One of the most common questions we get from photographers is how to pose couples with height differences, so here are three tips to make posing people with height differences a little easier for you!
1. Incorporate Lots of Sitting Poses
When couples are standing, it’s very easy to see just how much of a height difference there is between them. We always like to pose our couples in a way that feels warm and intimate, and sometimes that can be tricky to accomplish when our groom is a foot or more taller than our bride.
As you can see in this example below, the groom here is 6’4” and the bride is 5′ 3,” So even when she’s wearing high heels, there’s still a significant gap between their faces. In cases like this, we try to incorporate as many sitting poses as we can because once they’re sitting down, you barely even notice their height differences. It’s easy for them to be face-to-face and snuggly this way, and it also allows us to get above them and shoot slightly down at them, which is a flattering angle for anybody in front of the camera.
2. Use the Environment to your Advantage
When we’re placing couples into a pose, we’re always paying special attention to where we are placing their feet. Often, the location will have a slight slope, slant or hill, or maybe even stairs, so we place which person goes on which side strategically.
This can work to your benefit for several different height challenges. If your couple is relatively the exact same height, or the bride is taller than the groom, you can help make the groom look taller by placing him on the elevated part of the hill, and the bride on the lower part.
On the other hand, if your groom is the one who towers over the bride, you can place the bride on the elevated part of the slope, hill or steps, which will give her some extra height and reduce the big gap between them.
3. Have Him Lean Down and Her Reach Up on Her Tip Toes
If there’s a big height gap between your couple, you can minimize the difference in closer shots by having the groom lean slightly down, while the bride stands on her tip toes and reaches her neck slightly up, which will allow them to get face-to-face. The reason we emphasize the world slightly is because if you have either one of them lean or reach too far, it’s going to look awkward, unnatural and unflattering, but with just a slight adjustment to each of them, it can make a big difference as you can see in this example below!
Bonus Tip: Don’t Fixate On Their Height Differences
It’s really important for us to love and serve all of our clients well, even if they are more of a challenge to pose. Their session or wedding should be a really fun experience that builds their confidence. Remember, our couples already know if there’s a height difference between them! We don’t need to point it out, or even let them know what we’re doing while we instruct them into posing that works best for their specific situation. Our job as professionals is to make them look better than they’ve ever looked before while making their experience fun, positive and smooth all at the same time. So if there are some photos in their gallery where the height difference is obvious, that’s okay too! That’s them! Focus on loving and serving them well, and you’ll never go wrong.
