And what you can do to make them succeed.
If you are thinking about having me do a private shoot for you, and/or your partner, you should read this blog post. I get a lot of inquiries from people who are thinking about having a private erotic photoshoot. I've traded messages with so many potential clients that I can see the patterns that indicate if a shoot will happen or not.
Most shoots that actually take place are easy to arrange. The person who contacts me knows what they want and they allow me to advise them on the best way to make it happen. If they have special desires, they make that known early on.
Unfortunately, a majority of those who contact me are not really ready to do an intimate, private shoot. There are a few different reasons for that.
Some people just haven't given this much thought. Before contacting me, spend some time thinking about what you really want. If the shoot will involve your partner, make sure they are informed and on board with exactly what you want to do. Trying to negotiate the details with them while trading messages with me is going to be frustrating.
Another issue I see frequently is that they haven't decided the primary goal of the shoot. There are two main choices. The first is to create amazing images that they will treasure now and in the future. The second is to have a great erotic experience in front of the camera.
It's very difficult to achieve both goals in the same shoot, but my experience allows me to come pretty close. In order to do that, I need my client(s) to be completely honest with me. I've learned to be very open and accepting about sexual issues, but many have a hard time with that. Most people have been trained to keep their sexual desires and fantasies hidden, but a successful photoshoot requires you to be open with your naughty photographer.
One issue I see a lot is that some people fantasize about being told what to do while in front of the camera. For an old BDSM guy like me, that seems perfectly normal and I'm happy to play the dominant role. To be honest, I'm pretty good at it. The catch is that we are now talking about a BDSM scene and that requires negotiations. No problem, I'm an experienced negotiator. But wait! For many people, asking for what they want tends to kill their fantasy! A catch 22 situation for sure.
I've lost count of the potential clients who vanished when they realized their simple, vague, fantasy would lead them to a complex project that required them to consider their own motives and desires. For those who are willing to work with me, an erotic shoot can be an amazing experience.
A surprisingly common request is when someone asks me to provide another person to do sexy things with them or their partner. Unfortunately, that creates all sorts of legal issues that I don't want to deal with. You definitely need to bring your own playmate(s) to a couple's erotic photoshoot! And yes, I do check ID if someone looks young. Nobody under 18 gets in front of my camera.
The last issue that can prevent a shoot from happening is the question of privacy. I have a good privacy plan in place that involves me deleting the images from my hard drive after I send them to my client via Google Drive. For most people that's adequate, but for high value clients it might make sense to simply hand them the memory card straight from the camera. This eliminates opportunities for big tech and government monitoring systems to capture the images in transit.
I'm always willing to trade emails with potential clients who are willing to say what they want and answer questions honestly.
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For the last 5 years or so, I've been doing a few road trips a year to work with models in cities like Phoenix, Vegas, Seattle and a number of smaller cities as well. The main reason behind these trips was to find models who would appeal to my many fans on Bentbox. My secondary reason was to meet up with clients who wished to pay me for one of my famous private shoots.
The fans who buy my photos of models are located around the world and they have specific tastes. They want to see pretty, fit, girls with mainstream hair, minimal tattoos and minimal piercings. Here in the Portland area, most of the models are sporting an alternative look, sometimes to an extreme degree.
By hitting the road, I was able to find quite a few suitable models in other cities. I'd rent a nice Airbnb house and shoot for a few days with up to ten models. I also enjoyed the road trips just for the fun of traveling alone by car. For a while, I owned a great road trip car, but more often I rented a car. Last year, I calculated the costs of travel and realized that I could travel by air to Phoenix for substantially less than the cost of renting a car and staying in hotels along the way. The biggest downside of air travel is that it's not practical to bring as much lighting gear as I can cram into a car.
At the beginning of 2024, I did an analysis of how these trips affected my sales on Bentbox. My conclusion was that they did not pay for themselves. So I've been working on finding more suitable models here in the Portland area.
Model Mayhem, the platform that used to work so well, has fallen into decline. Most of the models who are looking for work are now on Instagram or Facebook. Fortunately, I've done pretty well making contact with local models and strippers on Instagram. Some of the younger ones haven't had time to get tatted up, so they are perfect models for my fans.
My fans have also expressed an interest in MILFs and I've been able to find some older models who seem to embody the best qualities of that label.
Although I have a lovely and well equipped home studio, I get bored shooting there too much, so I've found some rental studios in the Portland area. Recently I rented one called Beast Daylight Studio that is located in a former pickle factory!
I've actually cut back a bit on shooting with pro models. I have a number of hobbies that I've been neglecting and the extra free time is being well spent. I'm also more available for paying clients who want private shoots.
Next year I could start doing road trips again, but I'm just going to see how things go here in the Portland area this year. If you've been thinking about contacting me for a photoshoot here, this would be a good year to do it!
Quite a few people have contacted me for assistance after they've purchased a nice camera they don't know how to use. Others have asked me to tell them which camera to buy that will allow them to create photos like mine.
I like the idea of passing along my knowledge. I've actually tried teaching photography skills to several people, but it has never worked out very well. The reason is that none have been willing to put in the necessary time and stick to an organized learning plan. When I started explaining the basic principles they'd need to learn, their eyes glazed over. High level photography is a lot more complex than most people realize. Maybe we are spoiled by plug and play technology that makes complex things appear easy.
Everyone I've tried to teach thinks I can show them a few tricks or hacks that will suddenly make them a good photographer. Sadly, it doesn't work that way. It takes years and hundreds of hours. It can also eat money, as you will want to buy more and more gear.
Learning to take good photos with a good interchangeable-lens camera is a lot like learning to play a musical instrument. It takes a lot of time and practice. It helps to be a little obsessed.
For most people, it's better to take pictures with their phones or low end consumer cameras that make all the technical decisions for you. If you have already purchased an expensive, interchangeable-lens camera, you can simply leave it set on "AUTO." It will produce images roughly similar to what you get with a phone, but you'll look like a serious photographer!
If you do have the drive to really learn photography and prefer self-directed learning, you can find everything you need to know on YouTube. Just remember to start with the basics before you try to learn pro-level techniques.
You can also find many video series for sale that will start at the beginning and take you through the whole process at your own speed. If you would do better with a teacher to keep you on the best learning path, I suggest an actual photography class at a community college or local photography organization.
Hopefully this little message will help someone avoid disappointment and wasted energy.
Take Care,
Dr. Mike
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Dear Friends,
The summer of 2023 was incredibly busy for me and I've neglected my blog posts for the last four months. Time to catch up!
My May road trip to Phoenix and Vegas turned out well. I did several great shoots with pro models to create photosets for my Bentbox sales. I also did a couple of private shoots which of course I can't say much about because they are private!
Here are pix of some of the models I worked with. If you'd like to see more of them, you'll need to hop over to my Bentbox page and take a look at the huge photosets which I've published for sale there.
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Updated: March 22, 2023
That is the question I am frequently asked by out-of-town couples who are seeking an erotic couple's photoshoot.
In order to decide which is best, I often have to exchange a few emails with potential clients. So to save time I've created this blog post to help you decide for yourself. You can still ask me questions, of course!
Before we start, let me remind those who live in the Portland region that I do make house calls. If you have a nice bedroom at your place and a few hours of privacy, that may be your best option. Now, on to the main question.
My studio offers certain advantages, so let's discuss that first.
The studio allows us to control the light and the background which allows us greater freedom to create certain classic artistic looks that affect the feel of the photos. For example, we can use strong lighting and a white backdrop to create what is called a "high key" image, like this one:
I like using the high key technique for models with dark skin or dark hair. Pale models tend to look a bit lost, so I will often pose them against a black backdrop like this:
There are many lighting options in the studio, such as backlighting to highlight the smoke in this photo:
Some people don't like photos posed in front of fabric backdrops. They'd rather see the model (or themselves) in a real room, so the photo seems more real to them. In that case, I don't put up a fabric backdrop at all. The end of my studio often has interesting objects which are rendered slightly out of focus to help give a sense of depth and reality.
My studio has another window in addition to the one you see above. This one faces South, which gives us a number of fun options with natural sunlight. If the day is sunny, the blinds can be adjusted to give interesting striped shadows like this:
I can also pose my subject very close to the window to take advantage of the soft natural daylight. This works best on cloudy days.
I could go on forever about this, but I think it's time to point out the most important thing the studio lacks - a bed! That may not be a big problem for a solo shoot, but for couples who want to get intimate, it's a serious limitation.
That's why I've gotten very good at shooting in vacation rental homes and hotel rooms. This hotel shot was lit with two Godox AD200 portable strobe units using soft light diffusers called "shoot through" umbrellas.
I have had very good results shooting in larger vacation rental homes. Avoid the little apartments and single rooms, you want a full size house. Here are a few examples:
I really can't create these exact looks in my studio, because the settings are unique.
In the last couple of years, I've upgraded my portable lighting system to the point that I can essentially duplicate my sophisticated studio lighting effects in any indoor location. I also like to shoot during the day to take advantage of flattering window light, if there is any.
So the choice is yours! It depends on what activities you wish to do in front of the camera and what kind of look you want. My experience suggests that in general, solo shoots work a little better in the studio and intimate couple's shoots are best done in an upscale Airbnb home or their own home.
Whatever you choose, I will make sure you get great photos to give to your lover or to create archival evidence of your passion for each other. Use the contact form or email me at: [email protected] to schedule your own private photoshoot.
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Yes, This is the Original Beyond Boudoir Photo
Beware of Imitators!
I've been doing nude photography for roughly a quarter century and first started using the name "Beyond Boudoir Photo" in 2009. I started my profile on Model Mayhem on March 12, 2010 and registered this URL shortly thereafter.
One thing I liked about the name BeyondBoudoirPhoto.com was that nobody else was using anything close. A few years later, I saw that one fellow was using "BetterThanBoudoir" which I thought was funny. But time marches on and now a simple web search will find many websites that include the words Beyond Boudoir. I suppose I should be flattered at the imitation!
Back in 2010 I learned all about search engine optimization and made sure to include the phrase "erotic couples photoshoot" on several of my site's pages. It worked surprisingly well. When I searched on that phrase or Beyond Boudoir, my site would come up as the first three or four choices on Google.
Today, those searches will turn up a number of imitators. Some of them are apparently paying Google Ads to give them preferential placement. I've decided not to do that. I'd rather rely on the images and information I offer on this site to attract clients.
If you feel confused about why so many photographers are using Beyond Boudoir in their business name, the explanation is simple. They are simply imitating the original concept and hoping you won't notice.
To contact me, please use the contact link at the top of every page and follow the instructions you will find there.
Thanks for reading!
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How and Why I Interview My Clients Before a Private Erotic Photoshoot
My Friends!
I'm not a very active blogger when the weather is nice, but here in the Pacific Northwest, Winter is made for staying indoors and catching up on your writing and reading. It's pretty gloomy outside today, so it's a good time for me to talk about another aspect of my private photoshoots. Read on after the sexy photo!
When doing private erotic photoshoots, my goal isn't just to create pretty pictures. I want to photograph activities, expressions and interactions that capture the erotic spirit of my clients. One important element in this process is talking to the client(s) before the shoot to learn about their relationship and their sexuality. I also ask questions to determine how best to deliver the images to them in a way that meets their expectations.
I love being able to meet clients for coffee and have a nice chat a day or more before their photoshoot, but that isn't always possible. Often my clients are on a tight schedule and prefer to dispense with the pre-shoot meetup. So I've learned to condense my interview into about a ten minute discussion in the studio. In order to do that I've had to make a mental list of the important questions I need to ask. These will vary between couple's shoots and solo shoots. To give you a rough idea of how it works, here are some typical questions in no particular order:
Who is the intended audience for the photos?
This usually comes down to the gender of the person who's expected to view the photos. If a woman is creating images for her man, I'm more likely to use my "men's magazine" style of photography. If a straight man is creating photos for his woman or let's say for dating sites, I will try to build images that spark a favorable response in women.
How do the two partners interact sexually?
Starting at the most basic level, who is the sexually dominant partner and who is submissive? Obviously that will affect how I pose client(s).
What are your favorite sexual acts?
This one is pretty obvious. If a couple really loves a particular form of sex play, that can be the centerpiece or climax (pun intended) of the shoot.
Do you or the intended viewer(s) have any fetishes that are important to you?
For example, if someone wants dating photos to find partners interested in a particular fetish, we'd want to build that fetish into the shoot in some way.
Will you be viewing the photos on screens or will you make prints?
This will affect how I format the photos into their final JPG form for the client. It can also affect how I compose the photos both in the camera and in post-processing. FYI: very few people make prints of their intimate photos these days.
Do you want me to cull all the unflattering photos so you don't have to see them, or do you want me to send almost all the photos and let you decide?
This depends a lot on how comfortable folks are with their own body.
How do you wish to receive your photos?
Usually I send edited photos via Google Drive or a similar file sharing service. However, some clients have high level privacy concerns and prefer that I hand them the memory card at the end of the shoot. If I'm not going to have a chance to edit the images, I will try to shoot in such a way that less editing will be needed.
