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guest post by Allan Higa – website

I’ve got a love/hate relationship with lifestyle photography. Lifestyle photography for me photos that feel like candid moments where a person is looking at you and not your camera. Each photograph feels like the viewer is with them living in the moment with whomever is in the photograph, and I love that. I love being able to transport someone to Hawaii and experience the lifestyle we’re blessed to have every single day of the year.

But sometimes you shoot with someone for the first time and that chemistry just isn’t there and you don’t click at all. I hate that, a lot.

So over the years I’ve come up with ways to break the ice and get that instant chemistry that leads to photographs that feel genuine and true to the last pixel. Luckily for me Haley didn’t need any of this, but I’ve found that doing these few simple things with each new acquaintance ensures that you’ll break the ice quickly and the two of you will “warm up” a lot quicker, leading you to have way more keepers at the end of the day.

The first thing I preach is don’t pose, don’t act, just do. When you’ve got someone who is shy or more aware of the camera lens than the person behind it, posing makes everything feel rigid and Pinocchio-like. So the best thing you can do is make your subject do something crazy without giving them time to think about it all.

For this photo I had Haley spinning in circles ridiculously fast as she moved up the beach and I followed her. Majority of the photos were completely unusable with crazy hair but it’s a situation that is impossible to not laugh at. After reviewing the images with her and laughing even more, I told her to slow it down a notch and we captured this beautiful moment.

The second thing I like to do to ensure instant awesome photos are captured from the start is giving them something to do with their hands, because karate chop hands ruined everyone’s photos at one time or another. I really wanted Haley to have a few photos where it looked like she was sharing a smoothie with a best friend or a significant other. So in order to capture that moment, I had to take it up a notch again.

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