Photoshoot Ideas

Almost every couple I photograph sends me some version of the same message before the session.

That they're awkward. That they've never done anything like this. That they'll need a lot of telling.

That's a good place to begin, and it's why the couple photoshoot ideas I come back to are prompts rather than poses.

Something to do with your hands, your feet and your voice, so your body gets on with it while your brain is busy elsewhere.

Nearly all of my couples photography in Sydney runs this way, whether you're standing in long grass at the edge of a paddock or on a headland with the wind coming sideways off the water.

What a prompt actually sounds like

A prompt is small, specific and physical.

Walk to the end of the path and tell her what you were laughing about in the car. Put your hand on the back of his neck, the way you do when you're waiting for the kettle. Close your eyes and breathe out.

Every one of those has an answer your body already knows, which is why they work on people who've never liked being photographed.

What I'm actually photographing is the half second afterwards, once you've done the thing and forgotten to arrange your face.

Walking and talking

The simplest prompt I use, and the one I open nearly every session with, is walking.

Away from me, hand in hand, down a track or a quiet back street, talking about anything at all.

I'll hand you a subject if you want one. The day you met, the worst holiday you've had together, what you're going to eat afterwards.

By about the 20th step you stop performing the walk and start actually walking, and that's when I get the small lean in, the laugh that lands a beat late, the way one of you always drifts half a pace ahead.

Then I'll ask you to turn and come back towards me, still talking, so the light is on your faces instead of your backs.

Forehead to forehead

Standing forehead to forehead with your eyes closed is the closest thing I have to a reset button.

It's quiet, it's close, and it gives your face somewhere to be that's away from the camera.

Hands can go wherever they want. A jaw, a waist, the back of a head, both of you holding on at the elbows.

Most couples go completely still for a second, and then one of them smiles, because taking that much closeness seriously is genuinely hard.

I photograph both, the stillness and the smile that breaks it.

Whispering something true

I'll ask one of you to whisper something to the other. The only rule is that it has to be true.

Sometimes it's tender. Sometimes it's cheeky enough to earn a shove, and I get a reaction I could never have directed.

You keep what was said, and I think that's part of why it works. The photograph holds something private that I was never let in on.

If you're stuck, tell them one thing you noticed about them this week.

Dancing badly

Somewhere in the middle, once you've warmed up, comes my favourite of all the couple photoshoot ideas I use. I'll ask you to dance.

There's no music, the dancing is terrible, and that's the entire point.

Laughter loosens shoulders faster than anything I could say to you, and bad dancing gets you laughing at each other rather than at me.

A spin under the arm. A dip that almost works. A slow sway that gives up and turns into a hug.

Some of my favourite frames from the past year came out of 30 seconds of exactly that.

One of you leading the other

Take her hand and lead her somewhere. Up the steps, through the gate, out into the light.

Being led is a small act of trust and it shows on a face straight away.

Then swap, because the way each of you leads is different and I want both versions.

It also answers the question of what to do with the space between you, since you're both moving towards something rather than standing in front of a lens.

Couple photoshoot ideas that suit the place you pick

The location does half the work for you.

Bushland gives you paths to walk and light arriving in pieces. A beach gives you wind, movement and a reason to hold on. A laneway gives you a wall to lean on and somewhere to put your back.

I've written up the best photoshoot locations in Sydney, including the time of day each one is worth turning up for.

Closer to home, working as a Hills District photographer means I know which paddocks hold the last of the light in autumn and which reserves stay quiet on a Saturday morning.

If you're doing this because you've just got engaged, all of the same prompts hold, with a few extras in engagement photoshoot ideas.

How the first 10 minutes usually go

The beginning is the stiffest part of any session and I plan around it.

You walk, you talk about nothing much, and I photograph while you're still settling in, mostly so you get used to the sound of the shutter.

Those first 10 minutes are a warm-up and I treat them as one.

By 15 or 20 minutes in, something shifts. You stop checking in with me. You start touching each other the way you do at home when nobody's watching.

The photograph you end up enlarging is almost always one you couldn't have planned, taken in the seconds after a prompt while neither of you was thinking about me at all. You'll know it the moment you see it, because you'll remember exactly what was said.