My Private Shoots vs My Shoots With Pro Models
One thing about my work can be a bit confusing for potential clients when they first discover me. As you probably know, my art has two branches. My core mission is to provide totally private, intimate photoshoots to paying clients, mostly erotic couples photoshoots, but singles too. Since the images are private, I usually can't put them in my portfolio for you to see. That would defeat the purpose of a private shoot!
My secondary gig involves doing sexy shoots with pro models to create photosets that I sell online. These shoots are a great way to keep my skills sharp. Since I'm usually paying the model by the hour, I'm under time pressure and have to deal quickly with surprises like equipment problems or sudden bursts of creativity. This kind of experience allows me to give my full attention to my private clients and keep the shoot energy flowing without interruption. No matter what surprises are thrown at me, I always complete the shoot with lots of great photos.
Another big benefit of my model shoots is that I own those images and can include them in my portfolio for potential clients to see when you visit my website.
One of the minor benefits is that I get to test out new equipment and techniques with models that I wouldn't want to try with paying clients.
I like to think of my model shoots like the kind of practice a musician does between concerts. The time spent practicing is greater than the time spent performing, but you can't have one without the other.
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My friends! Many of you have been telling me for a long time that I'm not charging enough for my private erotic photoshoots. I did appreciate all the nice things you said about me, including my ability to produce a large number of near-perfect photos within three days. I'm very proud of my technical skills.
But it's that other thing I had a hard time internalizing. You've all told me how I have a gift for making naked and nervous people feel comfortable and encouraging them to act out their fantasies. And you like the way I "interview" my clients before the shoot in order to understand what kind of style and poses will create images they will love. I guess I didn't understand how special that is until recently. Many of my clients have told me stories about other "erotic boudoir" photographers who wouldn't shoot what the client wanted, made them feel uncomfortable, or the finished images just weren't very good.
I recently did a hotel shoot for a really nice couple who had a great time and loved the large number of photos they received. By the time we finished the shoot we felt like old friends, so they told me about another erotic couple's shoot they'd done last year in Las Vegas. They described the young female photographer who came to their hotel room as being detached and not willing to interact with them. After the shoot, they received a relatively small number of photos that were not of the quality they wanted. To top it off, the photographer's fee was about $2,000. They said I need to be charging a LOT more for my services.
That's what started me thinking hard about my rates. So I began to look around at other photographer's websites and quickly realized that I should probably be charging more. I continued to think about this until I happened to watch a video by a wedding photographer I follow on YouTube, Katelyn James, who advises other photographers. I like her because she uses the same camera that I do and wedding photography is similar in many ways to my work.
Katelyn said two things that hit home for me. She said that if your rates are too low compared to other similar photographers, people will think there is something wrong and avoid you. She also said that if your clients tell you that you aren't charging enough, you need to listen. That is a very strong signal that your rates are too low.
So the evidence has finally piled up to the point where I am ready to raise my rates. I realize that I have a unique service to offer. The combination of my technical skills and easygoing, reassuring personality are very rare in this small niche market. Another thing to consider is that I've been keeping client's images private for over a decade. I don't know of anyone else in this field who can say that. It's time.
Thanks for all your support! If we have already talked about doing a shoot at my old rates, you are grandfathered in, so just remind me please.
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Why Instagram Sucks for Photographers and Models
Once upon a time, all models and photographers who did nude work could be found on a website called Model Mayhem. It was designed from the ground up to help these two groups find each other and arrange photoshoots that would benefit them both. Each subscriber filled out a profile that stated their location and what kind of work they were interested in. There were many boxes you could click, or not, to indicate your preferences for nude work, paid or trade work, artistic genres and other factors. Models could enter their age, measurements, hair color, eye color, ethnicity and lots more. Effective search functions allowed people to find each other.
If you were travelling to another area, you could post something called a "travel notice" that would alert subscribers in that area. If you were looking for gigs in your home area you could post something called an "availability notice" that would be visible to anyone who wished to check.
Both photographers and models could post lots of fully nude photos. Paying for a higher level subscription allowed you to post more as well as giving you more extensive search functions.
Model Mayhem gave a huge boost to the nude photography genre. It's appearance on the scene coincided with the rise of digital photography, so you no longer needed a photo lab to process your nude images. Most of the photographers on MM were hobbyists, I believe, but most models were paid to pose. MM also included lively discussion forums which allowed a nude photography culture to develop. This helped to standardize customs and useful terminology. A new species of model quickly evolved, the travelling nude model, who would go on tour around the country from paid gig to paid gig.
At this point you may be wondering why a blog post about Instagram starts with a description of Model Mayhem. Sadly, Model Mayhem has been slowly declining as a useful platform for several years, and most of the models have migrated to Instagram and other modern social media platforms. The reasons for the decline of MM are too complex for this discussion, so let me move on to Instagram, or IG as I will call it.
The biggest problem with IG is that it was never designed as a platform for models and photographers to mingle. When I as a photographer see a profile of someone who looks like they might be a model, I often can't tell for sure if they are interested in modeling or if they are just posting nice pix to impress their friends. Usually, I have to reach out and risk angering them by asking if they are a (nude) model or perhaps a nude dancer who might be interested in modeling as a side gig.
In some cases, a profile will make it clear that the individual is a model, but it will leave out other important information. Many models don't include their city, their age or their genre preferences. Very few include such things as their measurements, their nudity limits, their modeling rates and other important details that were commonly available on MM. IG offers only a very superficial look at potential models and the same is true when models are looking for photographers. It's up to you to strike up a conversation and ferret out the needed details. Of course most IG subscribers are using their phones, so long messages are unpopular. You need to keep them short and to the point. Even then, it's easy to have misunderstandings, especially when chatting with inexperienced models.
One thing you can count on is that models on IG who have an OnlyFans account will always include a link! That is good to know since I like to offer content-trade shoots to OnlyFans models. It also strongly suggests that they won't be horrified if I ask them about their possible interest in nude modeling.
Let's move on to the next reason that Instagram sucks. It's the way that IG forces people to post photos that conform to their limited choices of aspect ratios. The biggest complaint is with vertically cropped photos, which are a high percentage of nude images, like the example below:
IG has forced photographers to change their artistic style to conform to the demands of the platform. That sucks. Supposedly the 9x16 vertical format will be allowed soon and it will be a huge help. Long horizontal crops, like the one below, are displayed as very small images on most people's screens. You have to keep your images close to square for them to be seen as you intended.
Instagram also sucks compared to MM in the good old days, because models can't post nude pix. This is a very real problem for nude photographers, because you need to know what a model looks like nude before you agree to pay her for a shoot. If you have to ask a model to provide nude photos it tends to make you look like a creep - that is not fun.
The last reason I will mention is the very poorly managed censorship of photos. This task is performed by some kind of bot(s) governed by "The Algorithm." It's not unreasonable to expect a social media platform to censor images with nudity. The problem is that the definition of nudity is tricky and The Algorithm is unstable. I think the programmers tweak it whenever subscribers have figured out exactly what is allowed and what isn't. This has resulted in many viable IG accounts being terminated by The Algorithm. For reasons I don't fully understand, this affects nude models a lot more than photographers. Practically every model I work with mentions that her IG account got deleted at [tens of thousands] of followers.
All that being said, IG is currently an important way for me to find models. Sadly, it takes an insane amount of time and it forces me to distort my artistic style when I choose which photos to post. The fact that I have to trade messages with people who may not be comfortable with nude modeling creates stress. Trying to arrange a successful shoot with a model who doesn't know the relevant terminology is also time consuming and stressful.
Fortunately I also do private shoots for paying clients and that helps keep me sane.
One of the ways I deal with the suck we call Instagram is to use the one and only link you are allowed to include in your profile. I have it pointing to a page on my own website which is optimized for models coming from IG. They quickly get a good idea of my style and how I operate. If it weren't for that, IG would be unusable for me.
I will include a few photos here from my recent expedition to Tacoma where I did seven shoots with local models in an amazing house. The results will be showing up on my Bentbox page over the next few weeks.
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Catfishing, Fantasy and Photography
a psychosexual report
According to an online dictionary, "catfishing" is when a person assumes a false identity online to deceive, manipulate or swindle another person. In my role as an erotic photographer, I've been catfished many times in the last decade or so. As my reputation expands, it's happening more often and is becoming a real problem.
To be clear, people aren't trying to swindle me, they are seeking erotic interactive entertainment or validation. There are also some real people (women) who are for a brief moment serious about scheduling a shoot. I've addressed those near the end of this post.
As you can imagine, I get a lot of emails from potential clients. Roughly a third are legitimate inquiries and the rest I broadly label as catfishing attempts. I used to find this fascinating and would engage in long email conversations that never resulted in a booked photoshoot, but helped me gain a bit more understanding of human sexual fantasies. After engaging in hundreds of these email exchanges, I've learned how the game works and I'm sharing what I've learned so that fellow erotic photographers can benefit from my experience. If there are any internet psychologists out there who find this post, feel free to quote from it.
Of course it always starts with an email from someone who says they want to arrange a private photoshoot. I have to take all inquiries seriously at first, but I don't want to waste time on unproductive messaging. If it's a catfishing attempt, the conversation will usually go two different ways, depending on the assumed gender of the person. Each way follows a fairly predictable path and I've wondered if perhaps the same handful of people have been emailing me the same fantasies for all these years.
If it's a man, he first asks if I'd do an erotic photoshoot that includes him and his wife, but spending most of the time shooting his wife, who is very attractive. Often he will send nude photos of a woman who is supposed to be his wife. Sometimes the photos look like a real person and sometimes they look like they've been ripped from the net. Real clients rarely send photos without being asked, so that alone is a yellow flag, but at this point it's hard to tell if the person is a legitimate potential client or a catfisher, so I must respond to get to the next step.
At this point, a male catfisher will start hinting that he wants someone else to have sex with his wife while he watches, or at least gets to see the pix later. Sometimes they want me to provide a male porn star to service the wife, but often they want to know if I'm willing to perform. They never ask about practical things like STD tests. If I play along, their fantasy gets more and more elaborate, typically evolving into a gangbang scenario.
Female-presenting catfishers follow a path that goes like this: Sometimes they say they are an aspiring novice model and sometimes they say they are a successful single woman who wants sexy photos for their own enjoyment and empowerment. Unlike legitimate female clients, they don't seek sexy photos for online dating or self-promotion.
Early in the conversation, they briefly mention that they'd like some rather erotic photos in addition to the usual boudoir theme. As the email exchange goes on, they start adding more erotic and more complex elements. They want to know if one of the male models in my photos would be available to have sex with them. One of the most blatant red flags is that they ask if I get aroused while doing photoshoots and hint that it's OK if I do. In general, the female-presenting catfishers play a more sophisticated game and have more writing skill compared to the cruder efforts of the males. They are also more likely to offer me a lot of money.
Often they want to know if I will order them to assume naughty positions or engage in lascivious acts, which indicates submissive preferences. If I stay with the conversation long enough it usually morphs into a gangbang fantasy, sometimes with a very large number of men involved and an elaborate story line.
Since both the male and female-presenting paths go to roughly the same endpoint, I think there is a good chance that both groups are mostly male. Some just pretend to be female. I assume they are not happy with their sex life and like so many other people, they turned to the internet to build an easy fantasy world that pushes their erotic buttons. It's a lot less trouble than trying to build real life relationships. The apparent fact that so many catfishers are male is interesting. My thought is that we should not judge them too harshly. It's a very confusing time to be a man. I just wish they wouldn't waste so much of my time.
It gets old providing free services in this manner. Maybe I should monetize this by soliciting money for each hot fantasy message I respond to? Then I could hire someone to pretend to be me and that would complete the circle of deception! What a strange world we live in.
Real Women
To be complete, I should mention that there are some real women who waste my time building a sexual fantasy around what it would feel like to be nude in front of my camera. They usually send nude selfies and insist that I comment on their bodies. Fishing for compliments, obviously. Eventually, they ask if I can provide someone to do naughty things to them. Some of these conversations are via text message, which makes it easy to impulsively send nude selfies to a stranger. Recently, women have started sending disappearing pictures to my phone. What will they think of next? LOL
These conversations with real women usually play out in a couple of hours and often alcohol is involved. Sometimes, they are sober, just horny and lonely. They vanish as rapidly as they appeared. It's sad in a way, because I'd be happy to do a private shoot for them with no risk of the pix escaping into the wild. I know that posing for a nude shoot can be a very erotic experience for many women. I encourage that in almost all my shoots that have an erotic theme.
That's all for now. I may add to this post later. I usually include some sexy photos in my blog posts and I briefly considered using some that have been sent to me by various catfishers. Perhaps I should create a gallery on my site? That might be something I will do in the future, but not right now.
Thanks for reading!
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Pros and Cons of Shooting at the Model’s Home
Do you ever wonder how I decide where to do a photoshoot? Here’s a little advice for my fellow photographers.
