You Don't Need to Know How to Pose — You Need to Know How to Feel
- Prisographs K
- Jun 26
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 5
The number one thing couples say to me before a shoot is some version of this: "We're not very good at posing."
And I understand why. Most people have spent their whole lives on the wrong side of a camera. Posing feels awkward. Holding a position while someone points a lens at you feels nothing like real life. And when you feel self-conscious, it shows — in the set of your jaw, the stiffness of your shoulders, the way your smile stops short of your eyes.
Here's what I've learned after years of photographing couples across London and beyond: the problem is almost never posing. The problem is that people are trying to pose.
The images I'm most proud of — the ones that make my couples gasp when they see their gallery — are almost never the product of a carefully arranged position. They're the product of a real moment: a laugh that surprised us both, a whispered conversation, the way someone looked at their partner when they thought no one was watching.
My job is to create the conditions for those moments. Your job is to show up and be yourselves.
But there are things you can do — before and during your shoot — that make an enormous difference. Here's what I tell every couple.
1. Stop Thinking About How You Look. Start Thinking About How You Feel.
This is the hardest shift to make, and the most important.
When you're in front of a camera, the instinct is to monitor yourself — to wonder how your face looks, whether your posture is right, whether your smile is too wide or not wide enough. That internal monitoring is the enemy of authentic expression. A camera can see the difference between someone who is experiencing something and someone who is performing.
The couples who photograph most beautifully are the ones who forget I'm there. Not because they're performing naturalness — but because something I've said or done has genuinely engaged them with each other.
What this means in practice: When I ask you to walk together, actually walk. When I ask you to whisper something in your partner's ear, actually whisper something — something real, something private, something that makes them laugh. The camera will capture what follows. Trust the process.
2. Touch Each Other the Way You Actually Touch Each Other
Staged physical contact is immediately visible in photographs. Hands placed carefully on shoulders. Arms positioned around waists. Foreheads brought together with the mechanical precision of a still-life arrangement.
What works — what actually photographs beautifully — is contact that comes from genuine comfort and intimacy. The way you hold hands when you're walking somewhere you love. The automatic reach for each other's arm. The way one of you leans into the other without thinking.
Before your shoot, I'll often spend the first few minutes just walking with you, talking, letting you settle into each other's presence. This isn't wasted time — it's the most important time. By the time we begin shooting in earnest, the physical ease between you is real, and it shows.
A practical exercise: In the week before your shoot, notice how you naturally touch each other. The small gestures. The unconscious contact. Bring that awareness with you — not to perform those gestures, but to remember that they exist and that they're yours.
3. Talk to Each Other, Not to Me
One of my most reliable techniques for capturing genuine expression is to give couples something to talk about with each other — and then step back.
I might ask one of you to describe, in detail, the moment you knew this was the person you wanted to marry. Or I might ask you to plan, out loud, exactly what you'll do on your honeymoon. The content of what you say doesn't make it into the photograph. What makes it into the photograph is the expression on your face while you're saying it, and the way your partner looks at you while they listen.
Eye contact between partners — real eye contact, not posed eye contact — is one of the most emotionally powerful elements in a couple portrait. It signals intimacy, trust, and genuine connection. It cannot be faked. But it can be invited.
What helps: Come to your shoot with a few things you'd like to say to your partner that you haven't said yet. A memory you want to revisit. Something you're looking forward to. You don't have to use them — but having them ready means you'll never be at a loss for something genuine to draw on.
4. Let Laughter Happen
Some of the most beautiful portraits I've ever made came immediately after a laugh.
Not during — after. When the laugh has settled into a smile that hasn't quite finished, when the eyes are still bright with it, when the body has relaxed completely. That fraction of a second after genuine laughter is one of the most photographically rich moments that exists — and it happens constantly if you let it.
Don't suppress laughter because you think you should look serious or elegant. Don't cut it short because it feels undignified. Let it run its full course. The images on the other side are worth it.
What I do: I work hard to create moments of genuine levity during shoots — not forced fun, but the kind of ease that comes when two people are comfortable and the atmosphere is light. If something strikes you as funny, go with it. The camera will be there.
5. Move, Don't Freeze
Static poses — held positions, frozen stances — are the hardest thing to photograph authentically, because the human body is not designed to be still while simultaneously expressing emotion. When we freeze, we perform. When we move, we feel.
The most natural images come from movement: walking, turning, arriving somewhere, the transition between one position and the next. Often the best frame from a sequence isn't the "final" position — it's the moment two seconds before, when you were still in motion, still unselfconscious, still fully yourself.
During your shoot, I'll guide you through movement rather than position you in static stances. Trust the direction. Don't stop when you think you've arrived at a "pose" — keep moving until I ask you to pause.
6. Wear Something That Lets You Forget You're Wearing It
This is the tip that surprises most couples, but it matters more than almost anything else.
If you're uncomfortable in what you're wearing — if the dress is too tight, the shoes are painful, the collar is itching — that discomfort will appear in your photographs. Not necessarily obviously, but in the subtle ways that make an image feel slightly off: a restricted posture, a suppressed wince, the distraction that shows in the eyes.
Wear something that makes you feel beautiful and allows you to move freely. Wear shoes you can actually walk in. If your outfit requires you to hold yourself in an unnatural way, it will work against every other piece of advice in this guide.
A practical note: I always recommend a trial run at home. Put on the full outfit — shoes, accessories, everything — and spend an hour in it before the shoot day. Discover any discomfort now, not on the morning.
7. Trust Your Photographer
The final piece of advice is the most important, and it applies to every couple regardless of their experience in front of a camera.
A skilled photographer is not just operating a camera. They are reading the light, watching the background, tracking the emotional temperature of the session, and waiting for the precise moment when everything aligns. They are managing a great deal of complexity so that you don't have to.
Your role is simply to be present — with each other, with the moment, with the experience. The more you can release the urge to manage your own image and trust that the person behind the camera has it handled, the more freely you'll move, the more naturally you'll feel, and the more authentically you'll appear in your photographs.
The couples who enjoy their shoots most are the ones who arrive curious rather than anxious. The ones who treat the session as an experience, not a performance. The images they leave with tend to reflect that — and they're the ones that people look at for decades.
One Final Thought
Before every shoot, I remind my couples of something I believe genuinely: you don't need to be photogenic. You don't need to have experience in front of a camera. You don't need to know how to pose.
You need to show up, be with each other, and trust the process.
The rest — the light, the composition, the timing, the image that makes you catch your breath when you see your gallery — that's my job.
Prisographs is a luxury photography brand based in London, specialising in pre-wedding, portrait, and editorial photography. If you're planning a shoot and would like to discuss locations, styling, and what to expect, I'd love to hear from you.
If you're planning a pre-wedding shoot in London, explore our pre-wedding photography page for packages and locations, or browse the pre-wedding gallery for real sessions with past couples.
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