In this post, we look at boudoir photo ideas, tips and tricks. Whether you’re a skilled professional or a beginner, new inspiration should always be a welcome addition.
Exploring mistakes others have made or looking for new lighting or posing ideas that will take your boudoir photography to the next level? Here’s my take on the subject, including some constructive criticism of images I found online. Hopefully you find it useful.
Boudoir photography is much more complex than simply being a good photographer and making a look book of boudoir poses, the nature of the subject means you need your process honed before you look to work with members of the public.
Taking the picture is the easy part, you need to be sure that your client will feel comfortable throughout the entire process. The customer journey and the customer experience needs to be a seamless one, and if you’re to be professionally successful, you need to know that the experience of working with you is so good, that clients are highly likely to recommend you.
With this in mind it’s important to recognise what the aesthetic of your images will be before you start taking pictures. You may want your pictures to be light and airy or dark and moody. Each requires careful planning, and you need to have a vision clear in your minds eye before shooting. I say this because once your client is in the room with you, they need to feel comfortable enough in your presence to be vulnerable, if you’re changing your mind every ten seconds about lighting or props, then it doesn’t instil confidence, and will impede your workflow, preventing them from being totally relaxed.
The vast majority of Boudoir photography ideas I’ve seen over the years have been either incredibly cheesy, or just nudity for the sake of nudity.
Boudoir photography should be artistic, sensual and have a purpose. By that I mean, don’t aimlessly ask the model to put their hands on their face because you’ve seen it somewhere before. Give them a reason to do it, what should they be feeling, how do the hands express that.
Gesture without emotion is entirely hollow and it will show in your work.
What is a boudoir?
A Boudoir is a woman’s private dressing room, the photographic interpretation of it is to photograph the man, woman or couple in a closed and intimate space, typically in varying states of undress.
Does boudoir photography mean nude?
No.
A boudoir can take any shape or form, sessions can be fully clothed and still be intimate, sensual or even sexy. The most important thing is to listen to your client. They will tell you exactly where their comfort level is, typically people grow in confidence as the session progresses, they can then choose if they want to change it up. Consider the above definition, it’s about being in a private space, one where the client feels ultimately comfortable. Whether in a ball gown or in their pants, the clothing doesn’t define the session, the styling, the poses and the mood does. Think of boudoir photography as more of an exploration of sensuality than a focus on the naked body. Yes lots of people choose to be in lingerie, but everyone has a sensual side, so don’t get too focussed on thinking there’s only one way of approaching this niche.
Styles of boudoir photography
Boudoir photography can be broken down into a few key styles:
- High key – think bridal
- Sensual – lots of tugging at clothes, physical
- Pin up/Glamour – highly stylised, potentially vintage themed
- Artistic – suggestive shots that reveal very little. An exploration of shape and form
Let’s look at some examples.
Boudoir poses
Lean back on the bed, arch the back, chest forward, hands on head. This pose is brilliant, it’s submissive and sensual but it’s also empowering as it invites the gaze and owns it rather than shying away and being dominated. This is peak empowering, strong confident and sexy.
Full length body shot with eye contact
Be suggestive – lightly undress with pouting lips.
Boudoir doesn’t have to be ultimately revealing, play with suggestion to keep the viewer on edge.
Suggestive and tasteful – use frames and mirrors to segment parts of the body and draw attention to them.
Get low – on all fours, above the camera with eye contact. Domineering, alluring, empowering, the loose curls and open mouth confer lust, desire and want. Highly sexualised.
Classic portrait – there is something completely vulnerable about this type of pose. The gaze confronts the viewer and says ‘here I am, laid bare’, I think it’s beautiful.
Arch the bag and get the arms in the air. This pose extends the body and elongates it, lifts the chest and creates beautiful shapes.
Leaning – whether it’s a wall, a post or a piece of furniture, leaning against something flattens the arm and creates a straight line to work with.
Reclined body with arm up to create a dynamic shape
Create tension in the clothing. If you’ve styled your shoot to be more on the sexy side, then creating tension in the models clothing with clenched fists can add direction (as we can see here, it creates a downward V) but the clenched fists also are reminiscent of the feelings one might experience…in the throws of passion.
Arched back, head back, kneeling down, profile shot.
The leaning on the bed on all fours shot has been done to death, but this image stood out to me purely because there is a piece of the door frame in the foreground that slightly obscures the model. It not only creates another layer of depth, but it hints at voyeurism which can be very erotically charged. So whilst the post may be obvious, experiment with shooting through a door frame or French doors to create a narrative of a model who wants you to see what she is doing.
A different take on the all fours image above. Boudoir photography isn’t exactly synonymous with movement, but this take on a classic pose creates energy and excitement to further charge the photo.
