Last week, we introduced the first of the three Distant Era costumed photography posing workshops at Gen Con. The previous week, I talked a little about the very busy week in Indianapolis running the Distant Era workshops at Gen Con. This week, we’ll share portraits from the second of the Gen Con workshops and discuss expression, an important intangible component of the workshop.
Beyond the Physical
For many of us, it’s difficult to know what to do in front of the camera. We don’t know how to stand or what to do with our hands. But there are ways to learn these things and to make interesting line, shapes, curves, and angles with our bodies and wardrobe. We cover this at the beginning of the workshop. However, that’s only part of the picture. Once we understand how to be in the space physically, what next? Some of us compulsively smile in front of the camera, as we were probably instructed to do as children. How do we interact with the camera, or do we avoid interacting with it completely?
Expression
Expression is that look, that engagement with a subject—on or off camera—and it’s something that must be felt or imagined rather than presented, shown, or demonstrated. Exactly what is felt or imagined isn’t as important as that there’s something going on. Yet, true emotion naturally gives way to true expression. So how do we get there?
The expression part of the workshop teaches a few key aspects of acting. The first of those is the art of leaving oneself alone, which is to resist the impulse to entertain, perform, or impress. The other is action, or rather, imagining that this is a moment in a story rather than a posed photograph, playing through that action in the imagination, and allowing the resultant feelings to subtly shape the body.
Oftentimes in portrait and headshot sessions, photographers get their subjects to leave themselves alone by engaging in conversation. When the subject becomes comfortable in the space and stops thinking about sitting for the camera, they become themselves again and produce natural expressions.
In the workshop, we’re guiding the subjects to find that natural expression themselves. The way we make that happen is through incorporating action into the poses (dramatic action, not necessarily movement). Where is this character for the pose we’re making? What are they thinking? What has just happened, and what are they about to do next? When we focus on doing something, our minds and bodies and (with practice) our emotions engage, and our body language and expressions convey what we feel.
In the Workshop
As we practiced building our poses and creating action in the workshop, it was amazing to see the participants transform as they finessed their poses, both with natural expressions and active, intentional character action. We narrated the subjects through given circumstances for their characters and captured their expressions as they moved through the poses we’d practiced. I’m very proud of the way they embraced these lessons from the workshop and incorporated them into their poses.
The Cosplays
For workshop two, we had five awesome costumes, including Kaylee from Firefly, the android 2B from Nier Automata, the warrior/mercenary named Byleth from the video game Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and Qi Qi from Genshin Impact. Our captain was a character of the subject’s invention. He embroidered all those beautiful designs himself!
The MVP
Once again, Elizabeth helped enormously with the workshop, helping with administration, setting up and taking down equipment, and coaching the participants. She wore her own Mara Jade costume for the light tests, and here it is!
Alternate Expressions
We photograph exponentially more pictures than we display here, but I wanted to show off alternate workshop images featuring various expressions. These ranged from joy to wonder to anger to doubt and beyond. The workshop subjects did so well!
Next week, we’ll return with the third and final workshop from Gen Con 2023. Since we had nearly twice the participants in workshop three, we may divide this into two, depending on how much I can get done in a week. See you next time!
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