Is Boudoir Photography Really for Someone Like Me?

There is a question women ask me in all sorts of different ways. Sometimes it is, “Do you photograph curvy women?” Sometimes it is, “Am I too old for this?” Or, “I’d love to do a boudoir photoshoot, but I really need to lose some weight first.” Quite often it is simply, “I’ve never done anything like this before and I have absolutely no idea how to pose.”

Underneath all those questions, I think there is often another one: are women like me actually the women in those photographs?

It is an understandable question. When you look through a boudoir photography portfolio, you see the finished photograph. You see beautiful light, carefully considered posing, an expression caught at precisely the right moment and a professionally finished image.

What you don’t see is what happened five minutes earlier.

You don’t see the woman telling me she is nervous. You don’t hear her explaining that she hates her stomach or has no idea what to do with her hands. You don’t see me moving her shoulder slightly, changing the light, asking her to move one leg and then deciding that the hand which looked perfectly innocent three seconds ago has suddenly become the most distracting object in the photograph.

The finished image can make it all look remarkably effortless. It isn’t, and that is rather the point of hiring a photographer.

I have been photographing women for more than sixteen years at my private studio in Johannesburg. I have photographed professional models and well known personalities, but most of the women who stand in front of my camera are ordinary women with jobs, partners, children, grandchildren, responsibilities, insecurities, good days, bad days and everything else that comes with being human.

Some arrive comfortable with their bodies and some most definitely do not. Some want elegant lingerie photographs. Others want something sensual and understated. Some want artistic nude photographs or something considerably more daring.

What they have in common is not an age, weight, dress size or particular level of confidence. They simply decided they wanted to be photographed.

I want to be careful with the phrase boudoir photography for real women, because professional models are obviously real women too. Having photographed plenty of models over the years, I can also assure you that being professionally photogenic does not provide some magical immunity from worrying about your body.

When I use the phrase, I mean something much simpler. You don’t have to arrive looking or behaving like a professional model to create beautiful photographs.

Most women I photograph do not know their best camera angle. They have not spent years learning how a tiny shift of weight changes the line of a body, and they do not have a collection of ready made expressions waiting for me when I pick up the camera.

They are not supposed to. That is part of my job.

A photograph is affected by light, perspective, camera position, clothing, posture, the angle of the shoulders and hips and dozens of tiny decisions which the person being photographed should not have to understand.

This is why I have always found the idea of somebody needing to be “photogenic” before booking a photographer rather odd. If you already understood studio lighting, posing, perspective and exactly how the camera was going to interpret your body, you would be doing quite a significant part of my job for me.

A client once told me that she hated her love handles and asked whether I could edit them out. I said yes. The problem was that I couldn’t find them.

She had one of the flattest stomachs I had ever photographed and almost no visible body fat, yet when she looked at herself she genuinely saw something completely different. That may be an extreme example, but the thinking behind it certainly isn’t unusual.

Over the years I have photographed professional models, well known personalities and women who would never describe themselves as models. Almost everybody has had something they were conscious of. A stomach. Arms. Legs. A scar. Weight. Breasts. Skin. Something they wish were slightly different. We humans are extraordinarily accomplished at finding fault with ourselves.

So if there is something about your body that bothers you, tell me. I actually want to know. Not because I am going to give you a motivational speech and insist that you immediately learn to adore every square centimetre of yourself, but because the information is useful to me as a photographer.

I can change the light, the angle or the pose. I can use shadow, clothing or fabric, or alter the position of an arm. A surprisingly small adjustment can make a very large difference to a photograph.

Retouching gives us further choices. Cellulite can be reduced, temporary marks can disappear, and a scar can be softened or removed if that is what you want. But the objective should still be to create a beautifully finished photograph of you, rather than manufacture somebody who happened to borrow your face.

There is also a larger question here. Who decided what a perfect body was supposed to look like?

For centuries artists have been fascinated by the female form, and the fashionable idea of beauty has certainly not remained fixed. Rubens painted women with abundant curves. Renoir repeatedly painted soft, fuller figures. Later photographers explored the nude body through line, shape, tone, light and shadow rather than asking whether it met whatever body measurements happened to be fashionable that decade.

Then we acquired social media, filters and the peculiar modern hobby of comparing ourselves with carefully selected photographs of strangers. A very narrow version of perfection can now follow us around all day, often presented through photographs which have themselves been posed, lit, selected, filtered and retouched.