Although I have a pretty nice home studio, I’ve done quite a few shoots in the homes of models or clients. This post is based on my in-home shoots with professional models. So far, most of these shoots have been somewhere in the Portland region. I like to call them “house calls.”
House call shoots have some major positive aspects:
- They are more convenient for the model, especially since gas prices are high, but beyond that, many urban models don’t have access to a car. Offering house calls expands the range of models I can work with.
- Shooting in a new place gives the shoot a different look, so my art doesn’t get boring.
- The images have a more intimate look and feel, partly because the model tends to be more comfortable in her own space.
- I feel there is a sexy, voyeuristic aspect to seeing a beautiful nude woman in her own home.
- Sometimes, usually with older models, their home is beautifully decorated and adds a nice elegant touch to the photo results.
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Of course there are also some notable negative aspects:
- Models mostly live in smallish apartments or older houses with small rooms. My large studio lighting gear just doesn’t fit, even if I wanted to break it down, haul it to the location and set it up again. I get around this by using my portable lighting setup that uses 3 AD 200 portable strobes. I have really learned to love these little lights.
- Some models, especially the younger ones, are not good housekeepers, so their place is so messy you really don’t want to shoot there. To avoid this problem, I ask models to take a couple of phone pix showing what their place looks like.
- The last negative is what I call the “creepiness factor.” It’s a vague psychological unease similar to what you find with hotel shoots. I think it’s caused by subconscious memories of past rendezvous for sexual purposes, combined with previous unpleasant or scary photoshoot experiences. This can affect both the photographer and the model. It’s important for the photographer to have a friendly and businesslike attitude from the start. Models are very attuned to the photographer’s vibe and will respond accordingly. This can be difficult for rookie photographers who are nervous and unsure of themselves.
There are lots of other factors that might affect your decision to shoot at a model’s home. For example, you might not have a studio of your own. For me, I like getting out of the studio and working on location. Shooting in an unfamiliar space is a technical challenge that sharpens my skills.
Hopefully you found this blog post interesting and a bit helpful. The photos you see here were all taken at the model’s place.
Thanks for reading! If you want to see more photos of these models, you can scroll through the photosets I’ve posted for sale on Bentbox at this location: Bentbox - Beyond Boudoir Photo
Take Care,
Dr. Mike
My Most Rewarding Private Photoshoot
(No photos, for obvious reasons.)
I've done a lot of private erotic photoshoots for people over the last decade or so, but the one I did a couple of weeks ago has got to be the most rewarding. That is almost entirely due to the nature of the client.
She contacted me through my website and explained her situation. She has been blind since birth and is unable to take naughty selfies to send to her boyfriend. He is currently trapped in another country by Covid and they have been apart for some time.
Since she doesn't drive, I did the shoot in her small apartment. I used my wonderful portable studio strobes for some poses and used some rather dim Winter windowlight for others. My Canon R6 did what I asked of it in low light, as expected. I always enjoy putting my skills to the test in challenging situations.
I told her she could have a friend present, but she decided to go solo. As we got started, I was thankful for my long experience putting people at ease. We quickly established a good working flow.
The photos came out amazingly well, considering the location I had to work with. My client had a great body and was not hesitant to follow my posing instructions. In my past health care career, I worked with quite a few blind or partially-sighted patients, so I had a pretty good idea of how to communicate smoothly. Fortunately, she had excellent computer skills, so I was able to deliver the images via Google Drive as usual.
My biggest concern was helping her decide which of the 300+ images to send to her boyfriend. I thought I might have to give each photo a descriptive filename or something along those lines. It could have been rather awkward. Fortunately, she had a wonderful girlfriend who was able to help with that.
I got a note from her saying that her boyfriend loved the pix and thought she looked like a model, which she did, for sure. My clients always put a lot of trust in me when I do a private shoot, but in this case the level of trust was off the charts. That's even more important to me than making boyfriends happy.
Obviously, I can't share any pix with you from this shoot. It feels strange not to include at least one sexy photo, but I'm sure you understand. Private means private!
Thanks for reading,
Dr. Mike
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One Surprising Tip for a Successful Private Erotic Photoshoot...
KEEP IT SIMPLE
The most common error couples make when they are planning a private erotic photoshoot is to keep adding more and more elements to the plan until it becomes impractical. Then they often just give up in frustration. Here are some of the things people add to their shoots which increase the complexity, the cost, and the chances for things to go wrong.
1. VIDEO - adding video recording to a still photo session causes several problems. To start with, the two techniques require different lighting systems if you want both to look good. Video also brings with it the need for a quiet shooting area, since all sounds will be recorded. Then you need to ask how the photographer is going to direct the clients without his voice being on the video. You probably don't want your naughty video to include his voice saying, "move your bootie to the left a little." To do video and stills together requires a team of two or preferably three skilled people, so the expense mounts quickly and the intimate atmosphere of the shoot is lost.
2. MULTIPLE LOCATIONS - Doing a shoot in a hotel room or the studio is pretty straightforward. Doing a shoot in one place, then transporting everyone and the equipment to another place tends to be stressful and increases the chances of unexpected problems. It's not impossible, but once again, it adds cost and complexity. It's fun to think about doing a romantic outdoor shoot on a beach at sunset, then moving to a hotel room for more intimate action, but it's not the best idea.
3. ADDING ADDITIONAL ACTORS - Many potential clients I talk with get caught up in the dream of planning an erotic photoshoot. The most common element they want to add is another person, or maybe more than one. In addition to legal and safe sex issues, this adds another failure point to the plan. The odds of them showing up for the shoot are poor. If you don't already know them well, the odds of them being compatible with your fantasy are poor. It's just a bad idea.
4. TOO MANY SCENES OR POSES - It's pretty common for clients to create a list of all the erotic scenes or poses they'd like to squeeze into the time available. It's actually good to have a list, but you need to be flexible and willing to call a halt when you start to get tired or don't feel sexy any more. In my view, erotic photoshoots are supposed to be fun, not hard work.
5. WANTING TO SHOOT OUTDOORS WHEN OR WHERE IT ISN'T PRACTICAL - Finding places where you can do a nude or erotic photoshoot outdoors is very tricky. The best place is during warm weather, on private property, where neighbors can't see. It's true that I've done many outdoor nude shoots with pro models, but I only use experienced professionals who are OK with the risks involved. We always shoot on weekdays when the woods and rivers aren't crowded and we are ready to pack up and leave at a moment's notice.
I hope you found these words of wisdom helpful in planning your own private erotic photoshoot. If you have questions, feel free to contact me using the contact option at the top of every page.
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About six months ago, I made the big switch to a mirrorless camera body, the brand new Canon EOS R6. My previous camera, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV was working fine, but mirrorless cameras offered some advantages that I felt would potentially make my work easier and better. Both features are related to the auto-focus system.
The first improvement is that the mirrorless autofocus almost always achieves perfect focus with any lens you put on the body. With the older DSLR bodies, the system had different autofocus errors with different lenses. To get accurate focus, you had to perform a task called "micro-focus adjustment" with each lens you owned.
Even when adjusted, some lenses would exhibit different amounts of focus error at various distances and even at different zoom settings. While it was annoying, it was just part of being a professional photographer. You dialed in the adjustment as well as you could, then shot extra images to allow for deletion of poorly focused shots.
Even if your autofocus system is perfectly adjusted, you still have to make sure you place the viewfinder autofocus point exactly where you want it, which takes attention and practice. It's not always easy to do if you and your model are moving.
The second autofocus feature I really wanted to try was the eye tracking function. The EOS R6 and many other mirrorless cameras will continuously track a particular subject that moves around within your view and it will keep the lens focused on that object. This is obviously a great thing for sports photography or working with moving children, just to name two genres, but I find it very helpful when shooting with models.
Once I switch on the autofocus system with the button on the back of the camera, the powerful computer inside the R6 goes to work analyzing the scene. A focus box appears in the viewfinder and quickly starts moving. It first finds the head of the model, then places a very small focus box on one of her eyes. It does a pretty good job of tracking that eye as long as it is visible and there is enough light in the studio. If it loses the eye, it will default to head tracking. If the model moves so that her head is no longer visible, the camera struggles to find something else to focus on. At that point, I press another button and the autofocus system changes to a small spot that I can place wherever I like.
It is now extremely rare for me to reject an image due to imperfect focus!
The issue of megapixels
Most people assume that you always want to buy a camera that will record the largest possible number of megapixels. In many genres, such as landscape photography with the goal of making large prints, that is surely correct. But when photographing people, I believe that is not the case. Very few people make prints any more, especially when the images are erotic. My photos are generally shared electronically and posted to online sites with limited resolution. Beyond a certain point, additional megapixels are wasted.
My previous camera had a 30 megapixel sensor. When viewing those photos at full resolution, skin and makeup imperfections are very distracting. You can spend a huge amount of time retouching skin and throwing away much of the detail you recorded with your high-megapixel sensor.
The current generation of Canon mirrorless full frame cameras includes the R6 and it's more expensive brother, the R5. The R5 has a 40 megapixel sensor - I knew that was more than I needed so I chose the R6 with a 20 megapixel sensor. This is the first time I've stepped down to a lower resolution body, so I was a bit nervous. But I was pretty happy with that resolution in my old 5D III and even with the 12 Mp sensor in my very old 5D Classic.
After six months of photoshoots, I can say the reduction in sensor resolution was a good decision. I feel the images have a smoother, more flattering skin texture and I've never wished for higher res images. As a big bonus, the smaller RAW files are noticeably faster to process and store. I had been thinking it was time to build a new desktop computer, but it looks like my last build will be adequate for a few more years.
The Question of Sharpness
The sharpness of an image is not the same as resolution. It is determined by many things, but in this case I'm only discussing the effect of the lens. I've read articles stating that a mirrorless camera body has a sharpness advantage over an old DSLR body because the back of the lens can be closer to the sensor. Perhaps this is true, since the mid-priced 24-105 lens I bought with the new camera is extremely sharp, on a par with earlier expensive professional lenses. It is so good and so convenient to use that I don't have a lot of experience using other lenses on this new body.
Overall, I am very pleased with the R6. I think it is a great choice for photographers who work with human models and distribute their work for viewing on video screens.
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This Shoot Was One of My Best
There isn’t much to do these days with the cold weather and so many businesses locked down. It makes me want to look back through my image archives.
Way back in 2015 I had a chance to do a very cool photoshoot that produced some of my best work. There were four factors that came together to make this such a great shoot: A beautiful pro model, a cavernous old artist's studio, lots of natural daylight coming through large windows, and a nice set of professional camera gear that I had been using long enough to be comfortable with.
The model was Chrissy Marie from Model Mayhem, who has been published in Playboy and Penthouse. You can see her own site here: https://www.captivechrissymarie.com
She is and was a very professional model, proud of her natural body and not afraid to show it off with great skill.
The artist’s studio was located in a historic multi-story brick building in downtown Portland on W. Burnside St. My artist friend was able to rent an entire floor from the owner who was an admirer of his paintings. Half of the huge space was a room lit by huge windows, obviously designed before interior lighting became cheap and bright. This is where my friend created his paintings and had room to display dozens of them for potential buyers.
The remainder of the floor was dark, dirty and partly filled with junk. There was just enough light coming in from a couple of small windows to allow some dramatic backlighting, but I realized it was time to set up a studio strobe with an umbrella reflector. These images have a completely different feel from those taken in the art studio.
My camera was the workhorse Canon 5D Mark III, which was the first camera I’d owned with reliable autofocus. I used two lenses for this shoot that are standards for wedding photographers, the EF 24-70 F/2.8 L and the EF 50mm F/1.2 L. These large aperture lenses allowed me to create some lovely artistic background blur.
This shoot produced over 1,000 usable images. When I prepared this collection for sale, I split it into two sections. If you are interested in owning this photoshoot for your private collection, you can purchase it most easily on Bentbox at these two links:
Part I: https://bentbox.co/buybox_verotel?R7l0yoWU
Part II: https://bentbox.co/buybox_verotel?7CCexv4q
If Bentbox doesn’t work for you, I can sell you both boxes via PayPal and Google Drive for $60. Just drop me a note at: [email protected]
Thanks for reading! You know where to find me if you are interested in modeling or in hiring me for a private photoshoot.
Dr. Mike
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The Strange Story Of Bachelorette Party Photography
I've seen a lot of strange, funny and moving things since I started doing private intimate photoshoots about fifteen years ago. One of the oddest things is related to bachelorette parties.
Several years ago, I documented a rather naughty bachelorette party for a group of ladies who already knew me. It was a lot of fun and I learned enough from the experience that I decided to offer that service to others.
I had no idea that this would lead to a ten year string of the strangest inquiries you can imagine. About once every month or so, I get an email from a woman asking if I will photograph her and a handful of her best girlfriends getting crazy in a hotel or private home somewhere.
Side note: Once in a while, they ask if I will follow them on a pub crawl, but that sounds like a photographer's nightmare so I always decline. Professional cameras are water resistant but not vomit proof and I have a low tolerance for drunks. I tell them to use their own smart phones.
