Natural formal portraits put you looking sharp, as you relax, without looking like a Victorian photographer clamped your head in a vice or shoved a pole up your arse to make sure you don’t move. That would explain the pained expression that you see on faces in so many portraits. Keeping still as a corpse while your photo is taken isn’t natural. Many people see a camera pointed at them and think ‘Oh shit, I have to pose now!’ even professionals with many years standing, and to be honest, many portraits look like they’ve been standing for years.

Let's be brutally honest: nobody really enjoys the soul-crushing agony of being told to look natural by someone holding a massive black box. It forces everyone into an unnecessary state of panic, where at the end of the session all your limbs have forgotten how to work after all the unnatural poses you’ve had to endure.

I promise you that while being your natural self, you can still look smart, elegant and professional. You should enjoy the experience; feel free to have a giggle and be you. Yeah, I get that the portrait could be for a company profile image or a publicity poster. What would you rather see? A corpse in a wooden overcoat or a lifelike image of how you really are. I know what I prefer; I prefer not to have my photo taken full stop, but that’s me, not you.

relaxed, formal portrait photography

A selection of relaxed, formal portraits without the stiffness