Nervous About a Boudoir Photoshoot?

You’re Not Supposed to Know What You’re Doing

Good. I don’t expect you to.

Knowing where to put your body in relation to my camera, the light and the lens is my job, not yours. I will show you where to stand or sit, what to do with your hands, where to look and how to move. I will also make small adjustments as we photograph because sometimes the difference between an ordinary photograph and a beautiful one is ridiculously small.

The peculiar thing about posing is that something which feels completely unnatural can look wonderful in a photograph. Conversely, something that feels terribly elegant can occasionally look as though you have developed a sudden back problem. You can’t see what I can see through the camera, which is why trying to judge the pose by how it feels isn’t particularly useful.

A hand slightly higher, chin down, shoulder back, turn the hip, move the knee, look towards the window. Now look at me. Those little adjustments are part of what you’re paying me for.

You don’t need to know what the difference is.  I do.

This is probably one of the most useful things to understand before your first boudoir photoshoot. People naturally assume that if they feel awkward in front of the camera, they must look awkward in the photograph. Fortunately, cameras don’t photograph feelings.

There are poses I use that can feel rather strange while you’re doing them. Hold the position for a second, add the right light and choose the right camera angle, and suddenly the photograph looks effortless. Meanwhile you may be lying there thinking, Peter, there is absolutely no chance this looks good.

Then I turn the camera around.

I enjoy that moment. There is usually a brief silence, another look at the screen and some variation of, “Is that really me?”

Yes. It is.

Nothing miraculous happened between you walking through the studio door and me taking that photograph. I simply knew where to put you, where to put the light and where to put the camera.

This is probably one of the most useful things to understand before your first boudoir photoshoot. People naturally assume that if they feel awkward in front of the camera, they must look awkward in the photograph. Fortunately, cameras don’t photograph feelings.

There are poses I use that can feel rather strange while you’re doing them. Hold the position for a second, add the right light and choose the right camera angle, and suddenly the photograph looks effortless. Meanwhile you may be lying there thinking, Peter, there is absolutely no chance this looks good.

Then I turn the camera around.

I enjoy that moment. There is usually a brief silence, another look at the screen and some variation of, “Is that really me?”

Yes. It is.

Nothing miraculous happened between you walking through the studio door and me taking that photograph. I simply knew where to put you, where to put the light and where to put the camera.

There is another misconception that causes considerably more trouble than nerves. People sometimes think they have to perform sexy for a boudoir photoshoot.

You don’t.

In fact, trying too hard to look sexy is often when a photograph begins to look forced. Sensuality can be incredibly quiet. It can be the way somebody looks away from the camera, the position of a hand, a shoulder disappearing into shadow or a tiny change in expression. Sometimes the photograph happens a few seconds after we’ve both been laughing about something completely unrelated.

Of course, not everybody wants subtle. Some people arrive with very definite ideas about how provocative they would like their photographs to be, and that’s perfectly fine too. But it should still feel like you rather than an impersonation of somebody you saw on Instagram.

I’d much rather photograph the person standing in front of me than an idea of who she thinks she is supposed to become for the camera.

Usually, they become less interesting.

There isn’t a dramatic moment when somebody suddenly announces that she is now officially confident. What normally happens is much less theatrical. We start photographing, you see a few images on the back of the camera, you begin to understand what I’m asking you to do, and we discover what works particularly well for you.

The room hasn’t changed. Your body hasn’t changed. I haven’t delivered a motivational speech. You’ve simply stopped worrying quite so much about getting everything wrong.

Twenty minutes earlier you were wondering where on earth to put your hands. Now you’re suggesting the next outfit.

That is the sort of confidence I recognise in the studio. It isn’t necessarily something you bring with you. Quite often it arrives late to the party.

Tell me. There is absolutely no prize for pretending to be relaxed.

If you’re particularly nervous about your boudoir photoshoot, we can start slowly. That might mean beginning in something relatively conservative, spending a little longer talking before I pick up the camera, or simply taking the first few photographs without trying to create the masterpiece that will hang in the Louvre.

Nobody says your first photograph has to be in lingerie. Nobody says your last photograph has to be nude either. What we discussed before the shoot is a starting point, not a contract requiring you to work through a predetermined list of photographs regardless of how you feel on the day.

You are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to become more adventurous. You are equally allowed to decide that something you had considered beforehand isn’t for you after all.

We’re taking photographs. We have time.

I hear this one a lot too.

There is quite a difference between being photographed casually and being photographed deliberately. Your phone doesn’t tell you that turning your shoulder two inches will change the shape of the photograph. It doesn’t move the light because it isn’t doing anything useful for your face, and whoever took the photograph at last year’s birthday party probably wasn’t giving much thought to lens choice, posture or the position of your hands.

Being “photogenic” is given far too much credit. Good photographs are made from a combination of light, angle, expression, timing, posing and knowing when to press the shutter.

If every photograph you’ve ever seen of yourself has made you think you aren’t photogenic, I don’t regard that as particularly useful evidence.

I’d rather take the photographs and decide afterwards.

This may be my favourite thing about photography.

Months or years later, when you look at a finished photograph, none of the nervousness exists inside it. The photograph doesn’t know that you nearly cancelled the appointment. It doesn’t know that the pose felt peculiar or that thirty seconds earlier we were laughing. It certainly doesn’t know how many times you asked me whether something looked okay.

It contains only the fraction of a second when everything came together: the light, the pose, the expression and the person standing in front of my camera.

That’s what remains.

Which is why I am far less interested in whether you feel confident enough to book a boudoir photoshoot than you might imagine. Confidence isn’t an admission requirement.

No. You need to want to do it, even if wanting to do it and being nervous about doing it are currently having a fairly spirited argument in your head.

It helps if you trust me enough to let me direct you, and it certainly helps if you’re willing to laugh occasionally when I ask you to do something that sounds completely ridiculous. Beyond that, you don’t need any previous experience in front of a camera and you don’t need to practise posing in the mirror before you arrive.

You don’t even need to feel particularly brave.

Come as you are. We’ll make the photographs from there.

Just don’t be terribly surprised if you leave with rather more confidence than you arrived with.

That’s completely fine. If there is something in particular making you hesitate, ask me about it. You don’t need to know how to pose, what to do with your hands or how you’re supposed to look before booking your first boudoir photoshoot.