After more than sixteen years of photographing women, I am still trying to work out exactly what this mythical perfect woman is supposed to look like.

A woman recently contacted me about a boudoir photoshoot and asked, “Do you photograph curvy women?” The question made me smile, because the answer is simply yes. I photograph women. I have never had a point on a tape measure where I suddenly put the camera down and announce that photography can no longer proceed.

Whether you’re a hundred and plenty kilograms or the sort of person who almost disappears when she turns sideways, I am interested in the person standing in front of my camera. Your age, skin colour, dress size or the number on a scale does not determine whether I can create beautiful photographs of you.

What changes is how I photograph you. Lighting that works beautifully for one body may do very little for another. The same is true of posing, camera height, lens choice, clothing, shadows and the way I position the body within the frame. I don’t have a collection of standard boudoir poses into which every woman is expected to somehow fit herself.

This is also why I dislike phrases such as “celebrate your curves”. They are usually well intentioned, but they still seem to suggest that a curvier woman requires a special category and a motivational slogan before she is allowed in front of a camera. She doesn’t. She requires a photographer who knows how to photograph her.

Perhaps we should ask a different question. Who has the right to decide that somebody is too big, too old, too ordinary or simply not attractive enough to be photographed beautifully? I certainly don’t think that decision belongs to me.

For me, the interesting part begins when you walk into the studio. Then I can stop worrying about whatever number happens to be written on the label inside your clothing, switch on the lights and see what we can create.

There appears to be an unwritten rule somewhere that being sensual has an expiry date, although I haven’t yet discovered who wrote it or why the rest of us are expected to obey it.

I once photographed a woman in her seventies, and what a shoot we had. There was so much laughter and fun, and she had an extraordinary amount of life in her. She wasn’t trying to look twenty five again, and I wasn’t trying to photograph her as though she were. I was photographing the woman she was at that particular point in her life.

We live in a remarkably judgemental society. There always seems to be somebody willing to tell us how people should dress, behave, eat, drink and look. Women seem to receive a particularly generous portion of these instructions, including the suggestion that somewhere along the line they should become sensible and stop wanting to feel sexy.

My question is: why? What exactly is wrong with a woman in her fifties, sixties or seventies wanting sensual photographs of herself?

You can have children, grandchildren, a demanding career, a mortgage and a collection of extremely sensible shoes and still want to step outside everyday life for a few hours and feel sexy.

I generally prefer photographing people aged 21 and older for boudoir because by then people often have a little more idea of who they are and where their lives are heading. Beyond that, I do not have an arbitrary upper age at which my camera apparently stops working.

Photography should adapt to the person being photographed. I wouldn’t necessarily photograph somebody in her seventies exactly as I would somebody in her twenties, just as I wouldn’t photograph every woman in her twenties identically. Age doesn’t necessarily make somebody less interesting to photograph. Quite often it makes them considerably more interesting.

One of the things I hear most often before a shoot is, “I’m so nervous.” I could tell you not to be nervous, of course, but who is going to listen to that?

For many women a boudoir photoshoot is completely outside normal life. You are meeting somebody you don’t yet know particularly well, being photographed in lingerie and perhaps taking off most or all of your clothes. Being nervous isn’t particularly surprising.

I remember one client arriving visibly shaking. She was so stressed that she declined tea, coffee and even water. Her experience included professional hair and makeup, and while my makeup artist worked we chatted about ordinary things. Gradually she began to settle.

Then the makeup was finished and we started preparing for the photographs. All those little signs of stress came marching straight back into the room.

She had chosen artistic nude bodyscapes as part of her session and told me that, as an adult, the only person who had ever seen her naked was her husband. I can only imagine how intimidating that moment must have felt.

There is a practical photographic reason I often prefer to create nude bodyscapes before lingerie. Bras, underwear and tight clothing leave temporary marks on the skin, so doing the nude work first gives me clean skin before various bits of elastic start producing a road map.

I once wondered whether doing the most revealing photographs first was psychologically backwards, so I started asking clients afterwards whether they would have preferred to wait until later. The answer surprised me.

Women repeatedly told me that starting that way actually helped. Once they realised that I was considerably more interested in the light, the position of their body, line, form and whether the photograph was working than I was in the fact that they weren’t wearing clothes, the mystery disappeared.

That particular woman who had arrived physically shaking eventually became comfortable enough to walk naked from one set to another without giving it a second thought. Nothing about her body had changed. I hadn’t changed and the studio hadn’t changed. The unknown had disappeared, and that is often where the nerves go.

