Your First Pole Photoshoot – What to Expect

I recently experienced my first pole photoshoot, and I imagine that you’re reading this because you will be too!

Here are my top tips for your first pole photoshoot:

1. Don’t stress that you’re not good enough – I have only been doing pole for 7 months and I’m only just starting to work my way up to inversion.
   All the other girls on my photoshoot felt light years ahead of me, with most of them being at least 2 years into their journey and much more technically capable than myself. Thing is… the majority of them were doing poses which were simple and clean, with one or two inverted tricks.
2. Leading on to… Keep it simple! Some of the best poses, which even my very very experienced pole teacher even uses still, are just standing or kneeling next to the pole.
3. Be prepared – It is HARD! In a normal pole lesson, you’re probably actually spending 25 minutes on the pole, with frequent rest breaks, especially if you’re sharing a pole. In the photoshoot, it can be 30 minutes of constantly holding positions or spinning. This is gruelling, and hot (especially with the lights!) Positions which are normally simple will become nearly impossible. My very first pose was a simple knee sit, both arms on. Holding this for up to 5 minutes while the photographer positions you and tweaks where you’re looking or your hands can be really tough! By the time I was moving on to one of the hardest positions (the fallen angel) I was exhausted, and it took a lot out of me to hold it.
4. Put your hardest positions at the beginning! Personally, this meant that I had a chance to cool down doing some slightly easier standing/kneeling positions before re-attempting a harder position at the end.
5. GRIP! I would have not been able to get through the photoshoot without my dry hands. Combined with the sweat and strain, all my tricks would have been completely floor based without my trusty liquid chalk!
6. Be organised. My pole teacher told us to be as organised as possible when it came to the shoot. This involved attending prep classes to practice poses as well as hand positioning, listing out all the poses you’d like to try and then creating a picture moodboard to show the photographer how you want the photos to look. I created an A4 sheet which I’ll pop in below, but I also saw other girls with A4 pictures of themselves performing the moves so the photographer can really pin down how you want it to look.
7. Be daring! This is your photoshoot, and these will be your photos. Don’t be stressing about whether your outfit is too much or not enough! It will look killer either way and the only difference will be how happy YOU are with the outcome of the photos!

Things I would change for my next photoshoot:

1. Hair – my hair is specifically frizzy and the sweat and heat did bad things to it! Next time I would definitely top up on hairspray and setting spray!

pole-picture-board

Phil from the Harpenden studio was brilliant as the photographer for our shoot, and I’ll definitely be uploading the photos once I have them back!