How to take nicer group photos

Not sure if it is due to the 2 years of Covid lockdowns and lack of physical human interactions, or being exposed to extra oxygen from all the plants I somehow kept alive in the house, or perhaps knowing the unknown can happen at anytime, 2022 somehow triggered the courage to try new things out of my comfort zone!

In this post, I'll be sharing what may be seemingly natural and mundane habit to a Gen Z, but seen as a skill that needs to be practised and perfected by me, a millennial - taking and posing for pictures or videos. For me, photography was seen as capturing objects or moments either very formally or very candidly, anything in between is just awkward photos or something to be left to professional models and photographers. Perhaps it is because we don't get a lot of opportunities to take or pose for pictures when we were young, as camera phones only became a more affordable and must-have object in the recent decade.

I only learned recently that pictures can also be a mean of expressing yourself. So here is me with peeps who are crazy enough to play along with this anyone-can-model photo-ops journey, and keep reading to see our shots prior to this upgrade.

It all started with this first picture we took after a fancy dinner get-together, all dressed up. Then looking at it and thinking "We look good in this pic!", "This looks like a TV series poster!".

Now, it has turned into a full-blown day-dreaming, model-wannabe activity for our meet-ups. We call ourselves the Nutflix cast. LOL. It was at first just for birthdays, now we are making occasions up just to dress up and pose again!

"Perhaps we can Vanity-Fair-Cover ourselves".

Once we got going, it just seems to be a fun additional task to keep pushing our creativity and coordination of our outfits for our gatherings, and making posing more intentional when we do take pictures. Surprising even for ourselves, this photo-ops journey had us producing a potential series trailer!

We may still be coming out of our shells, and we still definitely have much more to learn in terms of expressing and communicating through our body in pictures, but being able to look back at our snaps and smirk at the process of capturing it is a memory worth being brave for! For that, I would psych myself into dressing up to the nines for and with this bunch.

For comparison, this is us and our poses before we "went crazy for fame and sponsorships". LOL

Some reflections after trying this for a few occasions:

1. Colour palette is one of the key to get harmonious and pleasant looking pictures.
2. There's plenty of professional posers we can learn from on various social media these days. Copy or innovate!
3. Invest in a collapsible, portable phone tripod with remote clicker (it's very affordable anyway), this will be among your top tools in your photo journey.
4. Make up stories in your head if that helps you get into your alter egos or why you even signed up to be in this cray-cray groupie. Then drag queen the sh*t out of the pic, cos you won't regret it.
5. If people do stare, they're just jealous they are not child-like and playful like us. Point 4 proven! Life's too short to not be enjoyed~

p/s: Also just reflected back and realised, these coordinated clothings and outrageous posing was what I've been doing with my sisters all along!