Digital Camera World » boudoir photography

Professional Photographer to the Rescue: natural, beautiful boudoir photography

jmeyer — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 12:57:28 +0000

In our latest Professional Photographer to the Rescue post our pro shows our apprentice how to use simple studio lighting techniques and how to pose models to shoot boudoir photography that looks natural and beautiful.

Meet our professional photographer

Kate Hopewell Smith’s love of photography started when she moved from a career in brand marketing to start a family and got a D80 for Christmas. Her shortcut to professional success was to sign up for the world-renowned bespoke programme with Aspire Photography Training. Now, after two years as a pro she now is back at Aspire – teaching their popular Seductive Boudoir course. See more of her stunning pictures.

Meet our apprentice

After 30 years as a fireman, Clive Hall retires from the brigade this year. He learnt the basics of photography whilst in the Parachute Regiment in the 1970s, but is now keen to turn his hobby into a profession. He has already shot five weddings, but now wants to learn how to shoot for the increasingly-popular genre of boudoir portraiture.

Technique assessment

In order to get great boudoir photography you need to keep communicating with the subject, and concentrate on getting the poses looking perfect. But that means you need to keep your camera set-up simple. As they prepared for their first set-up, Kate gave Clive some advice on the  best settings to use on his DSLR:

Spot metering
With white shoes and dark shadows, you need to shoot boudoir in Manual metering mode. In order to get the right exposure, switch to spot metering – and take a reading from the model’s face as the basis for your exposure.

Kate uses an aperture of f/2 for most shots – occasionally switching to f/4 if she needs to ensure both eyes are in focus. You then set a high enough ISO to get a fast enough shutter speed to work with.

Don’t use focus lock
If you are shooting at f/2 from just a few feet away you have very little depth of field, which is great for getting the soft focus effect on the body and background. But you must get the key part of the image sharp and this is usually the eyes.

If you use the centre AF point with the focus point, the eyes could well be out of focus when you recompose. Instead, shift the AF point manually, picking the point in the frame that is over the eye.

PAGE 1: Meet our professional photographer and apprentice
PAGE 2: Boudoir photography tips for during the shoot
PAGE 3: Final tips from our professional photographer
PAGE 4: Our professional photographer’s recommended gear
PAGE 5: Shot of the Day

Boudoir Photography: how much should you edit your photos?

jmeyer — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 15:00:28 +0000

Boudoir photography is a relatively new genre and for many women who book a shoot, it can be a life-changing experience. If done properly it is a great confidence booster.

With this in mind, one of the biggest challenges photographers face in this genre is knowing how much to edit their photos.

We spoke to boudoir photography pro Kate Hopewell-Smith to get her expert tips on how to process your boudoir photos.

Tip 01
I often get accused of not photographing larger women. But the truth is that by taking care with the poses and with the lighting, I make a size 16 look like a size 12. The only time I need to use the liquify tool is if I’ve made a mistake!

Tip 02
You need to be very critical about the pictures you show to your client, only let them see the great ones, where the subject looks at their best.

Tip 03 I use Photo Mechanic to download and shortlist pictures from a shoot. This software costs £100/$150. I rate the shots, aiming to weed out about 80% of the shots. I move the best 20% to a folder that I  entitle ”Picks”.

Tip 04
I then open these pictures in Photoshop Lightroom. The first key decision is to choose the toning for each of the outfits or set-ups – the colour temperature, the vibrance and so on. My natural choice is always to make the shots warmer and then to desaturate them. You must try and keep a consistent look for a shoot, in  order to create a successful album where the pictures work together.

Tip 05 Boudoir photography needs quite intensive editing in Photoshop. You need to remove marks, you need to brighten the eyes and smooth skin. This is a luxury product – and people expect results that are a million miles from something they could have shot themselves.

Tip 06 For skin-smoothing I use a Photoshop Action from Totally Rad called Pro Retouch. This allows you to paint away lines, wrinkles and pores – and enables you to change opacity to get the exact effect you want, without the skin ending up looking plasticky.

07 For black and white conversions I use the Silver Efex 2 suite of plug-ins from Nik, costing £140/$200.

Boudoir Photos: 10 tips for natural-looking sensual portraits

jmeyer — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 03:00:18 +0000

The key part of taking successful boudoir photos is getting the best poses from your sitters. Here are some easy tricks you can use to get natural-looking sensual portraits.

1 Lingerie choice
Ask your subject to come with a wide range of lingerie. The women who book this type of shoot will own this already, but you need to help pick the items that work. Start the shoot with safer options and build towards more racey garments.

2 Recommended brands
Most women book their boudoir shoot well in advance – typically two months ahead, so they have a chance to buy new lingerie. La Perla, Agent Provocateur, Myla, BeCheeky, Le Rouge, and Fred and Ginger are great places to shop.

3 Unmarked skin 
Ask subjects to wear loose fitting clothes on day of shoot and to use clear deodorant. Tight bras and belts leave marks on the skin! Request that any depilation is done a few days in advance.

4 Buy props
Collect accessories that will help your shoots. Hunting costume jewellery in markets can get you nicer looking stuff than buying it new. But hats, stoles, perfume bottles and so on are also useful. Furs are useful with larger women.

5 Chicken fillets
Carry a pair of cleavage enhancers (or chicken fillets as they are known!). These can cost around £5, and pad out bras so that you get the natural-looking contours even when lying down.

7 High heels
Ask them to bring shoes – “Those high heels that you can’t walk in,” our experts tell us!

8 Insure against ladders
Have lots of stockings as they always ladder, or clients have suspenders but no stockings!

9 Flutter of false eyelashes
Use false eyelashes – semi-permanent ones are best. A make-up artist should have a supply.

10 Bright white sheets
Use white linen on beds – it acts as a reflector and any creases look natural.