How to Look Relaxed (When You Aren’t)
Ninety percent of my clients arrive nervous. One hundred percent leave laughing. Here’s the toolkit.
Camera nerves are universal — I get them having my own photograph taken. The good news: relaxation is mostly mechanics. Two minutes of direction and your body believes what your brain doesn’t yet.
Breathe out through the mouth
A slow exhale drops the shoulders, softens the eyes and unclenches the jaw all at once. I ask for it before nearly every frame, and it has never once failed. Try it now — see? You look better already.
Lean, don’t stand
Standing straight at the camera reads stiff; leaning reads at ease. Lean into your person, against the doorframe, onto one hip. If something in the frame holds a little of your weight, you instantly look like you belong there.
Give your hands a job
Awkwardness lives in empty hands. Hold the bouquet lower than you think, slip a thumb in a pocket, touch a sleeve, fix a collar. Occupied hands stop fidgeting and start telling the story.
The rest is laughter, movement and my endless small talk. By frame twenty you will wonder what you were worried about — and frame two hundred will prove it.