This is where I am going to resist repeating an entire page of my website. You do not need to arrive knowing how to pose. I guide you through body position, hands, expression and those small adjustments which can make a photograph work.

If you would like the complete explanation of how the experience works, from planning your shoot through to the finished photographs, I have a separate page devoted to exactly that. What matters here is something slightly different.

During a shoot I will normally show you some of the photographs on the back of the camera. I do that partly because I want you involved in what we are creating, but also because seeing an actual photograph tends to silence some of the fears rather more effectively than me repeatedly telling you everything is going well.

That is when I often hear the same question: “Is that really me?” Yes, it really is.

The camera hasn’t invented another woman. What has changed is how you are being lit, posed and photographed. Once you have seen that for yourself, the rest of the session usually becomes considerably easier.

There is no compulsory boudoir uniform. Lingerie is an obvious choice, but bodysuits, shirts, dresses, jackets, stockings, fabric and other clothing can all photograph beautifully. Sometimes the less revealing photograph is actually the more sensual one because it leaves something to the imagination.

There is also no requirement to be photographed nude. You can create an entire collection without taking everything off. If you want to explore artistic nude photography, we can. If you want something considerably more adventurous, I also photograph erotic work for adults who deliberately want to take the photography in that direction.

The important point is that these are choices, not a ladder you are supposed to climb. You can change your mind in either direction. Something you planned may suddenly feel too revealing on the day, or you may become more comfortable and decide you want to explore something you hadn’t originally considered.

Your boundaries remain yours throughout the shoot. Nothing becomes compulsory simply because it was discussed beforehand, and becoming comfortable during the session does not create an obligation to take things further.

Yes, I am a male boudoir photographer. For some women that makes absolutely no difference. For others, having a female photographer or an all female team is essential. If that is an absolute requirement for you, I respect it. I am simply not the right photographer for you.

I have written an entire article about being a male photographer working in boudoir and intimate photography, so I don’t want to repeat all of that here. What matters more is whether you feel comfortable with the photographer you choose and whether you trust them to create the kind of photographs you want.

I would suggest judging the photographer in front of you by the photographs they make, the way they conduct themselves and what previous clients say about working with them. Those things will tell you considerably more about the experience you are likely to have than the photographer’s gender alone.

I am an artist and a photographer, but I am also a man, and there is little point pretending that perspective plays no role in how I see an image. Every photographer brings something of themselves to their work.

My perspective isn’t automatically better because I am male, nor is somebody else’s automatically better because she is female. What matters is whether you like the work and trust the person creating it.

If you don’t feel comfortable with your photographer, choose somebody else. That is a far more important decision than winning an argument on the internet about who should be allowed to photograph whom.

You decide. Privacy is one of the things women understandably worry about before booking intimate photography, and it is something I take very seriously.

Before your shoot you receive my paperwork, including a model release. If you don’t give me permission to share your photographs, I don’t publish them. If you are unsure, leave that permission blank. You can always decide afterwards that you are happy for particular photographs to be shown.

I once photographed a very well known South African woman for a boudoir maternity session. We created what I still consider some of the best maternity photographs I have ever made. I would have loved to show them, but she wanted them private, so they have never been published.

There is consequently an entire invisible Boudoir Fusion portfolio filled with photographs that people browsing my website will never see. Some of those photographs are among my favourites, but they belong in the private world their owners chose for them. That is exactly how it should be.

Privacy also applies during the shoot itself. I do not overlap clients at my private Johannesburg studio, and when we are actually photographing I am the only member of my team present. If professional hair or makeup is included, my makeup artist prepares you and then leaves before the photography begins.

Most clients come alone, although bringing a trusted partner or friend can be discussed if that would make you more comfortable. The photographs you see online are therefore not every type of woman I photograph. They are simply the photographs I have permission to show, and that distinction matters.

Start with the work. Don’t begin with whether the photographer is the cheapest, and don’t begin with how persuasive the website copy is. Look at the photographs and ask yourself whether you would actually want images like these hanging on your wall or sitting privately in your own collection.

Then look beyond the hero images. Does the photographer consistently understand light and posing? Do the hands look natural? Are the expressions convincing? Can they photograph different body types, ages and styles, or does every image appear to have come from the same mould?