The exchange of emails usually follows a predictable path. Once the woman finds out that I photograph bachelorette parties, she starts describing her imagined scenario. There are almost always five women involved and the one emailing me has agreed to find a willing photographer. She usually says that her budget is almost unlimited. It starts out simple and with each email exchange it gets more complex and more sexual. Instead of asking about how the photos will be delivered, she wants to know what I will "make" them do in front of the camera. Sometimes she wants to know if I'm available for sexual service (I'm not) or if I can provide a man to have sex with them or dominate them. She always keeps asking for more details and adding new erotic twists.
I've learned to spot the red flags by the second or third email exchange and sometimes I end it there, but I often play along to see if any new ideas come up. Sometimes I can't spot the fake for a long time and end up wasting too much time.
What I've decided is that the Bachelorette Party Photoshoot is a legitimate fetish. There are definitely women who find that talking about it is a real turn on. I think it's a branch of female submissiveness. They feel that during a photoshoot, they can engage in naughty acts that they would not normally allow themselves to do.
I finally removed bachelorette parties from the menu of services I provide, but for some reason, the internet keeps sending me these horny women. Maybe I missed a link somewhere. It's sad that 99% of the inquiries are just fantasy material, as shooting bachelorette parties is actually a lot of fun and the ladies get some great pix with their girlfriends. I'm still open to legitimate inquiries,
If there are any kinky novelists out there, you might want to see if you can turn out an erotic E-book on the topic. I bet it would sell pretty well.
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So What Exactly is a Content Trade Shoot?
A content trade shoot is an arrangement between a photographer and someone who wants to be photographed, who we will call the model. The two parties can negotiate any kind of arrangement they wish, but the general concept is that they each contribute their time and skill in lieu of cash. Each gets to use some or all of the resulting photographs (or videos) in whatever way they have both agreed to.
Other terms for this kind of collaboration include "trade for print," "time for print," "trade for CD," or simply a "trade shoot."
In the past, both the photographer and model would most likely display the images in their own portfolios to give their career a boost. More recently, "content creators" including models and photographers have been making money by selling their content online, through platforms like OnlyFans, Bentbox and Patreon.
A trade shoot is a win/win situation for both parties. Models who mostly sell their amateur selfies benefit from having some higher quality professional work that shows them in a different environment. Variety almost always improves sales.
Here's how my content trade shoots work -
Trade shoots can take place in my studio or at any suitable location. They typically last around two hours and usually involve full nudity. Models may get as naughty as they wish. I encourage erotic (open leg) poses, since virtually all fans love that. My goal is to create at least 500 usable images. They won't all be masterpieces, but will be properly exposed, cropped and color balanced. Obvious mistakes will be culled.
The model will receive all the usable images within three days via Google Drive. She may use them any way she likes. I will most likely sell the same images to my fans on Bentbox.
I encourage the model to tell me what her fans want to see so we can include those things in the shoot.
That all sounds pretty easy, but here comes the hard part. The gents who buy my work tend to be more affluent image collectors who have preferences for what kind of models they wish to see. I call it the "girl next door" look. They want healthy looking, cis-female girls who are fit, but not too skinny. They don't want to see angry faces, a dozen tattoos, facial piercings, brightly colored hair or plastic surgery. They want to see natural looking girls who are smiling and happy. There aren't many models who completely fit that profile, so I have to make exceptions on a case by case basis.
Am I safe to work with? Please check out my references on my Model Mayhem page where I have over 70 verified credits from models I've worked with.
Drop me a note at My Gmail if you have any questions. Feel free to ask me anything!
Updated, March 2023
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Photography in a Time of Contagion
Being an intimate photographer during the pandemic kinda sucks, as you can imagine. Most people are afraid to travel and many are facing money problems. It's been a couple of months since the last private shoot I did for a paying client. I'm still available and not worried about virus transmission during a photoshoot, so drop me a note if you like.
Last month, I did an urban guerrilla shoot with a great model I have worked with twice before, Gemini Rose. She's a proud and brave nude model who hasn't been getting any work lately. I paid her to pose for me in order to create one of my photosets that I sell on Bentbox.
It was a beautiful spring day and we felt sorry for all the people who were locked down in their homes while we were enjoying delicious freedom. We went to a couple of sites in downtown Portland that I've used before. The streets were nearly deserted, so it made a guerrilla shoot quite easy. Here are some shots in front of the famous statue of Portlandia.
Our next stop was a deserted parking garage. We could look out at the streets of Portland and Gemini Rose could flaunt her beauty to the city. It was very therapeutic for her.
I wanted to make sure we got some mask photos so that future viewers would know this was a pandemic photoshoot.
Leaving the parking garage, we drove to a building that used to be a dairy processing plant. About a year ago, it was first painted white, then artists came in to cover the entire structure in creative artwork. It's going to be torn down to build apartments eventually, so I am trying to make good use of it while it's available.
Since Portland is famous for pot shops, we had to make one last stop in front of this one that had some great exterior art.
That's it for this post. If you'd like to buy this photoset on Bentbox, here is the link: https://bentbox.co/buybox_verotel?UAb8rfE7
Thanks for your support!
Should I have my erotic photoshoot in the photo studio or in a hotel room?
That is the question I am frequently asked by out-of-town couples who are seeking an erotic couple's photoshot.
In order to answer that question, I often have to exchange a few emails with potential private clients. So to save time I've created this blog post to help you decide for yourself. You can still ask me questions, of course!
Before we start, let me remind those who live in the Portland region that I do make house calls. If you have a nice bedroom at your place and a few hours of privacy, that may be your best option. Now, on to the main question.
My studio offers a number of advantages, so let's discuss that first.
The studio allows us to control the light and the background which allows us greater freedom to create many artistic looks that affect the feel of the photos. For example, we can use strong lighting and a white backdrop to create what is called a "high key" image, like this one:
I like using the high key technique for models with dark skin. Pale models tend to look a bit lost, so I will often pose them against a black backdrop like this:
There are many lighting options in the studio, such as backlighting to highlight the smoke in this photo:
Some people don't like photos posed in front of fabric backdrops. They'd rather see the model (or themselves) in a real room, so the photo seems more real to them. In that case, I just don't put up a fabric backdrop at all. The end of my studio often has interesting objects which are rendered slightly out of focus to help give a sense of depth and reality.
My studio strobe units give me lots of control and many options for how I light my subjects. One of the fun techniques is a stop-motion style that was popular in the 1960's when photographers first gained access to electronic strobes. Quite a few celebrities were caught in mid-air, as if they were floating. I don't recall any of them being nude, but I thought that was a logical next step. Don't you agree?
My studio has another window in addition to the one you see above. This one faces South, which gives us a number of fun options with natural sunlight. If the day is sunny, the blinds can be adjusted to give interesting striped shadows like this:
If the angle of the sun is right, you can do some fun techniques like this. The white background is a big piece of foam core board that I also use as a reflector.
I can also pose my subject very close to the window to take advantage of the very soft natural daylight. This works best on cloudy days.
I could go on forever about this, but I think it's time to point out the most important thing the studio lacks - a bed! I get around that to a degree by posing models on the floor with satin sheets and pillows like this:
It's not bad, but it really isn't quite the same as a real bed, especially for couples who might want to have some adult fun and prefer a softer surface. That's why I've gotten very good at shooting in vacation rental homes and hotel rooms. These two shots used portable strobe units with soft light diffusers.
I also highly recommend finding a vacation rental for your shoot. Avoid the little apartments and single rooms, you want a full size house. Here are a few examples:
I really can't get that exact look in my studio. But there is something that can be done in the studio that you can't do in a hotel room. My studio has what are called "hard points" that allow you to suspend heavy objects from a ceiling beam like this:
So the choice is yours! It depends on what activities you wish to do in front of the camera and what kind of look you want. Whatever you choose, I will make sure you get great photos to give to your lover or to create archival evidence of your passion for each other. Use the contact form or email me at: [email protected] to schedule your own private photoshoot.
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Down By The River
Sorry I haven't been posting to the blog lately. I've been doing some private shoots for clients, but mostly I'm creating photosets to sell on Bentbox. Yesterday, I did a private shoot for a client who needed some tame, but sexy photos for social media marketing. There is a river about a mile from my house that can be pretty photogenic at certain times of year. Yesterday was one of those uniformly cloudy, but fairly bright days that we get in May and June.
The soft light is almost perfect for portraits, but you have to remember that the sun is still up there in a specific location. It's important to keep your subject looking toward the sun to get even lighting on the face, even if it takes you a minute to figure out where the sun is.
These shots were all taken with my usual Canon 5D Mark 4 using a Tamron 85mm F/1.8 lens at F/2 to blur the background. I liked that lens so much that I bought its little brother, the Tamron 45mm F/1.8.
I really like the way these two Tamron lenses render the background, while the subject is extremely sharp. It's almost a 3D effect. I call that subject/background separation and it's something you can do with expensive, large aperture lenses that you can't do as well with consumer grade lenses. These Tamrons are also stabilized for sharper hand held shooting which helps with that subject/background separation, in my opinion.
Collecting lenses is fun, but my collection of lenses for my Canon EF mount cameras is pretty much complete and I haven't purchased one in many months. Canon recently created a new lens mount for their new line of mirrorless cameras. I suppose in a few years my current lenses will be obsolete. So until I switch to a mirrorless camera, I think my lens collecting days are about over. We shall see.
Thanks for reading!
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As you can see, I haven't been posting a lot here on my blog lately. Not only am I staying busy doing private photoshoots, I recently started a new gig that I'm rather proud of. I'm a staff photographer at PDXScene Magazine. It's a great place to find information about the complex sexuality scene in Portland. If you are planning to visit, PDXScene is a great place to start your research.
I did the photography for the November cover and the related article that features a person from the Portland sexuality communities. My friend Sgt. Miles got to be featured this month. The publisher wanted to use a term like playmate or pet, but those were taken. So the eye candy person is called the Temptation of the month.
Don't worry, I still do private shoots for women, men and couples who need intimate photos and absolute discretion.
Here is the November cover. I hope this is the first of many!
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Erotic Photoshoots in Hotel Rooms
It's been a long time since I talked about hotel room shoots on this blog. One reason I don't discuss it very often is that I generally do hotel shoots with private clients, so I can't share those pix with you. Recently, I did a hotel shoot with a professional model, Mimsey, at a nice hotel in downtown Portland. That means there are lots of sexy images to post here on my blog!
Hotel room shoots are great fun for me. To start with, I get to play undercover photographer as I walk past the front desk with my photo gear in nondescript bags. I try to dress like a businessman and act like I belong there, so I've never been questioned.
Once in the hotel room, I find that my clients are usually pretty relaxed. They are in their own space and didn't have to drive across town to my studio, so they have less reason to be nervous.
The technical aspects of a hotel shoot are quite interesting. Not only do you have to work in a limited space, but you often have a fair amount of daylight coming in from one end of the room. You can pose the model(s) next to the window for some great soft portraits, or pose on the bed and have directional light from just one side. After that, things get a bit more complex, because you start adding in artificial light. In my case, I bring a couple of Alien Bees studio strobes with umbrellas to spread and soften the light. Then you have to decide how to deal with the fact that the daylight and the strobe light are different colors. In this shoot, it didn't seem to make much difference, which was nice.
This particular hotel had great semi-private balconies and the sky that morning was a uniform light gray. That's like having the world's largest softbox to bathe your lovely model in the softest light.
I did this shoot with my trusty Canon 5D Mark IV. The lens I used most was the EF 24-70 F/2.8 L Mark 2, which is an amazingly sharp zoom lens. A few shots were taken with the Canon EF 35mm F/2 IS lens, which isn't as sharp as the 24-70, but has image stabilization - a handy feature for shooting in dim available light.
The strobes are great too, especially when you want to stop action.
Believe it or not, Mimsey and I created over 1,000 usable images in about 90 minutes. The purpose of this shoot was to create two photosets to offer for sale on Bentbox.co, where I've been selling photos I've shot with professional models. It helps offset the model fees and hopefully some of my equipment costs, so I can keep my rates for private clients low. If you'd like to consider purchasing these photos, you can find the first of two Mimsey photosets at this link.
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April, 2018 NSFW
The Arizona Shootout is a very large group photography event that's been going on for over 20 years. It brings professional models and photographers together in a sunny desert setting near Wickenburg, Arizona. In most years it's held in both the Spring and Fall, when the desert weather is ideal.
I attend for three main reasons: First, it's good to get out of the rainy Pacific Northwest and soak up some desert sun. Second, I get some great images that I can share with you or sell to collectors on Bentbox. The third reason is the amazing desert light.
Most of my AZSO photos are taken indoors with window light, or outdoors in the shade. The sun is reflected off the sandy desert surface and reaches into shady areas to provide a soft, warm light that is ideal for portrait photography.
The models are great to work with, but I have to pay them to pose for me and of course photographers pay a substantial fee to attend, so it can be an expensive event. That's why I'm happy that I can sell my images on Bentbox. If you click on the model's name below each photo, the link will take you to the high-resolution photoset of that model which you can purchase if you wish. Your support is much appreciated and will help me create more sexy images for your future enjoyment!
