Tips To Calm The Nerves Before Your Photo Shoot

Welcome to part 5 of the Journey to Camera Confidence series: Tips To Calm The nerves before your photo shoot. In this episode I wanted to explore some techniques to help you calm your nerves before a photo shoot. Getting in front of the camera can be a nerve wracking experience, so having some tools to calm the nerves and help you feel more relaxed and confident stepping in front of the camera can make all the difference.

Here are Bobby-Jo’s top tips to calm the nerves before your photo shoot:

Are you absolutely dreading your looming photo shoot? Is camera shyness getting the better of you? Do you need to have your portrait photos taken but the very prospect is creating fear and anxiety?

You are absolutely not alone in this; as the founder of a busy Hypnotherapy Clinic, we work with many people who come for help with a variety of issues, and performance nerves are right up there in being a common problem that people present with. Be it presenting to other people, chairing meetings, delivering a solo performance, or performing in front of the camera for a photo shoot, nerves are a very frequent occurrence, particularly given the perceived pressure to perform and to be successful. Equally, when it comes to having portrait photos taken for our business, for example, we want to look “right” and at our best, as these images will often be included in our websites, social media, and other marketing. The images form part of representing our business or the company so it is completely understandable that as humans, many of us often feel an element of fear of anxiety in front of the camera.

So now that we know that fear, nerves and anxiety before a photo shoot are “normal,” what can you do to help take control of them so that they do not ruin your performance? Here are some top tips to help put you back in control and enable you to “smile for the camera!”

1. Accept that you feel this way and that it is ok

We often try to push away unwanted emotions and when we do so, all we are doing is fighting ourselves, which can merely serve to add fuel to an already stoked fire. So in simply accepting how we feel, we take the heat and power out of the situation, by freeing up our internal resources to help ourselves instead of fighting ourselves.

2. Understand the positive intention

I know it might sound strange, but there is a positive intention behind every behaviour and emotion, even if the experience of the emotion is not positive. The positive intention behind fear and anxiety tends to be protection and safety. By creating anxiety, we are on higher alert for whatever happens and are prepared for every eventuality. Our mind and bodies are preparing us for the performance, so even though it does not feel like it at the time and the outcome of performance nerves is not always a positive experience, the intention is positive. When we can understand that the intention of our feelings and behaviour is positive, we can positively reframe the experience and in turn, take the pressure off ourselves that are responses are not “normal.”

3. Focus on your breathing

Breathe in through the nose for the count of 3 and out of the mouth for the count of 5. This is an effective, quick and easy breathing technique, which helps put you back in control of anxiety and stress very quickly. There are 2 main reasons for this:

1. The out breath through the mouth is longer than the in breath through the nose. Research shows that when we inhale, our heartbeat speeds up slightly. Then while we exhale, the vagus nerve releases a neurotransmitter substance called acetylcholine or ACh which goes directly to the heart, telling it to slow down and thus increasing relaxation.
2. Our breathing is regulated by our subconscious, which is why we don’t have to consciously think about it in order for it to happen. The conscious mind can only take in 7 bits of information plus or minus 2 at any one time. Therefore, if we turn our conscious attention to our breathing, we cannot continue to focus on the stress or anxiety. By focusing the mind on calm and relaxation, the physical and psychological signs and symptoms of fear and anxiety are automatically reduced.

4. Use the power of your subconscious mind: your power states  

You are naturally in the state of hypnosis at least twice a day, during which you have direct communication with your subconscious mind; just after you have woken up and just before you fall asleep, when you are in that drifting, daydreamy state, you are in hypnosis. These “power states” are your most resourceful periods of time when you can talk to yourself and communicate positive messages directly to your subconscious mind. It does not matter whether you consciously believe them, your subconscious mind will accept them as truth and the messages will affect your conscious thinking, feels and behaviour.  Here are some examples:

• “Today’s photo shoot will go well”
• “I am calm, composed and confident about the photo shoot”
• “I’ve got this.”

5. Harness your imagination through your senses

The language of the subconscious is imagination. Focused use of your imagination through using your senses retrains your brain. In whatever way is right for you, imagine yourself at the photo shoot; see how calm, composed and confident your body language is, see how well you build rapport with the photographer and follow direction and experience yourself there in your mind, with everything going smoothly and successfully.

This kind of exercise and use of your imagination really works. The more you imagine something the more it becomes wired in your brain as a reality. Your default setting can become one of calm, composed and confident.

6. Tap it out

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping is a mind-body method of tapping acupuncture points (acupoints) on the hands, face, and body with your fingertips while focusing on an issue or feeling you’re hoping to resolve. This method can be very effective in reducing stress and anxiety, improve performance and help resolve fears.

By focusing on the problem statement and accepting ourselves in spite of it, whilst tapping on the acupoints, it helps to release the negative blockages.

For example, “Even though I am nervous about the photoshoot, I completely and deeply accept myself.”

7. Go to your happy place

It can be all too easy to fixate on the photographer, standing there with a camera. Instead, take yourself to a favourite place in your mind. It could be to your favourite place on holiday, to a beach, you could imagine yourself about to engage in that exciting activity that has been on your bucket list for ages….anything that helps you get to that happy place where you feel calm and excited.

8. Give yourself a “feel good” boost just before the shoot with these simple steps:

• Stand up
• Put your shoulders back
• Stand tall and imagine a piece of string is pulling your spine and head up
• Close your eyes
• Focus on your breathing (see previous tip)
• Imagine standing in front of you is the you who you want to be; the calm, composed and confident you
• Taking your time, see, feel and sense that new you
• When you are ready, step into that version of you and really feel and immerse yourself in all of those good, positive, strong confident feelings
• As you do so, squeeze together a finger and thumb, and experience those feelings and sensations getting stronger and stronger
• When you are ready, open your eyes and bring back with you the new you
• If you ever need a boost of those positive confident feelings, they are there for you, right at your very own fingertips

Now go “smile for the camera” and be your calm, composed and confident self.  You’ve got this!

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