“I Hate Having My Photo Taken” Here’s What to Know Before Your Wedding
Why You Don’t Have to Dread Being Photographed on Your Wedding Day
If you’ve spent your whole life convinced you’re not photogenic, you’re probably approaching your wedding with at least a little bit of dread around the photos. Maybe you’ve never liked how you look in pictures. Maybe you freeze up the second a camera comes out. Maybe you’ve already told your partner “I just hate having my photo taken” and hoped they’d somehow fix it by picking the right photographer.
Here’s something I want to let you know: pretty much every single couple I work with feels like this!
This is a huge reason why I offer engagement sessions before the wedding day. It’s less about getting practice photos and more about us spending time together so that by the time your wedding comes around, I already know how you two move, what makes you laugh, and what you look like when you forget I’m there.
Why photos feel uncomfortable in the first place
Most people who hate having their photo taken don’t actually hate the camera. They hate feeling watched, directed, and put on display. They hate being told to stand somewhere and smile while someone points a lens at their face and the whole moment feels completely artificial.
A lot of that comes from how the session is being run, not from anything wrong with you.
When a photographer is working off a rigid list of poses and prompts, you can feel it. The session has a stop-and-start energy. You get placed, adjusted, repositioned. You’re asked to do something that doesn’t feel natural to your body or your relationship. And instead of feeling like yourself, you feel like a prop.
That’s not a you problem. That’s a process problem.
What actually makes photos feel natural
The sessions that produce photos couples can feel, the ones where you look at them and think “that’s actually us” almost never come from a perfectly executed pose. They come from a photographer who was paying close attention to you as a person and knows that the moments in-between the poses are where the real stuff lives.
Before we ever shoot, I spend real time getting to know my couples. I have them create a date night on the couch and answer a questionnaire on video, which sounds a little strange but is genuinely so helpful to the process. This is why: watching how two people talk to each other, interrupt each other, make each other laugh, and look at each other tells me everything I need to know. I’m not just learning facts about them. I’m learning their dynamic.
And then when we’re actually together, I’m paying attention. How do you hold each other when you’re nervous? What makes you actually laugh versus politely smile? What does it look like when you forget the camera is there for a second? How do your bodies move in unison with each other naturally?
That’s exactly where I find the photos that feel truly representative of you.
You don’t have to perform anything
The goal is never to produce a version of you that looks good on camera. The goal is to document the version of you that already exists; the one your partner fell in love with, the one your friends recognize, the one that’s comfortable and present and not thinking too hard about what to do with your hands.
I’m not a fan of working with models. I know that every couple is completely different. While one couple is outgoing and loud, another is more reserved and intimate. Because of that, I encourage every couple to let go of any expectations because anything you see online does not represent you. You just have to show up as yourself, and it’s my job to pay close enough attention that I actually capture that.
If you’ve always hated having your photo taken, it might just mean you’ve never had a photographer who was paying attention to the right things. That’s what I’m here for.
FAQ
What if I’m really awkward in front of a camera? Most people feel awkward in front of a camera. It’s completely normal! The difference between awkward photos and natural ones usually comes down to how the session is being run. When you’re being guided by someone who’s paying attention to you specifically rather than running through a generic list of poses, that awkwardness tends to dissolve pretty quickly.
Do I need to practice posing before my engagement session? Nope. I actually would rather you didn’t! Practiced poses tend to look…well…practiced. Like a smile that doesn’t reach the eyes. The best thing you can do is just show up and let me observe how you two actually move and interact together.
What if I don’t know what to do with my hands? That’s one of the most common things couples worry about and it almost never matters as much as you think. I’ll give you gentle direction when you need it, but most of the time the goal is to get you doing something like walking, talking, and moving so your hands have somewhere natural to be anyway.
What if I’ve hated every photo ever taken of me? Talk to me about it! Sometimes it’s about lighting, sometimes it’s about angles, sometimes it’s about the dynamic of the session itself. I want to know what specifically has felt off in the past so I can make sure your experience feels different.
How do I find a photographer who will make me feel comfortable? Look for someone who asks questions about you before talking about packages. Look for galleries where the couples look like real people having real emotions, not just people who are very good at being photographed. And pay attention to how the photographer talks about their couples. Are they talking about their own artistic vision, or are they talking about the people in front of them?