There are roughly a dozen old buildings available for photography, as well as the open desert itself. The buildings are filled with old machinery and general antiques. It's like doing a nude photoshoot in a museum for three days.
All but one of these photos were taken using available light and they were all done with my trusty Canon 5D Mark IV. Mostly, I used the Canon EF 24-70 F/2.8 Mark II as my lens of choice. I love prime lenses, but this zoom is so amazingly sharp that I tend to just leave it on the camera unless I have a creative idea that needs a telephoto or a large aperture prime.
Want to see more? Here is a free gallery with some more photos from the 2018 AZSO.
Thanks for dropping in to visit the Beyond Boudoir Photo Blog!
]]>Six Mistakes People Make When Planning an Intimate Photoshoot
and How To Avoid Them
I love my work and I've been doing it for a long time. Over the years, I've come to notice patterns in the way many people go about researching and planning an intimate or erotic photoshoot. As you might expect, the same mistakes keep coming up over and over, so this blog post is devoted to helping you avoid wasting time and energy going down the wrong path.
Please allow me to list the most common mistakes that I see so that you can try to avoid them.
1. Looking through the photo galleries of other photographers for photos that you want to duplicate exactly.
Unfortunately, you can never duplicate those photos. For one thing, the model(s) you see are not you. Also, the photographer probably retouched the photos heavily with Photoshop in ways that we can't determine. I think the goal should be to create unique images that capture your spirit in the moment, not duplicate the work of others.
2. Assuming that I won't photograph a particular sex act if you don't see it in my portfolio.
Humans are very creative when it comes to sex and there's no way I can display photos of every naughty thing you can do. Please take my word that I will photograph anything that's legal and doesn't get fluids on me or my photo gear! OK, that's not entirely true... I really don't like shooting blood play or snakes.
3. Falling in love with a particular outdoor location that you see in some of my photos.
Outdoor locations come and go. The biggest reason that one might not be practical is weather. You can't do a naughty photoshoot in the rain or cold. You can't shoot at the nude beach when the regular crowd calls the cops on you. No matter how sneaky you are, you can no longer do guerrilla nude shoots in downtown Portland now that the city is packed with hipster condos, security guards and homeless folks. I always keep a few possible outdoor locations in mind from May to September in the Columbia River Gorge area, but I just can't guarantee access to a particular site when you need it. The most reliable place to do an intimate photoshoot is your own hotel room or, even better, an upscale Airbnb vacation rental house. My studio works, of course, but it's a photo studio, not a bedroom.
4. Trying to pack too much into your photoshoot.
Most people who are not professional models or actors get tired of being photographed after about two hours - less if you are engaged in sexual activities. It's OK to prepare a list of poses for your shoot or even bring some example photos on your phone. Just keep the list reasonable so you won't feel rushed. I recommend no more than six poses per hour if you are doing a posed studio shoot. Consider scheduling two shoots on different days, especially if you have more than one theme you wish to include, ie: artistic posed studio photos and raunchy sex photos. That way you can easily make use of two locations as well.
5. Asking if I can provide a male model to have sex with you during your photoshoot.
Please, ladies, that just isn't possible and probably isn't legal. When I see this question, my experience tells me the person asking isn't really serious about booking a photoshoot, they just enjoy fantasizing about what could happen.
6. Not having a backup plan.
It's always good to have a plan B. Sometimes your partner backs out, the weather doesn't cooperate, your period starts unexpectedly or some other minor disaster. A sexy photoshoot is a complex project and you can't count on everything going according to plan. A good professional photographer will go with the flow, work around the surprises and still create great images.
If you have any mistakes to add, please drop me an email. I'm sure I've forgotten a few!
]]>A Tribute to Devi
NSFW
As regular readers will know, the photos I take for paying clients are not generally posted on this site. The rare exceptions occur when clients are so proud of their images they insist that I share them with the world. For the most part, the images you see on the site depict professional or amateur models who expected to have their images displayed online.
There are a few pro models that I've worked with multiple times. I don't mind paying their fee, because I get so many great images that I can share with my readers. One of my favorites is the amazing Devi. We've worked together three times over the last few years. If you're a photographer, be advised that she's based in the Bay Area and you can find her on Model Mayhem. Like all of the top travelling models on MM, she is very businesslike and reliable.
Here's one of my favorite photos of Devi. It's actually a hand-held HDR shot processed in Photomatix.
Enough talk... I'm just going to load a bunch of Devi images into a gallery and let the collective impact hit you right in the face. In a good way, I mean! Take a deep breath and click here.
]]>PORTLANDIA
The Last Outdoor Photoshoot of 2017
NSFW
About every three or four years, Portland is blessed with an Indian Summer. In October of 2017, we had many days of dry, sunny weather as the leaves began to turn. I didn't have any outdoor photoshoots lined up to take advantage of this amazing weather, but I could not just let it go to waste. I had to scramble to arrange one.
There is a hidden place on the edge of a rocky cliff that overlooks part of Northeast Portland. You can't see it in the photos, but there is a busy freeway directly behind the model and about 200 feet below. I've been watching this place for a while to see if had enough privacy for a nude photoshoot. As is usually the case, it depends on when you go there. In this case, we did the shoot on a Sunday evening just before dusk.
I needed a model who I could trust not to get too frisky on the edge of the cliff. She would need to be OK with semi-public nudity and hardy enough to handle the cool breeze for a while. The freeway noise would make it hard to communicate, so I also wanted a model who could instinctively create good poses. One name came immediately to mind, Floofie! She's something of a local treasure who is very active in the modeling community. Fortunately she said yes and I then had about 24 hours to plan the shoot.
While I was trying to think of a theme for the shoot, I happened to look at a photo of a popular statue in downtown Portland that I'd used as a backdrop for photoshoots in the past. It's called Portlandia and is considered one of the many quirky things found in the city. I checked in with Floofie the morning of the shoot and told her I wanted her to dress as Portlandia. I promised to pick up a trident at a local costume shop and she immediately loved the idea.
For this shoot, I used only one lens, the Canon EF 24-70 L Mark 2, which was mounted on my trusty Canon 5D Mark 3. Although there was a little bit of light from the setting sun behind me, most of it would be blocked by trees. I knew I'd need some pretty powerful fill light to balance the fairly bright background. I used two of my AlienBees monolights, each powered by a Vagabond Mini battery and nicely diffused by a small umbrella. I didn't want to use big umbrellas due to the wind.
First I took several shots to determine the best exposure for the background, making sure that the shutter speed was below the flash sync speed of my camera (1/125th was my choice). Then I turned on the strobes and adjusted their power output to give me just the right amount of illumination on beautiful Floofie. Some people call this technique "dragging the shutter" but I don't think that's a good description myself. By the way, this was all done manually, no TTL flash metering for me!
It's always good to have another person along when you are doing naughty outdoor photoshoots. This time I brought along my photobuddy Jeremy and we shared the AlienBees by each having a trigger on our cameras. The AlienBees cycle pretty fast so this worked most of the time. Here's Jeremy next to one of the strobes, so you can get an idea of the setup.
Occasionally, I'd trigger a shot right after my friend had done so and the strobes would not fire. The background still looked the same, but Floofie was quite underexposed, at least two, maybe three stops. Since I shoot RAW, I was able to brighten her up, but it really changes the tones of the image. you can see what I mean in the image below.
The strobes fired just fine at least 90% of the time, so I got some nice shots like these of Portlandia in super hero mode protecting the city.
Before we wrapped up the shoot, I removed the trigger from my camera and moved to a position where I could get shots of Floofie against these trees. There was a little daylight coming through the trees from the setting sun to my right.
I'm pretty sure that's the last outdoor photoshoot for me in 2017. If you'd like me to photograph you nude outdoors, we will have to wait until around May of 2018. Unless of course, you'd like to pay me to come to your place in the lovely desert Southwest. Thanks for reading!
]]>Warning! NSFW! 18+
One of the main reasons that couples come to me for intimate photography is my strict privacy policy. If you pay me to do your photoshoot, your photos will never be posted on my website. You will receive the only copies. I delete my copies after one year or sooner if you ask. That has been my policy for several years.
In the last couple of years, I'm finding that some couples will decide after their shoot that they want me to post some of the images from their shoot anyway, regardless of my privacy policy. Being a bit obsessed with my client's privacy, I often discourage them, but recently a couple convinced me to post some of their images that conceal their identity reasonably well, but still have substantial artistic impact. They traveled quite a distance to get here so I was predisposed to granting their wish. We hope you enjoy the photos!
Out of the 400+ images this couple received, we picked out eight that we feel are safe to reveal. I believe these will help give prospective clients a reasonably good idea of what a typical couple's shoot looks like in my new studio. As always, remember that these images are what this couple wanted and of course you don't have to do these same poses. Each shoot is different and is adapted to meet the needs of that particular couple.
As you can tell, this couple requested black and white. I enjoy working with B&W, even though it takes more time for post-processing. One fun thing about this shoot was that I switched between natural daylight from the windows and my studio strobe system. You really have to know your studio and your camera to make that work - it's a fun challenge for me!
If you are interested in having a photoshoot of your own, please use the contact page to send me a note. I usually reply within a few hours. Do not leave a comment below if you wish to be contacted. Use the contact link at the top of every page!
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It's been a busy summer here at the Beyond Boudoir Photo studio! Word has gotten around among my kinky friends that my new studio has excellent overhead "hard points" suitable for doing rope bondage suspension scenes. In case you haven't heard, rope bondage in general, and rope suspension specifically, is all the rage among "kinksters" worldwide. No more do aspiring dominants spend big bucks for expensive leather and metal bondage gear. Now they spend money on rope, lots of rope, in many different colors and made with a bewildering variety of man made and (mostly) natural fibers.
Good bondage rope runs about a dollar a foot and most people start out with about a hundred feet. Often, people who dedicate themselves to the art of rope bondage have thousands of feet on hand. A thriving cottage industry now exists to fulfill the demand for high quality bondage rope in the BDSM community. If you are looking to buy some hiqh quality rope, Renaissancerope.com is the site of the friend who installed my hard points.
Rope artists gather in work groups to practice their skills and learn from more experienced artists. Some call themselves "riggers" but others dislike the term.
The amount of sexuality involved in a rope bondage encounter varies tremendously, according the wishes of the participants. The person who is being tied up can be described as a "rope bottom" or a "rope bunny" among other things. It is quite common to take photos of the rope session and post them on appropriate social media.
Sometimes the rope bottom is fully clothed, sometimes fully nude or something in between. When a rope session takes place in public, it's sexy, but there is rarely any sex. At most, the rope bottom may be granted an orgasm via something like the Hitachi Magic Wand. In private, it's a different story. Many rope instructors offer courses in bondage for sex. The couple below has done rope play together many times and enjoy being in front of the camera. They got a free photoshoot and you get to enjoy their pix! I plan to post more from this shoot later.
When someone is tied in this manner, it is a very sensual experience. Most people seem to go into an altered state of very relaxed consciousness. Terms for this include "subspace," being "rope stoned" and "flying," to name a few. When they reach this state, their pupils are often dilated and their gaze appears unfocused.
When suspending a person with rope, it is very important to have a reliable "hard point" above them to bear the load, as well as knowing the load ratings of all the various pieces of rope and metal connectors that are used for convenience. A good, sturdy hardpoint is said to be "rated for full suspension." Although a person may weigh less than, say, 250 pounds, the hardpoint is typically expected to hold perhaps five to ten times that weight to provide a margin of safety. The same goes for the rope and carabiners which always come with a weight rating.
I always make sure the rigger is skilled, knows all the safety rules, and follows them rigidly. I only allow expert riggers to do full suspension in my studio. Accidents do happen, but not here. If a rigger I don't know wants me to do a photoshoot for him and his partner, I ask to see photos of his past work and ask who he has studied under.
If you would like to schedule a Shibari photoshoot in my studio, but don't have a friend with excellent rope skills, I do have friends I can call on who will share their skills with you. Typically, you would meet with them in advance of the shoot so that they can ask safety-related questions and make sure you understand the simple safety rules. If you haven't been suspended before, it will most likely be an amazing new experience for you.
]]>Merrique Nude In The Columbia River Gorge
Readers of this blog will know that I sometimes pay professional models to pose for me, because the photos I take for clients are protected by my strict privacy policy. When my budget allows, I enjoy working with the top-tier, travelling models who are found on Model Mayhem.
Photoshoots with these pro models often produce my best and most creative work, because I'm free to shoot the images I want, not those that a client has requested.
This blog post chronicles an outdoor shoot that I did with St. Merrique last week in the Columbia River Gorge. I love shooting in the Gorge, partly because I know of some secret spots where you can do nude photoshoots.
