Almost everyone I photograph is doing it for the first time, and almost everyone arrives expecting it to be worse than it is. The two fears are the same every time – I won't know what to do with myself and I'll look awkward – and both come from imagining a session as standing still while someone points a camera at you. It is not that. This is what a first session actually involves, in the order it happens, so that nothing on the day is a surprise.
Before the day
We talk
By message or a short call: what the pictures are for, where you spend your time, what you like and do not like about photos of yourself. From that I suggest a route – usually two places in Lisbon that fit you and the light – and a time of day. You do not need to have ideas. "I have no idea, I just need decent photos" is the most common brief and it is a perfectly good one.
Clothes
Two outfits, both things you already own and feel good in. One a little smarter, one everyday; solid colours over small patterns; nothing you have to keep adjusting. Shoes you can walk on cobbles in. If you want an honest opinion on what you are thinking of wearing, send a photo and I will give one.
Hair, skin, sleep
Do not get a haircut the day before; a week before is fine. If you wear makeup, wear what you would wear on a good day, not more. The single most effective preparation is a full night's sleep – it does more for a face than anything you can buy.
On the day
The first twenty minutes are the hardest, and I know that
Nobody is relaxed at the start. I do not expect you to be, and I do not photograph much in that first stretch – we walk, we talk, I show you the first location and where the light is. By the time the camera is really working you will have forgotten to be self-conscious for at least a few seconds at a time, and those seconds are where the pictures come from.
You will not be asked to pose
You will be asked to do things: walk to that corner and back, sit on this step, look over there, tell me about the thing you mentioned earlier. I handle where you stand relative to the light; you handle being a person. If a particular position is needed for a picture, I will say exactly what it is – chin down a little, weight on the back foot – and it will last a few seconds. There is no "now give me sexy". There is no "say cheese".
You can see the pictures as we go
If it helps, I will show you a few frames on the back of the camera early on. Most people relax noticeably once they have seen that it is working. Some prefer not to look until the end; either is fine.
It is mostly walking and talking
A session runs around two hours. Perhaps forty minutes of that is the camera actually up; the rest is moving between places, waiting for a tram to pass, having a coffee. It is far closer to an afternoon out with someone who happens to have a camera than to a photo studio, and that is deliberate.
What you do not need to worry about
Not knowing how to pose. You are not supposed to. That is my side of the work.
Not being photogenic. "Photogenic" mostly means "has been photographed in good light by someone paying attention". You will be.
A bad angle, a double chin, the side you don't like. Tell me, once, at the start. It will be handled without either of us mentioning it again.
The weather. Grey light is good light. Rain we reschedule, and Lisbon rain rarely lasts a whole day.
Bringing someone. A friend is welcome if it helps. They usually end up a few metres away with a coffee, and they are useful for making you laugh at the right moment.
After
You get a finished gallery within a few days – edited for colour and light, not for faces, so the pictures look like you on a good day rather than like someone else. Sized for screens and for print. And a large number of people book a second session a year or two later, which is the best evidence I can offer that the first one was not the ordeal they expected.
If you are ready, the men's and women's portrait sessions are where most first-timers start, and the couples session where two people start together. If you want to know more about how the pictures are made to look unposed, I have written about it in forced smiles versus natural expressions. And if the sticking point is what to wear, that is the easiest problem of all – send me a photo of the wardrobe.