Look at everything surrounding the photographs as well. Privacy matters. Experience matters. Reviews from previous clients matter. Clear pricing matters. Understanding who will be present during your session matters. If something is important to you and the website doesn’t answer it, ask.

You are not simply buying an hour in front of a camera. You are choosing the person responsible for how you are photographed during what can be an extremely personal experience, and that deserves a little more consideration than comparing two prices and choosing the smaller number.

Ultimately, you should like the photographer’s work and feel comfortable with the person creating it. If either of those things is missing, keep looking. There are plenty of photographers in the world, and life is far too short to spend several hours in your underwear with one you don’t trust.

Prices differ because photographers structure their services differently. One price may include professional hair and makeup, finished photographs and substantial editing, while another may be a session fee before photographs and products are added afterwards. That makes comparing only the first number fairly meaningless.

Boudoir Fusion publishes its current Photography Experiences and pricing online so you can see what is included before deciding whether you would like to enquire. That page is the better place for detailed pricing because prices and experiences can change over time.

This article isn’t really about money. It is about whether you have already ruled yourself out before you ever reach the pricing page.

Not every woman wants boudoir photographs, and there is absolutely no reason she should. You do not need a boudoir photoshoot to prove that you are confident, demonstrate that you love your body or complete some imaginary checklist of things women are supposed to do.

Do it because you want the photographs. Perhaps you want elegant lingerie portraits. Perhaps you have always wondered what you would look like photographed properly. Perhaps you want something private for a partner, artistic nude photographs of yourself at this point in your life, or simply an experience bearing absolutely no resemblance to an ordinary Saturday afternoon.

What I would ask you not to do is disqualify yourself before you begin. Don’t decide boudoir belongs to somebody else because you’re forty eight rather than twenty eight, because you’ve put on weight, because you have stretch marks, because your stomach isn’t flat or because the women in the photographs appear far more comfortable in front of the camera than you imagine you would ever be.

Remember what you’re looking at: the finished photograph. You didn’t see what happened before it. You didn’t hear the conversation about her stomach. You didn’t see the nerves or watch me change the light and adjust the pose. You weren’t there when I showed her the back of my camera and she stared at it for a moment before asking, “Is that really me?”

When I talk about boudoir photography for real women, that is what I mean. Women of different ages, shapes and sizes who arrive with all the perfectly ordinary complications that come with being human.

You don’t need to become somebody else before walking into my studio. Perhaps you simply need to stop judging the raw material before I’ve had the chance to switch on the lights.

No. Many of the women I photograph arrive nervous and have never done anything like this before. Confidence is not something you need to bring with you to a boudoir photoshoot.

No. There is no particular weight, body shape or dress size you need to reach before being photographed. Lighting, posing, camera position and styling should adapt to the person in front of the camera, not the other way around.

There is no arbitrary upper age for a boudoir photoshoot. I have photographed women in their seventies, and age changes how I might approach the photography, not whether somebody deserves to be photographed beautifully.

No. Most of the women I photograph are not professional models and do not arrive knowing how to pose. I guide you through body position, hands, expression and the small adjustments that help create the finished photograph.

No. Lingerie photographs beautifully, but shirts, bodysuits, dresses, jackets, stockings, fabric and other clothing can work just as well. Sometimes what you don’t reveal makes a photograph considerably more sensual.

No. Nudity is entirely optional and you can create a complete boudoir collection without taking everything off. Artistic nude or more adventurous photography can be explored if that is something you specifically want.

Yes. Your photographs are only published when you have given me permission to share them. Some of my favourite photographs have never appeared on my website or social media because their owners chose to keep them private.

Most clients come to the studio alone, but bringing a trusted partner or friend can be discussed beforehand if that would make you more comfortable. What matters is that their presence helps you relax rather than making you more self conscious.

Boudoir Fusion is based at my private studio in Randpark Ridge, Johannesburg. I photograph clients from Johannesburg, Randburg, Sandton, Fourways, Roodepoort, Pretoria and across Gauteng.

The cost depends on the experience you choose and what is included. My current Boudoir Fusion Photography Experiences and prices are published online so you can compare the options before deciding what suits you.

You don’t need to know exactly what you want to photograph, what you would wear or whether you would feel completely comfortable in front of the camera. Those are things we can talk about.

If you’ve been considering a boudoir photoshoot in Johannesburg and something in this article sounded rather familiar, you’re welcome to get in touch. Tell me what you’re thinking, what you’re unsure about and what you would like to create, and we can take it from there.