Shooting outdoors is a big change from my usual studio work and I really enjoy the challenge of working in uncontrolled conditions. I usually bring along one Alien Bees 400 studio light and a Vagabond Mini battery pack to power it. I find it to be a nice combination. You do get a little bit of light fluctuation if you shoot fast, but it's not a problem for me. I like to use a small (24 inch) umbrella outdoors. Anything larger risks being blown over by the wind, even though I have the weight of the Vagabond Mini on the light stand. For this shoot in a windy location, I also put a couple of fist sized rocks into a fabric "sandbag" and hung that on the base of the light stand. That did the trick, no toppled lights on this occasion.
These two images of St. Merrique on the red fabric were created with the Canon EF 100mm F/2 on my 5D3 at ISO 100, 1/200, F/2.5. This lens is not super-sharp wide open, but if you stop it down about 2/3 of a stop, it sharpens up nicely. The lighting on this shot was provided by the blue sky overhead with appropriate color balancing in Lightroom to keep her from looking blue.
For the photo below, I used my Alien Bee as a front light while the model was illuminated by the sun coming from camera left. The lens was my workhorse Canon EF 24-105 F/4 IS L. Exposure data: F/6.3, 1/60, ISO 100. I was able to balance the flash and daylight without using a neutral density filter, which made me happy enough to snap dozens of variations of this scene.
The next two photos show a completely different approach to lighting. Since the model is backlit, I had a choice of using my strobe to balance the light or simply let the background be washed out. I chose the latter, because I wanted to see the backlight coming through the pink fabric. I had to brighten the shadows a bit in Lightroom and adjust the color balance a lot.
I was happy to give up some technical image quality to get the artistic look I wanted. If you would like to see more photos from this shoot, click here to see a gallery of selected shots.
You can find our lovely model, St. Merrique on Model Mayhem. She's great to work with and travels to many areas.
Thanks for reading!
If you would like to book me to do a shoot with you, please read the FAQ, check my rates, then use the contact page to drop me an email!
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Some Thoughts on BDSM Photoshoots
And the First Rope Shoot in the New Studio!
I mentioned the effects of "Fifty Shades of Gray" in a blog post about two and a half years ago. Since then, the demand for BDSM themed photoshoots has dramatically increased. As you can see from my portfolio, a good deal of my work has a BDSM theme. This comes as no surprise to my many friends in the Portland BDSM community, which I've been a part of for over two decades.
It's been interesting to see the changes in what women and couples wish to include in their kinky photoshoots. If you take a look at the 2014 blog post mentioned above, you'll note that it's a pretty soft version of BDSM. As time has passed, I'm getting more frequent requests for what you might call serious BDSM shoots. These often involve rope bondage and some degree of sensation play, which includes things like spanking, clamps and various impact toys.
It's almost always a woman who contacts me seeking a BDSM photoshoot. Sometimes she wants to pose with her man, sometimes she wants to shoot solo and give the images to her man as a gift.
My new studio has overhead hard points which were installed specifically for doing rope suspension play. This is generally known as Shibari or Kinbaku.
My own rope skills are minimal, so when a client requests a rope bondage photoshoot, I rely on a few friends who are talented rope experts or riggers, as I like to call them. They love what they do and will usually help out in exchange for gas money, a microbrew or some fancy Portland coffee.
Sometimes a client will request a BDSM shoot in a real dungeon, complete with crosses, spanking benches and other fine articles of sexy debauchery. In that case, my first option is to rent a sex-positive club in Portland called Catalyst, a Sex Positive Place.
I've organized a number of group photoshoot events at Catalyst, so I have a good understanding of how it can be used photographically. You can see some of my photos of this venue here.
Two of my kinky friends came to my new studio a few days ago to perform a fairly advanced rope suspension scene. It was the first rope shoot in the new studio, which is an auspicious occasion! As I mentioned above, the new studio has special hardpoints installed about 11 feet above the floor specifically for rope suspension.
On a funny side note, there are now rope bondage experts in Portland who specialize in the installation of safe hardpoints for suspension play. A lot more thinking goes into this task than you might expect, so don't try this at home unless you really know what you're doing. But I digress...
This couple had great chemistry and high level rope skills, it was an honor to watch and photograph them at play.
You can see a gallery of their photos here if you like. These 289 images are un-retouched so please excuse any small imperfections and send my friends a mental thank you for allowing me to share their intimate images with you.
I hope to have many more rope shoots in the new studio. If you are involved in Shibari/Kinbaku and would like to have some photos of you and your partner in action, please contact me and we can discuss the details. I believe the gallery mentioned above is a pretty typical representation of what you can expect to receive.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to the studio!
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and
A New Camera
and
A Lovely Model From Arizona
Three things came together for this photoshoot. I just moved into a new home and since my studio is in my home, that meant getting a new studio set up and learning how to use it to best effect.
Two days before this shoot, I received a new camera that I intend to use a lightweight backup to my trusty Canon 5D Mark 3 and as a travel camera.
Moving is always hectic and I put my photography on hold for a month, so I didn't have any shoots lined up when I was ready to try out the new studio. Luckily, I ran into Tori on Model Mayhem and she agreed to drop in for a studio shoot. I don't think it's fair to do a lot of experimenting when I'm working for paying clients, so I have no problem paying experienced pro models to pose for me while I tinker with new gear or a new concept.
The new studio has several large windows that allow daylight to enter at various angles as the sun moves throughout the day. I've always loved simple window light, so I was looking forward to experimenting with it.
The walls go up about eleven feet to the ceiling and are painted a kind of yellowish tan. I was very curious about how that would effect the color balance of my photos when the daylight bounced off the warm-toned walls. As it turned out, the color balance looked fairly similar to standard daylight. I think the bluish light from the blue sky was warmed up a bit by the warm walls. A handy coincidence!
I was loving the soft window light, but I wasn't thrilled by the yellow/tan walls as a backdrop for portraits. I quickly put up a white backdrop.
I like that background color a lot better! However, you can now see the reflection of a large window in Tori's eyes. These are called "catch lights" and are an important topic of discussion among portrait photographers. I think these catch lights are too large and make her eyes look glassy or something. What do you think?
It was now around 6 PM and a large beam of sunlight offered itself for our artistic pleasure...
Overcome with a burst of artistic creativity, Tori and I moved the white backdrop into a location where it was illuminated from the rear by the strong, direct sunlight. Tori was front-lit by the large window, which gave us the high-key effect that required 5 or 6 strobe lights to create in my old studio. The shot below was done entirely with natural sunlight.
Time to take some "sitting on the hardwood floor" shots that are popular these days. Tori had some fun imitating one of my photos that was propped against the wall.
One of my complaints about the old studio was the low ceiling, so I wanted to try using an overhead strobe. This was a 4 foot strip light, directly above the model, aimed down at her. The strobe mixes with the natural daylight in interesting ways that will require more experiments in the future.
Then of course we had to have some fun with my trusty mirror...
Tori is on Model Mayhem, but the best place to contact her is her Facebook page. Take it from me, she's a delight to work with and very professional. Treat her well and don't try to haggle over her fee, she's worth every penny!
Now about that new camera... I picked up the new Canon EOS 77D to use as a travel camera and as a backup for my trusty 5D3. I wanted a smaller, lighter camera body that would provide image quality close enough to that of my bigger pro camera that nobody would know the difference. The photos above are a mix of shots from the two cameras with various lenses. I can't tell the difference without going back into Lightroom and looking at the data for each shot. I'm betting you can't tell the difference either!
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Four Things to Remember About Nude Maternity Photoshoots
Lots of moms-to-be decide they wish to have some professional photos to record this special stage of life. Just as in boudoir photography, most women and most commercial photographers prefer to de-emphasize the woman's sexuality and concentrate on the "nurturing mom" look. That's fine for most people, but what if you prefer a more sexual look? Something more provocative, that doesn't deny your sexuality.
Obviously, the answer is to get in touch with Beyond Boudoir Photo and schedule a photoshoot. But there's more to it than that. The biggest question is when to do the shoot. For some reason, almost all of the women I've worked with felt that they should wait until the final month of their pregnancy, but I disagree and here are four reasons.
- In the final month, many pregnant women are uncomfortable and don't look very happy.
- Mobility can be an issue during the photoshoot. It's hard to move the body into attractive positions.
- Things get very busy in the final month and photoshoots are often cancelled.
- Babies can come early and don't care that you have scheduled a photoshoot.
In my opinion, the best idea is to schedule three or four photoshoots to document the various stages of the pregnancy. Each stage is different and beautiful in its own way. If the last shoot gets cancelled by an early arrival, it's not a disaster.
Here is an example of an early pregnancy photo. I think the subtle changes are quite lovely, don't you?
And of course, here is a later stage photo of a different woman:
As always, these photos are of women who agreed to allow their photos to be used here in exchange for a free photoshoot. (I call that a trade shoot.) Paying clients are covered by my strict privacy policy, so you will never see their photos.
Sadly, I don't have any examples I can show you that depict one women in the various stages of pregnancy. If you know someone who would like to volunteer to pose in exchange for free images, please send her my way!
Update: I do now have a number of nude maternity images that I can share with you, but out of respect for the lovely moms who posed for trade shoots, I am keeping the gallery protected with a password. If you are pregnant and interested in discussing a sensual photoshoot, please use the contact form to request the password to the maternity gallery.
]]>Photographed at Beast Daylight Studio in Portland, Oregon
NSFW
As my regular readers know, the photos I create for paying clients are protected by my privacy policy and can't be used here. I rely on friends and professional models to pose for me so that I have images to share with you.
I like to get out of my studio whenever I can. It's fun to shoot outdoors, in hotel rooms, in private homes and sometimes I rent a commercial studio space. In this case, the location is known as Beast Daylight Studio in Portland, Oregon. I've used it a few times before in order to enjoy the daylight that comes in through the big South facing windows. Here's a shot of the windows from a previous shoot with Adryana:
The model for this shoot is the lovely Christina Bee who can be found on Model Mayhem. I have a lot of admiration for the young women who work as traveling models through MM. Not many people at that age are brave enough to travel to strange cities and connect with photographers. They also have to be smart enough to do it safely. I always treat them with great respect and thank them for working with me.
I usually use only the natural daylight at The Beast, but for this shoot, I brought along a single Alien Bees B400 and a medium size umbrella. I'm glad I did, because it was a very cloudy day and the light was dim for much of the two hour shoot. This shot was done using only the daylight, which worked pretty well if the model was close to a window and facing it. Of course you have to compensate for the blue color cast, but that just takes a quick adjustment of the color balance sliders in Lightroom.
The light was fairly dim, so I put the camera on a tripod and shot at 1/60 sec, F/2, ISO 400 using the Tamron 85mm. Of course the tripod doesn't stop the subject from moving!
Mixing very cool, blue, daylight with strobe light is an interesting challenge that's fun for me. You usually can't get the color perfect on all body parts, since they are illuminated by sources of different colors, but using the local adjustment brush in Lightroom you can come pretty close.
Of course no shoot at this studio is complete without a black and white art nude photo. I added a little grain in honor of the years I spent shooting Tri-X Pan film.
If you would like to see more photos from this shoot, you can view a gallery at this link. Thanks for reading!
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Why This Erotic Photographer Makes House Calls
There are many reasons why a woman or couple might wish to have erotic photos taken. Among the top three are:
- To commemorate a couple's sexual passion for each other.
- To create seductive images that will increase your partner's attraction for you.
- To capture sexy photos that can be posted on adult dating sites or sent to prospective playmates.
It's entirely normal to be nervous about going to a photo studio and posing for naughty photos outside your normal, comfortable environment, but there's a way around that. What you need is a photographer who makes house calls! I've found that most people are more comfortable posing in their own home instead of coming to my studio.
I'd like to share with you some of the photos I've taken of women and couples in their own spaces. Some were in homes, some were in hotel rooms. Most of my images are not available to share, as they are covered by my strict privacy policy and in fact many have already been deleted from my archives, but I also do some shoots with friends and models who are willing to share their photos with us in return for a free photoshoot.
When I do a private shoot in someone's home or hotel room, I usually try to do it during daylight hours so that I can make use of the soft daylight that comes in through the windows. Exploring the available light is great fun for my inner photography geek.
If daylight is not available, I bring two or more portable strobes with reflective umbrellas that allow me to control the lighting quite nicely. Some clients request dramatic, high contrast light, like the example below which used a single studio light with only the basic reflector, no umbrella to soften the light.
You may notice that there isn't much obvious photoshopping in my images. There may be some, but my philosophy is that you should not be able to tell. I may actually do quite a bit of editing in some cases, but I really dislike the "plastic skin" look that you see in so many fashion photos and men's magazines.
I'm not going to include any really graphic images in this blog post, since I prefer to keep those in a password protected gallery that is only available to prospective clients. Just let me say that graphic photos are no problem. With Beyond Boudoir Photo, your imagination is the only limit!
If you would like to see more of my house call images, please click this link to go to a gallery I put together just for this topic.
As always, thanks to my friends and various models who have agreed to pose for me and allow me to share their sexy images with you.
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A Studio Shoot with Kat Alexis and a Beauty Dish
NSFW
While perusing Model Mayhem one day, I noticed a new model in my area. I loved her look and we quickly booked a shoot in my studio. The best thing about my studio is that I can shoot there at any time, regardless of the weather. Well, almost. We had to delay the shoot twice due to a pair of serious snow events that are highly unusual in the Portland area. Finally, the snow melted and we were able to go to work.
