Obese brides...

[jclaveria]

Depends on what type of coverage it is:

For PJ type weddings of course, there is nothing much you can do but tell the bride to be as confident as she can be, and not feel insecure. No matter how much retouching you do on a fat and insecure bride, it will still look bad. However, a bride that feels excited, warm and not exaggerated, am sure that a bit of retouching will make for a good photo.

For weddings where you can do Posed PJ (oxymoron) or have the chance to do creatives, there are some videos you can watch on the internet or even get Doug Gordon DVD on posing oversize brides. Regardless, posed or not posed....retouching, lighting or any other fix will not fix a frowning bride.

Make the eye smile.

[bwpmedia]

practise practise practise
but seriously just advise that additional post processing will reflect on the price. thats all

[tim]

Practice doesn't make fat people thin, and I'm not sure practice can make the photos of them much better either. They should practice not eating so much.

[avangardphoto]

There are many composition techniques that can make subject appear to look smaller, slimmer. You can look it up on the net. One of my favs is to shoot from above and use longer lens to compress.

[canadave]

Originally Posted by tim

Practice doesn't make fat people thin, and I'm not sure practice can make the photos of them much better either. They should practice not eating so much.

Not all fat people are fat because they "eat too much." Yes, some are, but many others have medical conditions, or metabolic issues that effectively preclude them from losing weight. And even the ones who "eat too much" may have mental/physiological/psychosomatic disorders that cause them to do so, which they can do nothing (or at least very little) about.

Just wanted to clear up that all-too-common and ignorant misconception.

[tstevely]

WOW…they hostility presented toward overweight brides here by some is frightening!

To the OP, I realize this is a forum on a photography thread and not a client but just a heads up that using the word “obese” can instantly change a confident bride into a self-concious one – and I do think that a lack of self confidence shows in images. I would recommend not using that word when talking to your fuller brides. I don’t think any overweight bride believes she is a size two and maybe their request is not do-able, I do think there is a way to support an overweight bride in accepting how she looks and make her feel beautiful.

[tstevely]

Sue Bryce is a fantastic photographer and works with women of all sizes. I would recommend checking her blog out as she talks about photographing curves (fuller women). Her posing techniques are amazing and she is very generous on what she shares on her blog! She was also featured on creativeLIVE so if it’s something you’d like to invest some money in, you can purchase a three day workshop (it’s not all geared to fuller women, but there is some significant time spent on it).

I was overweight at my wedding but to some of you here you would have assumed that I had eaten too many cookies. What you wouldn’t have known was that I had actually gone into labor 18 weeks early and lost a baby girl I was so excited about having. Discovered that my premature labor was due to a genetic blood clotting order I didn’t know about because I’m adopted, and taken off the medication that helped keep my thyroid working properly and thus added more weight onto what I had gained in my pregnancy. What’s my point? To those of you bashing it is simply you don’t know why your bride is overweight. I’m not niave and know that there is a large problem with overeating – most overweight people struggle with that BUT there are far more women that struggle with endocrine disease that cause weight gain and make weight loss EXTREMELY difficult, than you obviously are aware of.

[Numenorean]

Originally Posted by canadave

Not all fat people are fat because they "eat too much." Yes, some are, but many others have medical conditions, or metabolic issues that effectively preclude them from losing weight. And even the ones who "eat too much" may have mental/physiological/psychosomatic disorders that cause them to do so, which they can do nothing (or at least very little) about.

Just wanted to clear up that all-too-common and ignorant misconception.

I just don't buy this. I would say that MANY do not have these issues, and only blame all this crap for their lack of willpower and their laziness. Yes, there are SOME that have medical issues, but it is certainly not the majority. The majority is just laziness.

[Littlejon Dsgn]

Originally Posted by Numenorean

I just don't buy this. I would say that MANY do not have these issues, and only blame all this crap for their lack of willpower and their laziness. Yes, there are SOME that have medical issues, but it is certainly not the majority. The majority is just laziness.

RANT ON:
Man your harsh, neither my soon to be wife nor I are in perfect shape we both have some extra padding, not large but not ideal either. Our wedding is in August and we have been working our butts off trying to get back into shape (my gf suffered from a very bad complication during surgery and put on weight during that, doctor put her on bed rest for 5 weeks). However our biggest issue is pure time or lack of it in a day. We live in the country and drive an our each way to our jobs, work 8-10 hours then come home to deal with homework and kids. We are lucky if we can find an extra hour in the day to hit the gym 2-3 nights a week (we do get in a 2-3 hour work out on Saturday and Sunday). We eat healthy and correct portion sizes, but with work stress and lack of time to get to the gym it’s hard to lose weight.

So just because someone is overweight does NOT mean they are lazy. I have a couple buddies at work that are thin as a tooth pick, they eat 4 times as much as me and NEVER do any type of workout. So some people are just built different. Calling all overweight people lazy is just rude and makes you look extremely shallow. RANT OFF

Now I do know there are ways to photograph larger people that help, I also know that larger people know they are overweight and would just like a little help to have their pictures look a little better. I am sure no one thats a size 24 expect you to make them look like a size 4. Maybe she would just like to look like a size 18 or 20.

[René Damkot]

Play nice, people…

[tim]

Originally Posted by canadave

Not all fat people are fat because they "eat too much." Yes, some are, but many others have medical conditions, or metabolic issues that effectively preclude them from losing weight. And even the ones who "eat too much" may have mental/physiological/psychosomatic disorders that cause them to do so, which they can do nothing (or at least very little) about.

Just wanted to clear up that all-too-common and ignorant misconception.

Probably off topic, but I know I eat too much and that's why I'm larger than I should be. It's amazing to see how much you eat once you start to count calories to keep track.

[dkizzle]

The cost of the job should be proportional to the amount of "skinny" work you do.

[harroz]

You're in business, this is TRUTH.

Originally Posted by LBaldwin

You are not charging enough. Period. You actually got your self into this by telling the other bride, she could have it for free or at a greatly reduced rate. If the girls are big tell them that you can retouch the images, in limited numbers but that it increases the cost of each image by X.

Don't leave cash on the table. It is NOT your job to do them favors, it;s your job to to provide great images, for a fee. Some retouching is OK but in your contract (you do use a written contract - right?) limit it to 15 minutes per image. Anything afte that gets extra fees. And be upfront on that and make sure that they initial that box on the contract. They know they are fat. They know that they could bust their butt and try to lose weight prior to the wedding. But we all know that is not likely with the stress of a wedding. So use that to your business advantage. That is the diff between a button pusher, and a professional photographer.

Before anyone decides sling the crapola, I am fat myself.

[bnlearle]

I wrote about this a couple years ago...

http://bobbyearle.com/blog/faq-shoot...photographers/

... may or may not help

[JReichert]

I just had to revive this because as a fellow photog - who was skinny her whole life until meeting her husband, and now struggles with weight issues - I'm alarmed at some of the attitudes here regarding the origins of obesity. It's not black and white (says the black and white gal) and I highly suggest anyone who despises heavier people to read about Drew Manning, the fitness trainer who purposely packed on nearly 70 lbs to understand what his clients go through.