Lying on a bed at forty five degrees. The light, the subtle depth of field and the geometry of this picture is pure class. Lying at 45 degrees across the mattress gives you a straight line to play with and utilise in your compositions. The very gentle focus fall off perfectly compliments the sultry nature of this picture. The lighting isn’t technically perfect, but I think that’s what gives it a different type of perfection, it feels real. It genuinely feels like you’re looking in on someone’s most intimate and private space. Boudoir photography isn’t about raunchy behaviour, it should be approached with integrity and class.
Boudoir photoshoot ideas
To get the best results out of a model or a client, I believe that they need a reason to be doing the moves or poses that will make good photographs. If you can build an environment around them, and then give them cues and instructions that make sense within that context, their movements and body shape will be much more natural than if you were to simply walk them through it step by step. If you’re trying to create beautiful and sensual pictures, you need that to be communicated in all of their body language, not just their literal shape.
Creating art, mimicking the great master painters. A single windowlight is very flattering and is reminiscent of renaissance paintings. With a simple hand painted backdrop and a few white bedsheets you can create some very simple and elegant portraits.
Change this theme up with modern fabrics and interior design but keep the single windowlight and tasteful nature of emphasising shape and form.
Botanical theme – embrace nature, go all in on big palm leaves, bare wood and wicker furniture to create a unique look.
At home in the bedsheets – don’t overthink your shoot styling. All you need is a single window and a bed and you’re good to go. Better yet make a theme entirely around a lazy day in the sheets…
…these images carry on the idea. Drinking coffee holding a sheet, doing daily tasks in your nightwear All of these things can create incredibly alluring images.
In the shower. Where better to be hot and steamy than where it’s already hot and steamy.
What not to do – tips to improve your boudoir photography
Aimless/pointless hand positions
This type of images looks totally unnatural to me and demonstrates the problem with using fashion photographs of professional models as inspiration for your own shoots.
If you simply tell a model or a client to put their hands on their face, they will do something like the above image.
Why? Because they’ve seen it done in beauty or fashion photographs and they assume it looks good.
It doesn’t, it looks weird.
Give your model or client a reason to have their hands on their face.
Give them a scenario to act out, otherwise the result will look unnatural and you wont make as many sales.
Don’t believe me? Take a few moments to examine the image above. Why would you ever have your hands in that position?
It looks like she’s trying to break her own neck.
It’s not just amateurs that do this, look at this picture by a professional fashion photographer.
WHY ARE YOUR HANDS THERE?
It makes no sense, and looks crap. Don’t do it.
Ignoring depth of field
When shooting boudoir, the temptation is to default to the widest aperture setting your camera can handle, this is typically f1.4, 1.8 or 2. Whilst this can make for very flattering portraits, focus the viewers attention and separate your subject from the background, if used without consideration for the background or the limbs of the subject, then the objects in the background are rendered out of focus and become a distraction rather than an aid to your composition. In the above image, without the other leg being visible in the frame, the positioning of the visible leg appears unnatural and has no context. Secondly, the leg is the same level of brightness as the left hand arm, so it appears to be on the same plane and distracts the eye. The focus is on the subjects eyes, but the viewers are is lured to the top of the picture where it becomes stuck, there is no flow to the image. In a boudoir shot, you want the viewers eye to be able to wonder over the body of the subject, to be lured in by it’s sensuality and be able to gaze at it and move over it without pause or interruption.
Consider this image by comparison
The eye can freely move up and down the body of the subject, however the focus on the face always lures us back to it. It becomes almost magnetic, her eye contact demands your attention, there is nothing in the frame that is jarring.
Cropping off the body and ignoring image flow
When you position your subject like this and their body angles away from the camera, it creates a directional flow to the image. The problem occurs when you then interrupt this flow by cropping at an unnatural point.
The subjects body creates a natural leading line and it takes the viewers eyes from the lower part of the frame to the upper part, however, because of the crop, the image stops and the eye has nothing leading it back into the frame. Once again, consider the below image for comparison
The same can be said of the above images, the line from the shoulders to the toe takes the viewers eye into the image, but most importantly, because the entire length of the body is visible, the eye establishes a finishing point. The use of depth of field coupled with the strong geometric shaping of the arms and pointed finger, pulls the eye back to the subjects face. It’s really well done.
Ignoring the background
Always remember that your eye is drawn to the brightest part of an image, having a beautiful shot lined up is pointless if you’re ignoring what’s happening in the background. This patio chair is so distracting the entire sultry nature of the shot is lost. Take care constructing the scene in it’s entirety, so you can shoot from multiple directions knowing that the space is clean and tidy. Whilst typing I’ve also just spotted what looks like a tennis ball…wtf is that?
Avoid patterned backgrounds and flooring
In the event that you need to lean on Photoshop to correct a mistake you’ve made in camera, it becomes a LOT harder to do, not to mention time consuming, when the background etc is patterned. Look at the image on the right and what happens to the pattern when you use the liquify tool.
I hope you found this article on boudoir tips and tricks helpful. If you have any more to add leave them in the comments for others to learn from.