BryCox.com – Celebrity Style Imaging, Inc.™

I just finished writing a magazine article for the US magazine, Professional Photographer on fashion posing, and am also writing an article for a Chinese magazine on weddings!

For the US article, they asked me to talk about breaking the rules of posing, and creating images where people don’t look stiff.    That article and magazine will be coming out in a couple months, and gets mailed to all professional photographers automatically.  It will also be on newsstands and I’ll let you all know when my issue is out for anyone else who wants to pick it up.
The biggest thing about a fun style of posing is making people look great, while at the same time making people look comfortable, natural, and real.  Care has to be taken on every detail, but the look is that things happened naturally.

The reason this is a hot topic, is because most photographers don’t understand posing, but want to create fun images.  However, just breaking the rules for the sake of breaking them (while not understanding them) really means awkward images where people don’t look their best, and many times even look heavy.  These photographers then cover the image over with computer effects so that the image looks fun or funky, but yet the person still looks awkward.

Creating sub-par images and masking them with computer effects should never be the result of a professional photographer.  Every portrait session should be about making people look amazing, no excuses!  And it should be done in the camera and not the computer.

This means then, understanding classic posing very well, and being aware of every detail in an image, but also being able to back off and let someone’s personality come into the pose for a spectacular, unique, and creative look.

For this article, I wanted some amazing images to go along with it, and chose some of these fashion images of Liz, because each of the poses from her photo shoot were spectacular, different, sexy, and showed her personality.

I turned in some other images as well, and we’ll all just have to wait and see how the article gets laid out in its final form.

The Chinese magazine asked me to talk about how weddings are photographed here in America.  Weddings are not only different in our two countries, but they are photographed completely differently.  My article for them, will hopefully give insight and ideas to Chinese photographers as well as satisfy curiosity.  I talk about equipment, approach, and reasons things are done as they are here, compared to how they are done there.

This article will be published in the same month as the US article, but will only be available in China.  The entire article will be translated and written in Chinese too, so I won’t even be able to read the copy they send me.  I just hope the concepts translate as I hope.

To see more of my images, browse my website at BryCox.com.

I just finished a job in Hyannis, MA on Cape Cod, and afterward decided to take a bit of time to myself to photograph a nearby lighthouse.  I don’t know what it is exactly that is so attractive about lighthouses, but I love to photograph them.  It is always so serene to be in these places.

I drove to the top of the Cape to a small town called Provincetown.  On the edge of town there’s a jetty.  I hiked across the jetty to photograph this lighthouse that was way out on a little piece of land.

Once on the other side, I hiked around in the brush to get just the right spot, where the sun would only be lighting the side of the lighthouse — creating some depth.  This was one of my favorites.

Then I decided to create some self-portraits because I have realized that when I go to fun and beautiful places that I only get great photographs of my surroundings, but never of me.  At some point in life I’m sure I will want to look back and see photographs of me on one of my adventures.

So I set up my tripod with a radio shutter release and went to get in the photo when I could hear the camera snapping photographs randomly and without my control.  I ran to the camera to stop it and as a result of my camera’s mishap, I got these two images which I really like.

The movement gives them a certain interest and life, which makes them more interesting than me just standing there next to the lighthouse.

After I got the release working I took some more on purpose, but kept the idea of movement in the images.  The running images made me think of Richard Avedon’s self-portraits that he did while in 1950′s Paris with the Eiffel Tower.  I used that inspiration and created this set of images.

It was so quiet and serene out on that little piece of land.  I tend to be more introspective when I’m out of town, and especially when I’m in a beautiful place creating a photograph just for me.

There’s something about just relaxing and getting away from the distractions of life, and just looking at light, and being creative … and just thinking.  It took me about four hours total to cross the jetty, take some photographs, and hike back to land.  A very fulfilling night!

On the walk back, I took this image, looking back towards the lighthouse.

And here is the jetty looking back towards Provincetown.  I wanted to get across before sundown while there was still light to see, and I just made it.

When I got back, I saw a quaint hotel right on the beach and I booked a room.  It didn’t have a restaurant, so I headed into town for dinner, but missed everything.  All the restaurants were closed.  I went to bed on a few candy bars, but felt very fulfilled!

My sister’s wedding album is all designed and is now off being bound right now.  I should get it back to present to her very soon, but in the meantime, here’s some previews.

This is one of the two-page spreads from the album.  I design so that the images go across the middle of the page, which gives me some fantastic use of space.

I love the mood in these images.  Having the temple in the background and the couple silhouetted in the window is just so beautiful!

And this two-page spread is serene and romantic.  Images of each of them alone, lit by the setting sun, then a couple portrait of the two of them in the same place, leaning up against the Salt Lake Temple, and then on the opposite page a distant image of them farther away from the temple as juxtaposition.

I like circles, especially when it has to to with temple weddings, because in ancient Hebrew, the circle is a symbol for light and eternity — which is true in our modern culture as well.  Framing these two on the left page with circles is a fun way to tie in some powerful symbolism into their heirloom album in a really artistic way.

If you’d to preview the entire wedding and design, check out this slideshow! (click here).  It will open in a new window and will begin playing as soon as it loads, which may take a moment depending on your internet connection.

I’m so excited for my sister to get her finished book.  It was a spectacular and emotional wedding, not to mention that its a real honor to be able to photograph someone in my family and to be apart of the wedding in such a unique way — a way that provides them with a beautiful and artistic heirloom for the rest of their lives.

Today is Mother’s Day!  I just got back from speaking in Texas, and have a lot of wonderful photo shoots to post and talk about — some fantastic and glamourous images I created here at my studio before I left, as well as work I did in Texas.

However, in looking them over and trying to decide what to post about today, I decided that I’d rather post a family portrait in honor of Mother’s Day.

This is the latest photograph of my family, and I created it at my sister’s wedding.  I set it all up, stepped in, and fired it with a remote that’s in my other hand.  It shows my folks, my sister, her new husband, and my grandma — it’s a portrait of the three women in my family.

I love that we as a nation, have a special day set apart just to honor the women and mothers in our families.  It’s a great day to show the love and respect that we all have for them.

There are many great lessons that I’ve learned from my mom, more than I could possibly list here.  Because this is a public blog, I don’t want to get too personal, but I’ll just list a few things that have to do with my business.

It’s because of her that I have a love of beauty and of working in my garden and yard (which is on my to-do list tomorrow).  She’s been my champion and my photographic critic, and is one of the reasons I’m an artist today.

Throughout the years, my mom has always encouraged me to do better, she’s helped me raise my level of quality, and has always helped me troubleshoot problems in my business so that I could go further.  She’s helped edit my books and magazine articles and has helped me become better at words and writing.

And it’s because of her and my upbringing that I have a love and respect for women.  Many people have noted over the years that I photograph women in a respectful and attractive way, without objectifying.  I owe this to my mom.  It has always been my goal for complete strangers to be able to look at one of my portraits and feel like they know who the person is inside in some way.  That I think, is a different and higher level of attractiveness.

My folks have taught me integrity, honesty, and a love for others, and I know that it’s because of them that I am who I am today.

So even though I’ve wished my Mom this many times today, I just wanted to say publicly, Happy Mother’s Day!