This is actually a candid image from the couple’s First Look. I always position the groom facing away from me for my First Looks. On occasion, I am the sole shooter, but in this case I had a second shooter positioned opposite of myself and facing the groom. I position myself to the back of the groom so that when the bride walks up and turns him around, I can catch the expression on his face. The job of my second is to catch the anticipation on his face as his bride approaches and the expression on the bride’s face when she turns him around. In this situation, the groom turned and immediately embraced his bride resulting in this capture. This is why First Looks are my favorite and I recommend them to all of my brides and grooms who may be on the fence about them.
The hotel adjacent to the venue is part of a historical train station located in downtown Indianapolis. The old train cars are located inside the hotel and have actually been turned into guest rooms. The bride and groom requested a shot with the train cars before we headed outside to start shooting all of the formal portraits around downtown Indianapolis. For this pose, I had the bride step up so that I could position the train of her wedding dress down the steps without reaching to the ground. I had her grab hold of the rail with elbow bent (more to keep her sturdy than anything) and had her position her other arm straight down at her side extending her arm through her bouquet. I had the groom stand opposite of the bride but a few steps lower to break up the symmetry of the 2 trains. Again, I had him grab hold of the rail as I did the bride, but with more bend of the arm. I had him position his other arm down at his side with hand in pocket, thumb out. I had them both look straight at me with no smile.
This is one of my go-to poses with my groomsman. It’s easy, quick, and something I can do with few verbal commands and they understand what I want from them. I ask them to position themselves in a V formation behind the groom and looking over the outside shoulder of the person directly in front of them. I’m big on, ‘Hands in pockets, thumbs out’. I like the way it looks as opposed to hands folded in front or behind them. It’s purely personal preference. For this, once in their V formation, I had them do hands in pockets, thumbs out, look over the shoulder of the person in front of them, and no smile. I typically do one no smile and one smile for this pose. Occasionally I will also do a full body shot of this pose as well as a tighter, chest up shot.
This is a variation on another go-to pose I always do with my bridesmaids. With being downtown, I have so much to work with including these steps. I typically have my bridesmaids keep their bouquets for a large majority of their formal photos, but in this case, it was INCREDIBLY hot that afternoon and we were afraid of the bouquets wilting before the ceremony, so we left them at the venue and went out to shoot sans bouquets. I absolutely cannot STAND what I call ‘Dead Hands’ when posing. These are hands just hanging at the subjects sides. I always try and keep the hands busy or doing something if at all possible to avoid this. It’s easy when everyone has a bouquet to hold onto to break up the dead hands, but we didn’t have that in this situation, so the next best thing was to go to hands on hips. This pose is typically done where the bride and her bridesmaids are all standing together on a level plane, slightly angled into the bride, with inside arms holding bouquets with a relaxed bend in the arm. Because we had the steps to work with, I brought the bride down one step to make her the focus, and had her bridesmaids stand a step up from her with inside hands on hips and angled in towards the bride. I originally had the bride slightly angle the position of her body with both hands on hips but preferred the look of one hand on hip and her other hand down at her side (sometimes you just have to suck it up and go with a dead hand). I had the bride turn her head slightly into the shoulder with hand on hip and everyone smiled.
This is a pose I just recently started doing and I love. I’m very big on hands being, not necessarily the focus of the pose, but helping to show the emotion in a pose. I love the look of the interlocking fingers as almost a sign of, ‘I won’t let go’. I have the bride and groom interlock their inside hands as if they are getting ready to slow dance with their outside arms casually embracing the other around the waist. If the bride is short enough, I have her place her head on the groom’s chest and turn her face to me with the groom resting his chin on the top of her head and gazing in front of him. This is a super easy and quick romantic pose that you can also move head positions and get a few different poses from.
I loooooooove color and try to ease it into my images however I can. This is one of my favorite spots in downtown Indy adjacent to a handful of awesome sub-locations that are all within walking distance. This image is actually a tighter crop and perspective on a very simple pose. I simply have the bride and groom face each other, embrace one another around their waists with the groom interlocking his fingers, and position their heads forehead to forehead. I then move around the bride and groom capturing different perspectives of this pose, this one typically being my favorite (back to my affinity for hands in poses). I especially love this one because the emotion and drama of the hands around the waists is balanced out by the fun and bold colors on the walls surrounding them.
This is most definitely my favorite image from the day and probably one of my favorite bridal images of all time. This stairway was just begging for a wide angle bridal portrait. I simply had the bride go about a quarter of the way up the stairs and positioned her dress train to fall down the steps behind her. I had her put both of her hands on her hips and turn her head so that I could see her profile. I’m standing at the bottom of the staircase and actually very close to her in this image but shot it with my 14-24 2.8 at 20mm wide open (f/2.8) making it appear that she is far away from me thus making the image more dramatic.
This is another very simple and casual pose that I like to do. At this point, we were running out of time so we started out in this pose and ended in the next (NSP_09). I simply had them face each other but angle the outside of their bodies away from each other. I then had them interlock fingers on their inside hands and look at each other.
From Image NSP_08 we went directly into NSP_09. I had them drop hands and face each other straight on. I then have the groom lightly place his hands (I direct him to place just the tips of his fingers so it looks soft and not ‘grabby) on her neck and around her ear and pull her face towards his. I then have the bride grasp his upper arm so that it appears that they are pulling into each other. I then have the groom kiss the bride’s forehead and direct them to close their eyes (always eyes closed when kissing so that it’s more personal).
My name is Nicole Speer and I’m a born and raised Indiana native. I am a mother and wife first, business owner and photographer second. I am the proud owner and photographer for Nicole Speer Photography where I love shooting a little bit of everything, but specialize and take pride in my wedding couples, adorable families, and fun HS senior sessions. I am based out of the Indianapolis area and enjoy providing a different take on your typical portrait session! My style is fun, organic, candid, and emotional. I love effortlessly capturing my clients being themselves. Whether it’s silly, intimate, or loving – I want your session to tell a story about your life at this moment to share with generations from now.
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