What Do You Call a Photoshoot Like This?

I often have women phone me saying they would like to do a “boder” shoot. Or “boodwar”. Sometimes they get halfway through the word, laugh and tell me they have absolutely no idea how to pronounce it.

I never correct them.

There is a very good reason for that. Until a friend of mine went for a boudoir photoshoot more than 16 years ago, I didn’t know what it was called either. In fact, that was the first time I had ever heard the word boudoir used to describe this style of photography, and I was already a photographer.

It got me thinking. What do you actually search for when you know the kind of photographs you’d like, but don’t know the name for them?

Perhaps you’re looking for a photoshoot for women in Johannesburg, or simply a photoshoot for yourself. You might call it a glamour photoshoot, lingerie photoshoot, sensual photoshoot, sexy photoshoot or intimate photography. Perhaps you’ve seen a photograph of a woman in an oversized white shirt, slightly unbuttoned to reveal beautiful lingerie underneath, and thought, “That’s what I want.”

Or perhaps what you have in mind is considerably more adventurous.

The important thing is that you don’t need to know what the photography is called before you contact me. You may not even know exactly what you want to achieve yet. That’s perfectly normal.

The word boudoir has become something of an umbrella term. Ask ten photographers exactly what boudoir photography is and I’m fairly certain you’ll get ten slightly different answers.

For one woman, a boudoir photoshoot might mean beautiful lingerie, soft lighting and photographs that are elegant and sensual without revealing very much at all. Another might imagine something closer to a glamour photoshoot, with beautiful portraiture, styling and a polished magazine look. Someone looking for a lingerie photoshoot may know exactly what she wants to wear but have no idea whether the photographs would technically be called glamour, boudoir or sensual photography.

Personally, I don’t think the label matters very much.

A white blouse with a few buttons undone and just a glimpse of lingerie can be incredibly sensual. Another woman may want stockings, heels and something more overtly sexy. Someone else might want implied nude photographs where, despite appearing to be naked, almost nothing is actually revealed. At the other end of the scale, someone may contact me specifically because she wants a full erotic photoshoot.

None of them is wrong.

My photography moves through women’s portrait photography, glamour, lingerie, boudoir, sensual and intimate photography, and into artistic nude, fine art nude and erotic photography. Quite often, more than one of those styles appears during the same session.

You don’t have to decide which box you fit into before booking. The important question is much simpler: what would you like me to create for you?

This is normally where I tell people to forget about the terminology altogether and start looking at photographs.

Have a look through my website and galleries. If you see photographs you like, send them to me. Take screenshots. Send me three completely different photographs if you want to. You might like the lighting in one, the lingerie in another and the mood of something completely different.

I’m not going to copy those photographs exactly. They simply help me understand what you are drawn to and give us somewhere to begin.

I also like to free flow during a photoshoot. Once we start working together, I begin to see how you move, which angles suit you, how your body reacts to different poses and how the light works with you. Quite often I’ll see something that neither of us had planned before the session.

That is part of what makes every shoot different. We can start with an idea, but we don’t need to know exactly where we’re going to finish.

You will see Claudia quite a lot throughout my website, including in many of the photographs in this article.

When Claudia first came to me for a photoshoot more than ten years ago, she wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted either. Since then, we have probably done more than 100 shoots together. Along the way she eventually decided to create content creator pages, and our shoots became an opportunity for both of us to experiment with different ideas, lighting, sets and styles of photography.

Claudia became something of a muse for me. Having photographed the same person so many times gave me the freedom to try things that I might otherwise only have had floating around in my head, and some of those experiments eventually became part of the way I photograph other women today.

Now, I’m certainly not suggesting that booking a boudoir photoshoot with me means you are destined to become a content creator.

I cannot, however, guarantee that you won’t become slightly addicted to photoshoots.

Probably.

The majority of women I photograph are nervous before their first photoshoot. Some tell me when they enquire. Some tell me when they arrive. Others are doing a remarkably convincing job of pretending they aren’t.

I don’t see nervousness as unusual at all. You’re walking into a photography studio, possibly wearing considerably less than you normally would in front of someone you’ve only just met, and then I’m going to point a camera at you. Being a little nervous seems like a perfectly reasonable response.

What surprises many people is how quickly that nervousness disappears.

A lot of that starts before you arrive. We will already have spoken about the kind of photographs you like, what you would like to wear and how far you would like the session to go. During the photoshoot I will guide you through the posing, right down to where to put your hands, how to position your body and the small adjustments that make an enormous difference in a photograph.

Within the first few minutes, most people realise that they don’t actually have to know what they’re doing. That’s my job.

There is something else worth mentioning, particularly because you are looking at photographs of Claudia throughout this article.

Most of the women I photograph never appear on my website or social media.

Some are perfectly happy for me to share their photographs. Others might allow me to use a few particular images. Many prefer to keep everything completely private.

All of those choices are absolutely fine with me.

Having a boudoir, lingerie, sensual or even erotic photoshoot does not mean that the photographs suddenly become mine to show the world. You decide whether I may share them.

In fact, this is one of the reasons Claudia appears so frequently throughout my website. Her willingness to let me share our work means I can show you everything from softer, more glamorous photographs through to considerably more adventurous ideas, while respecting the privacy of the many women whose photographs you will never see.

Your photoshoot can be as adventurous as you want it to be and still remain entirely yours.

If you started by searching for boudoir photography in Johannesburg, then at least you already knew the word. You were one step ahead of where I was 16 years ago.

But perhaps you searched for a glamour photoshoot, lingerie photoshoot, sensual photography, intimate photography or simply a photoshoot for women in Johannesburg. You might be looking for something elegant and understated, or you might be searching for artistic nude photography, fine art nude photography or something considerably more erotic.

The interesting thing is that several of those searches could lead to exactly the same photographer.

They are useful words for Google, and they might help you find me, but they don’t have to define what happens once you walk through my studio door.

You don’t need to decide whether your idea fits neatly into boudoir, glamour, lingerie, sensual, nude or erotic photography. You can simply show me what you like and tell me what you have in mind. If you’re not entirely sure yet, that’s fine too.

We can start there.

If you have an idea for photographs you would love to create, that is enough of a starting point.

Send me the photographs you’ve saved. Tell me what you like about them, what you’re curious about, or even what you’re definitely not comfortable with.

We can work out the rest together.