Why Have a Boudoir Photoshoot?

And Who Are You Really Doing It For?

There is a popular theory in boudoir photography that the correct answer is always yes. Apparently, booking photographs for your husband, wife or partner somehow diminishes the experience because you are supposed to be doing this entirely for yourself.  I don’t particularly agree.

I’ve photographed women creating anniversary presents, wedding gifts and private photographs for partners who spend long periods away from home. I’ve also photographed people who haven’t told anybody they were coming and have absolutely no intention of giving the photographs to anyone. Both are perfectly good reasons to be standing in my studio.

If your objective is to give somebody you love an album that causes them to forget what they were saying halfway through a sentence, I consider that a successful use of photography.

The interesting bit is that the reason you book and the reason you eventually value the photographs aren’t necessarily the same. You may arrive thinking you’re creating a present for somebody else and discover afterwards that keeping the photographs for yourself was rather a good idea too.

Milestone birthdays have a strange habit of making people take stock. Thirty, forty, fifty, sixty. We attach enormous significance to numbers ending in zero, despite the fact that at midnight we remain essentially the same person we were at 11:59.

But they do make good excuses.

I’ve photographed people who wanted a record of themselves at a particular point in their lives. Not because they thought they had reached some mythical perfect age, but because this was them now, and they wanted photographs of it.

That is something photography does remarkably well. Ten years from now, you won’t be looking at the photograph wondering whether you should have waited until you lost another three kilograms. You’ll probably be wondering why on earth you thought you needed to.

There is rarely a perfect time to be photographed. There is simply the time when you finally decide to do it.

People sometimes book a boudoir photoshoot after losing weight, reaching a fitness goal or making a significant physical change. I understand why. If you have worked hard for something, wanting photographs that record it seems entirely reasonable.

What interests me more is how often the finish line moves.

“I’ll book when I’ve lost five kilograms” has a nasty habit of becoming another five kilograms when the first five disappear. There is always something else that could be changed if you stare at yourself critically enough.

I’ve written separately about whether you need to lose weight before a boudoir photoshoot, because it deserves a discussion of its own. The short version is that my camera has never asked anybody what they weigh.

A physical achievement can certainly be the reason you book. I just wouldn’t make achieving a supposedly perfect body the admission requirement.

Yes, this happens. Sometimes somebody reaches the end of a relationship and wants to do something that feels completely unlike the previous few months of her life. A holiday might work. Cutting all your hair off is apparently another popular option. Occasionally, she phones me.

I don’t subscribe to the idea that a photoshoot magically repairs whatever happened before it. I’m a photographer, not a therapist, and confusing the two professions would probably end badly for everybody involved. A boudoir photoshoot doesn’t erase what happened, fix a relationship or turn Tuesday morning into the beginning of an inspirational film.

What photography can do is mark a moment. Sometimes that moment is simply deciding to do something because you want to, without needing anybody else’s approval or a particularly profound explanation for it. You get to choose the lingerie, how far you want to take the photographs and, perhaps most importantly, who eventually gets to see them.

I’ve photographed people after relationships ended, but I don’t think of these as breakup photoshoots. They’re simply photographs of someone at a particular point in her life. Six months or six years later, the relationship that prompted the booking may be ancient history, while the photographs are still there.

And unlike cutting all your hair off, photographs don’t take six months to grow back.

It can be a bloody good one.

Photographs are unusually personal gifts because you can’t simply walk into a shop and buy another copy. A boudoir album made specifically for your partner contains you, your relationship and whatever level of sensuality or mischief you decide belongs in it.

Some people keep things relatively subtle. Others have ideas that would make the Christmas catalogue considerably more interesting. Both are fine.

The important part is that the photographs still feel like you. If your partner has known you for fifteen years, there isn’t much point producing an album in which you appear to have been replaced by a professional lingerie model called Svetlana.

I’d rather create photographs that make your partner think “that’s her” than photographs that make them wonder who on earth I’ve photographed.

This may be the least commercially sophisticated advice on my website, but you don’t need to invent a reason.

You don’t need a birthday, anniversary, wedding, divorce, weight loss target or partner waiting at home. Sometimes people see boudoir photographs and think, I’d like photographs like that of me.  That’s enough.

We seem to have become rather good at requiring justification for doing something simply because it might be enjoyable. A nice restaurant apparently needs an anniversary. Expensive shoes require an event. Beautiful lingerie needs an audience.

It doesn’t.  Nor does a boudoir photoshoot.

A surprising number of enquiries begin with some version of, “I’ve always wondered what it would be like.”  I like those.

There is something appealing about doing something you have considered for years and never quite got around to. Particularly something slightly outside your normal world. You don’t need to arrive with a dramatic personal story or a carefully constructed explanation for why now is the moment.

Perhaps you’ve wondered what you would look like photographed properly. Perhaps you’ve never owned a photograph of yourself that felt remotely sensual. Perhaps you simply want to see what I can create.

Curiosity has started far more interesting adventures than certainty ever did.

We may as well acknowledge the elephant in the bedroom.

Boudoir photography is sensual photography. Depending on the person and what she wants to create, it can also move into nude or erotic photography. Pretending sexuality has nothing whatsoever to do with why anybody books would be a rather peculiar position for a boudoir photographer to take.

For some people, being photographed sensually is part of the appeal. They like lingerie. They enjoy their sexuality. They want photographs that are suggestive, provocative or considerably more than suggestive.

There is nothing particularly complicated about that.

Other people want photographs that are softer, quieter and barely provocative at all. That’s equally valid. There isn’t a correct amount of sexy required to qualify for a boudoir photoshoot.

I have written separately about how I define boudoir, nude and erotic photography, because the boundaries are rather more interesting than they first appear.

This is probably closer to reality.

You might book because your anniversary is coming up, because you’ve recently turned fifty, because you’ve lost weight, because you bought the lingerie, because you’re curious and because you would quite like to see your partner’s face when the album appears.

Human beings are inconveniently complicated like that.

I don’t need you to choose the most profound reason and put it on the booking form. What matters to me is understanding what sort of photographs you want, how you want them to feel and where your boundaries are.

The reason belongs to you. My part begins when we start making the photographs.

This is where it becomes interesting.

The photographs may have been intended for somebody else. They may eventually be seen by nobody but you. You may share some and keep others completely private. Years later, their meaning may be entirely different from whatever persuaded you to book the shoot in the first place.

Photography has a peculiar relationship with time. We make a photograph in a fraction of a second, but we don’t necessarily know which photographs will become important until much later.

That is one reason I am wary of telling people what a boudoir photoshoot is supposed to mean.

Perhaps it will mean something significant to you. Perhaps it will simply be one of the most enjoyable and slightly ridiculous Tuesdays you’ve had in years. I’m quite happy with either.

Because you want photographs for your partner. Because you’re turning forty. Because you’re turning sixty. Because something has changed. Because absolutely nothing has changed. Because you’ve been thinking about doing it for five years.

Because you’re curious.

Or simply because you want to.

You don’t need to wrap the decision in a grand story before you make it. Sometimes wanting the photographs is reason enough.

And if you happen to discover another reason somewhere between arriving at my studio and seeing the finished photographs, you can have that one for free.

If you’ve been considering a boudoir photoshoot but haven’t quite decided whether you have a good enough reason, stop worrying about the reason. Tell me what sort of photographs you’ve been thinking about and we can start there.