Kat Alexis was a joy to work with, so if you need a great model in the Portland area, she has my highest recommendation. You can find her on Model Mayhem.
There was also another reason I was excited about this shoot. I had just received an inexpensive 16-inch Fotodiox beauty dish from Amazon and I was dying to try it out. I've used lots of umbrellas, soft boxes, strip lights and brolly boxes for light modification, but this was my first experience with a beauty dish. Photographers say it gives a unique light, but the photos I've seen on the net didn't seem to give me a good feel for what to expect. What else could I do but buy one and try it out myself?
The Fotodiox beauty dish came with a grid, which turns the dish into something of a spotlight. I wasn't sure how much beam spread I'd get with the grid, so that's what I checked with my first shot. The dish is about 4 feet from the model's face and there are two gridded hair lights behind her.
That's a very interesting effect for headshots and I'm sure I will use it again, but I mostly shoot full body portraits. I quickly removed the grid and moved the dish back a bit farther from my model.
Now that's useful light! From head to hem. You can see the dish on the left and a hair light in the upper right corner. I noticed that the color balance is more toward the blue than my softboxes and umbrellas. I presume this is due to the white paint on the working side of the dish.
I put the grid back on and fired up a big Paul C. Buff strip light to camera right to act as a fill light. Notice that in the first two photos above, I had the model turn her face toward the dish. In the photo below, I had her point her nose directly at the camera. See how there is now a fairly dramatic shadow alongside the nose? Even though I was using a strip light (a long softbox) as a fill light, the lighting was still pretty dramatic.
One nice advantage of the dish is that it doesn't take up a lot of space in the studio. I'm thinking it will also be more wind resistant outdoors compared to the umbrellas I normally use. Of course it doesn't fold up, so I saved the box it came in for transport. Hopefully, when the weather eventually allows outdoor shoots, I will be able to write a full report for my loyal readers.
Here is a shot that shows the blue shifted color balance of the beauty dish. Normally I use a preset in Lightroom to give me nearly perfect color balance from my studio lights. The other photos you see have had additional correction applied, but this one has not. I was wondering if this would create an issue when I combined the dish with the strip lights in a single image, but I didn't see a problem.
All photos were taken with my Canon 5D Mark III at ISO 100. The main lens was the workhorse 24-105 F/4 L. The strobe units were various kinds of Alien Bees and the triggers were the cheapest Yongnuo junk I could find on Amazon. :)
If you would like to see more photos from this shoot, you are welcome to click here to see more. FYI: the model received over 200 edited images for her own use.
Thanks for reading!
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Summer in the Columbia River Gorge
NSFW
My favorite place to shoot outdoors is the Columbia River Gorge. It's beautiful, it's close to where I live, and I know several spots that have enough privacy for nude photoshoots, at least on weekdays. On the weekends, hikers and tourists overrun the Gorge, so you need to go elsewhere.
This photoshoot was done over a year ago and as you can see it was Summer. The outdoor nude shooting season here is roughly from May through September. The lovely model can be found on Model Mayhem if you'd like to work with her. Although many of my blog posts involve some pretty nice lenses, this shoot was conducted with three inexpensive Canon lenses. When I'm not getting paid to do a shoot for someone, half the fun for me is playing around with different photo gear.
These first two photos look a bit like amateur snapshots, because I was experimenting with on-camera flash. I really don't like on-camera flash, but I wanted to try it under these conditions. Notice the shadow, indicating that I held the camera vertically, with the speedlight hanging off to the left side.
Switching back to available light, I had the model move to an area of photogenic rocks for various poses.
Fortunately, this was late in the day, so there was no direct sunlight. Each spot that I use in the Gorge has it's own sunlight schedule. The trickiest part is getting the color balance right, since the model is illuminated by the blue sky above and sometimes by reflected light from green vegetation.
The photos up to this point were taken with my Canon 5D Mark III and a Canon EF 24-105 F/4 L IS used wide open to create some moderate background blur without obliterating the scenic background. This lens is a real workhorse and not very expensive. You can often find it for around $600. A Mark II is just out from Canon, but early reports say it doesn't offer much improvement over the already great Mark I.
Just for fun, I switched to a radically different lens, the Canon EF 40mm F/2.8 "pancake" lens. I was shooting at F/4, so the background blur was still moderate.
After some full body portraits, I wanted to do some upper body shots and switched to the Canon EF 85mm F/1.8 USM lens. This is a wonderful and inexpensive portrait lens, usable on both full frame and crop-sensor cameras. As you can see in the shot below, I was using a wide aperture for shallow depth of field in order to focus attention on the flowers. This was at F/2 - the sweet spot for this lens when doing outdoor portraits is between F/2 and F/2.8 in my opinion. It loses sharpness at F/1.8 and if you go beyond F/2.8 you don't get the nice background blur.
Now I can't wait for Summer to come back! If you'd like to see a gallery with more pix from this shoot, just click here.
Thanks for reading.
]]>Pure Rebel in Rope at Catalyst
a Rope Bondage Photoshoot
NSFW
As most of my readers know by now, the photos I take of paying clients are strictly private and you won't see them on this site. To get the photos you see here, I either do trade shoots with friends or pay professional models to pose for your pleasure. In this case the model is the lovely Pure Rebel, a fantastic pro model who travels around the world doing sexy photoshoots. I don't mind paying her fee, because I always get a huge number of fantastic shots. A good pro model knows how to pose herself and has a collection of facial expressions to fit any situation. It's money well spent, in my opinion. And isn't she adorable in her warm robe? This was supposed to be a test shot, but I thought it helped tell the story of this photoshoot.
Our location for this shoot was "Catalyst - a sex positive place." Located in Portland, Oregon, Catalyst is a venue for parties, meetings, art shows and of course photoshoots. We used the main dungeon or playroom for this shoot. It has a number "hard points" overhead for safe suspension scenes.
The rigger (rope artist) for this shoot was a friend of mine who is known online as MrOldSchool. He lives to tie up beautiful women and was happy to offer his services in exchange for photos. Actually, I think he'd be willing to do it even without the photos!
MrOldSchool has a thing for old sound equipment and he just happened to have a Rebel amplifier handy to use as a backdrop for our friend Pure Rebel.
The most technical shot of this photoshoot was the suspension scene below. Getting the shadow just right in the available wall space was tricky and it took quite a bit of photoshop work to remove distractions from the background. Electrical outlets, cords, and signs tend to detract from the artistic effect!
Equipment for this shoot included three Alien Bees studio flash units, two with umbrellas and one with a reflector and a 40 degree grid that was used to create the shadows. The camera was my trusty Canon 5D Mark III with the amazing EF 24-70 F/2.8 L II lens.
If you'd like to see a gallery of images from this photoshoot, please click here.
Comments are welcome!
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Photographing Maree in the Daylight Studio
Most readers know that I do private photoshoots for women and couples who need a discrete photographer. But I also do model portfolio shoots for aspiring models who are entering the world of nude and erotic modeling. These are often trade shoots, which means that I can share the images with you here. The model for this shoot is Maree from Model Mayhem.
This shoot took place in a great rental studio we have here in Portland called Beast Daylight Studio, formerly Buck East Studio. It's in an old industrial building and has huge windows on the South side of the room. The whole room is painted white, with other backdrop colors on movable panels.
I have a nice studio in my home that gets a lot of use during the rainy Pacific Northwest Winters. After a couple of months, I start getting anxious to shoot elsewhere. I'm perfectly happy doing private shoots for clients in their own homes, in hotel rooms or vacation rental homes, but when I do a trade shoot with a model, I want to indulge my inner artist with some lovely daylight.
You can see the results in this gallery. The photos are NSFW, 18+, etc.... Enjoy!
Tech details: all photos taken with a Canon 5D Mark III. All but one were done with the Canon EF 24-70 F/2.8 L II and mostly at ISO 100.
Your comments are welcome!
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A Maternity Photoshoot
NSFW
Before I get to Nikki, I just wanted to say that I'm viewing this on a new 34 inch, curved screen, LG monitor. This is a big upgrade for me and I'm really impressed. One very important thing any serious photographer should do is calibrate their monitor for brightness and color. I use an automatic calibration device called Color Munki, but there are less expensive ones that will do the job well. If you don't calibrate your monitor, you have no idea how your images will look to the folks who view them on their own devices. Even if you do calibrate, remember that your viewers rarely calibrate their own monitors, so you still don't really know how they are seeing your work. But at least you did your part, right? So let's move on to the lovely Nikki!
Nikki is a stunning local model who just happens to be seven months pregnant. We agreed to do a shoot in my studio so that you, my loyal readers, could see a great example of a sexy, nude, maternity photoshoot.
We started out with my two big 5-foot long strip lights, powered by Alien Bees, providing front illumination. There were two more Alien Bees with grids behind the model to act as hair or rim lights. I like to have the model sit on a simple stool for the first photos, while I have her move her head in different directions. I call this "learning the face" since everyone has good and bad angles. Whatever I learn by doing this, I apply to the rest of the photoshoot.
As I always do for studio shoots, I'm using my trusty Canon 5D Mark 3 at ISO 100. I'd like to say that I was using some exotic prime lens, but this entire shoot was done with an old Canon 24-105 F/4 L IS lens. Since I planned to shoot at F/5.6, there was little reason to use anything more sophisticated. Most of these shots were done between 35mm and 60mm. Too bad nobody makes a zoom like that, I'd buy one immediately!
We moved on to some more revealing standing and posed positions. You can see the boudoir/glamour photography influence. Notice the prominent rim lighting in the next photo.
I decided to try some high key photography with the white backdrop. At first, I used no front illumination, in an attempt to create a silhouette effect. There were only two Alien Bees in operation, both aimed at the white backdrop. After looking at the resulting images, I decided to lighten them up in post processing, which gave them an interesting soft look. I also reduced the "clarity" which is a wonderful option in Adobe Lightroom. Not the silhouette look I had envisioned, but still attractive.
Next, I switched on the two soft boxes to provide front illumination, which is my normal high-key look.
If you would like to see more photos from this shoot, click here for a gallery of select images. I did very little retouching on these, so you can tell more about how they were created.
If you are a potential client and would like to talk to me about doing a private shoot for you, please take a look at my FAQ.
Thanks for dropping in! If you'd like to thank Nikki for posing for us, you can find her Model Mayhem profile here.
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Anna - August, 2016
NSFW
Well, that was a fast and busy Summer! I fell behind on my blogging schedule, but I don't mind since I was busy with fun photoshoots. Plenty of paying clients, I'm happy to say. Of course those images are protected by my strict privacy policy so you will never see them.
Fortunately, I made time for some shoots that I can share. This one was with my model friend Anna Sereno. Not only is she athletically gorgeous, she happens to be a pretty highly trained firearms enthusiast. We decided to do an outdoor shoot in the hot August sun at a secluded home where she could display both her charms and her arms.
I brought along my photographer friend, Jeremy, who had some creative ideas of his own, one of which was to play around with a large gold reflector. Anna is also quite a good photographer, so there were three of us mixing and amplifying our creative ideas.
We started out on the deck of the country home with the sun directly behind Anna. I was using my Canon 135mm F/2 L lens on my 5D Mark 3 from almost 20 feet away. Jeremy was just to the right of Anna aiming the gold reflector at her to fill in the shadows. I'm including this screwed up example to show what can go wrong in a tricky situation like this.
The most obvious problem is that the gold reflector is not large enough to cover our lovely model. Another problem is that I forgot to bring a lens hood for my 135mm lens and I'm getting a bunch of hazy lens flare at the bottom of the image. Fortunately, I could crop most of it out.
Anna suggested that she sit down so that the reflector could cover more of her body. Great idea! We can also see the pretty flowers behind her now.
You may not agree, but I thought the orange skin was too much. Anna's late Summer tan combined with the gold reflector was too much of a good thing.
I reduced the orange saturation in Lightroom to make her skin look just about like it did in reality. Isn't that better?
I quickly got tired of shooting into the sun and looked for a different spot. Anna wanted to pose with a handgun and an amazing leather strap outfit. This was gonzo photography at it's best!
Jeremy was standing to Anna's right, holding the gold reflector to fill in the shady side of her body. At this angle, the gold color was not so overwhelming. No color adjustment was done in Lightroom.
For these shots with the strappy outfit, I used a Tamron 85mm F/1.8 IS wide open to blur the background.
This last image was taken with the Canon 50mm F/1.2 L at F/2. If you are a gun person, you will have noticed by now that there are no visible safety violations in any of these photos. I watched her like a proverbial hawk the entire time we were working and she never once broke a safety rule. We triple checked the weapons to confirm that they were clear. It's so nice to work with someone who knows what they're doing!
So that's one of the things I did during the Summer of 2016. Things are slowing down now as the Portland rainy season sets in. I will try to post some more of my adventures in the coming weeks.
If you are a photographer near Portland, be sure to work with Anna Sereno if you can. She's amazing!
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Nora at the Waterfall
NSFW
A lovely actress named Nora asked me to create some sexy images of her in front of a waterfall. I just happen to know of a private spot not far from Portland that provides enough privacy for nude photoshoots.
The location is actually quite tricky, because of the quirky lighting. There is a lot of green foliage that casts a green light on the model and a small open, grassy slope that gives off a lot of yellow light when the sun is on it. There is also some exposure to the blue sky as well as whatever electronic flash illumination you care to add. The result is that your model will have the top of her head look blue, the part of her face and body facing the flash look normal, and some parts, like the legs or sides of the torso, looking green!
I've used this location several times, so I have learned how to adapt. Sometimes, I try to make the flash overwhelm the ambient light. At other times, I will use only ambient and color correct in Lightroom. It makes for a challenging post-processing session!
This first shot is a 50/50 mix of flash and ambient:
The next five photos use more flash than ambient. Notice the moving water behind the model, that will give you a clue to the slow shutter speed.
The next three images were all done with available light only. The waterfall was behind me and acted as a large, diffuse light source. If you have never used a waterfall as a giant softbox, you don't know what you're missing!
As we moved away from the waterfall, the green ambient light became more dominant and made it harder to maintain good skin tones. I didn't really mind, as the result is rather artistic looking.
It's really up to you how red or green you wish to make the final image. BTW, the beautiful bokeh behind the model was produced by the Tamron 85mm F/1.8 lens used wide open.
For this final shot, Nora wanted to pose with her swimsuit in front of the waterfall. Illumination was provided by an Alien Bees 400 with a large umbrella. I use the excellent Vagabond Mini for power.
I'm not sure what Hugh Hefner would think of these photos, but I like how they show my style. I'm not trying to duplicate the style of the Playboy photography team. Sure, you could bring ten people to this waterfall and carry in a dozen studio lights and powerpacks, but it's so much more satisfying to say you did it yourself! With the aid of the lovely Nora, of course!
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Will You Photograph My Tattoo Session?
NSFW
Tattoos are extremely popular in Portland these days. You can find a tattoo parlor on every block, next to the coffee shop and the microbrewery. They say we have some of the best tattoo artists in the nation here.
Getting a tattoo can be a big event in one's life. We typically hire photographers to record other events like weddings, engagements, graduation and more. But how many people hire a photographer to shoot their tattoo session? Not very many, I'd say.
If you did want a photographer, how would you find one who would be willing to take on the job? Most photographers wouldn't be interested, especially if there was nudity involved. Fortunately, that's why Portland has Beyond Boudoir Photo!
I recently did a shoot for a friend who was getting her first really nice tattoo. She agreed to let me share the photos with you. The artist was also interested in having photos of herself at work to help promote her business.
If you are interesting in planning a tattoo photoshoot, you must talk it over with your artist first and get permission to have me there in the studio with my gear. It may help to tell them I'm happy to provide some images to the artist that they can use for self promotion. Usually I try to crop out my client's face on those, but it's up to them.
One good thing about photographing tattoo sessions is that it doesn't really take too long. Unlike a wedding, you don't have to photograph the whole thing. The two subjects aren't moving around much and there are only so many angles you can shoot from in a typical tattoo parlor. I'd say an hour is plenty. I typically charge $150.
After the tattoo has healed, I recommend scheduling a second photoshoot in my studio to document the new tat in all it's colorful glory.
]]>Studio Shoot With Adryana and the
Tamron 85mm F/1.8 VC
NSFW
This edition of An Adventurous Photographer in Portland includes three elements. The first is our lovely model Adryana, who recently moved to Portland and is available for paid work with local photographers. You can find out more about Adryana on Model Mayhem, Tumblr or Facebook. She's great to work with and very professional.
The second element is the location. We shot these images in a very cool rental studio called Buck East Studio in Southeast Portland. It's on the second floor of an old two story industrial building. It is quite a large room, with tall windows running almost the complete length of the South facing wall. There is also a very effective skylight if you want the light to come from above. There are several movable panels that act either as white reflectors or darker neutral backgrounds. The walls and floors are mostly white, so you are going to get soft light whether you want it or not!
There are two Alien Bees if you want to use them, but I go there for the amazing available light. All the photos in this post were taken using natural late afternoon daylight on a partly cloudy Portland day.
The third element is the new Tamron 85mm F/1.8 Di VC USD lens which I received an hour before I was scheduled to head for the studio. I did a quick focus calibration on my Canon 5D Mark III, like I always do with a new lens, and headed for the studio to meet up with Adryana.
Since 85mm lenses are considered portrait lenses, and that is certainly how I intend to use it, I started with a fairly standard portrait. The very soft light is good for portraits, but makes it a bit difficult for a lens to show off its inherent sharpness. Here is the full frame image of our first pose.
You may notice some darkening in the corners of the image. That is called vignetting, which from a purely technical standpoint, may be considered an undesirable lens aberration. In actual practice however, portrait photographers generally like vignetting as a style element. If it isn't present, I often add it in post processing. Let's crop this image down to more of a typical headshot and see how it looks.
Not bad for an available light headshot with minimal makeup and no retouching. This was taken at ISO 200, F/2 and 1/125th. With my old Canon EF 85mm F/1.8 lens, the fine details would probably not be too sharp at this aperture and shutter speed. Let's zoom in on the eyelashes and see how sharp they are. My apologies to Adryana for not doing any retouching, but lens test shots should be unretouched.
We moved to a spot underneath the large skylight and I placed some white reflectors in front of the model to both the right and left of the camera to avoid the lit-from-above look. This shot is cropped to about half the original size.
After working with the skylight for a while, we went back to the area illuminated with window light. Here's another shot with the 85mm lens.
I moved back as far as I could and just barely managed to capture a full body portrait. Generally, the 85mm focal length is not your best bet for full body shots, but I have to say this lens really is quite sharp, even near the corners.
Still using the window light, I used a satin-like gold backdrop and switched to a lens I really like for full body portraits, the Canon EF 35mm F/2 IS. All of the following images were taken with this lens wide open for a shallow depth of field.
At this point, I decided to try shooting directly at the windows. There are at various ways to make this work. The simplest way is what you see in the first photo. It is exposed properly for the model, while the windows are allowed to exceed the camera's dynamic range and go completely white.
Another fun option is HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. Without going into great detail, this involves shooting multiple images, in this case only two. One was exposed for the model and one for the windows. The images are combined with image processing software. I used Photomatix Pro for this one, but I will often do this within Lightroom. Note that I did not use a tripod. The software is now so good that it will combine hand held photos quite nicely. Photomatix tends to give you a pretty artistic or surreal effect compared to what you get with Lightroom.
The new 85mm Tamron is definitely a keeper and so is Adryana if you need a great model in Portland. That's all for this episode of "Tales of an Adventurous Photographer in Portland, Oregon." See you next time!
]]>Beyond Boudoir Photo
Gallery Show at Club Privata
Thursday - June 2nd - 2016 - 6 to 8 PM
Portland, Oregon
Please join the friends of Beyond Boudoir Photo for a gallery show at Club Privata, an upscale Portland sex-positive lifestyle club. Over 20 framed images will offer a retrospective of the last seven years of Dr. Mike's intimate photography.
The subjects are real people from the Portland sex-positive and fetish community. The images show them having fun and enjoying their sexuality in a way that comes through to the viewer. Since Club Privata is an over-21 venue, explicit works will be included.
You know Beyond Boudoir likes to do things a bit differently. Unlike a typical gallery show, these prints will not be for sale. Instead, they will be given away to the people who are captured in each photograph. If you do find one that you must have, please ask for a print of your own, which can be provided within two weeks for $150.
Note: The photos are all used with the permission of those who posed for them. This does not affect my strict privacy policy for paying clients.
Admission to Club Privata is absolutely free during the gallery show - no membership required. There is a full bar with excellent bartenders and a very good free buffet. If you have been curious about Club Privata, this is a great chance to check it out at no cost and get a feel for the vibe at this great new Portland club. After 8 PM, the club is cleared and the evening's normal adult lifestyle time begins. If you wish to ask about membership, please inquire at the welcome desk.
Club Privata is located at 824 SW First in downtown Portland, Oregon. Parking on the street is usually easy to find after 6 PM, however this is Rose Festival season and there will be activities along the nearby waterfront. You will probably be more likely to find parking farther away from the waterfront. After the show, you may wish to enjoy the waterfront attractions.
A Boudoir Photographer Makes a House Call
The vast majority of boudoir photoshoots take place in a photographer's studio. Many women find this to be a comfortable choice. Leaving their usual environment behind allows them to free their sexuality for a short time and enjoy creating sexy images that would normally be a step too far outside their comfort zone.
But some women are more comfortable posing in their own homes. It certainly is more convenient for them if they can find one of the rare boudoir photographers who makes house calls. The resulting images have a much different feel than images created in a studio. More natural and informal, even though the body is just as carefully posed.
As is my usual practice, I prefer to start with my client fully clothed. I use these initial shots to "learn the face" which means that I'm watching how her features change as she moves her head and changes her expression. We were using window light here, so I was carefully watching the shadows.
Pretty soon I'm comfortable with the light and have figured out the best angles. My client is also getting comfortable working with me, so we can move on to the next stage of the shoot.
So far, all these images were done with the Canon EF 35mm F/2 IS on my Canon 5D3. I find this to be a great combination for bedroom shoots where you need a wide angle lens, but not so wide that it distorts the subject. Also, the image stabilization is nice, since the natural light is often limited. This lens is sharp, but not painfully sharp like the Sigma Art lens. When shooting lovely ladies, I find that I prefer a softer rendering.
The following three photos make use of the softest form of window light, when the photographer has his back to the window. And just in case you are curious, there is very little retouching on any of these photos.
Starting with the next photo, I switched to the Canon EF 24-70 F/2.8 L II. The focal length was recorded as 25mm, which should cause some definite distortion of the perspective. And yes it does, see how her hips and legs look unnaturally small? Personally, I don't care for that look.
In order to add some variety to this shoot, I decided to do some art nude poses. Not strictly boudoir, but who is going to complain?
For the last scene, we used a stairway to create some unusual poses. I do love a good hair flipping photo and this seemed like a good place for that.
Of course my style differs greatly from standard commercial boudoir, that is entirely intentional!
Thanks to my friend Devi for playing the role of the happy housewife who wants naughty photos for her husband to look at while on his business trip.
Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog. There are lots more blog posts here if you'd like to explore further.
]]>Arizona Shootout Part Two
NSFW
Welcome back for more photos from the November 2015 Arizona shootout. I've already discussed most of the details in Part One, so this blog post will consist mostly of photos from the second day of the shoot.
The photo below was taken in a narrow alley between two old buildings. The width was roughly 5-6 feet, which allowed no direct sunlight to reach the model. The available light bounced back and forth between the light colored wall you see behind the model and the opposite wall which was weathered wood. This gave the light some very unusual characteristics and I just had to try it out!
The next three photos were taken in the shade with main illumination provided by a single strobe with umbrella. The blue sky and the light colored ground provided the fill light.
All the preceding photos were edited without any significant retouching. The one below has been touched up a little bit. I made the tan lines a bit more visible and lightened the eyes slightly.
If you are a photographer or model and want to hear more about the Arizona Shootout, feel free to contact me with questions.
]]>Yes, you can have your own private bondage photoshoot!
Very NSFW
Potential clients always have their own ideas about what they wish to include in their private erotic photoshoot. As a sex-positive photographer I am constantly asked if I will photograph a particular fetish. of course the answer is yes, as long as it doesn't involve a snake (apologies to our reptile friends) or anything that's illegal or non-consensual. Everyone has to have limits, right?
Pretty simple so far, but what if a client needs another person to help complete the scenario she has in mind? I don't mind helping when I can, but I'm limited by the need to stay behind the camera and take lovely pictures.
If you are a follower of this blog, you know that when clients pay me for a private photoshoot, their images never appear on these pages. So, what you are about to see wasn't a paid photoshoot, it is what I call a trade shoot. My two friends received free photos, you get to appreciate the result and I get to promote my services. Win, win, win!
The female model is a 30-something single mom who has minimal experience with bondage, but does have a burning desire to experience as much as she can. She doesn't have a partner, but was fortunate to run into my friend at a fetish party in a large city.
My male friend who has the great rope bondage skills loves to tie up willing ladies and is available to do so again if you are interested. He is very safety conscious and highly trained. There are various terms for people who have these skills - I like to call them "riggers."
If you are curious about bondage, perhaps a big fan of Fifty Shades of Gray, but don't have someone to tie you up, you do have the option of scheduling a rope bondage photoshoot with Beyond Boudoir Photo. What you do with the photos is entirely up to you! A lot of my work seems to turn up on a site called FetLife.com.
The rope used in these photos was made by an artisan in the Seattle area. The use of custom made, natural fiber, rope is now a big thing in the world of rope bondage.
The person being tied is often called a "rope bottom" or "rope bunny." You will also notice that the rigger is using some lengths of bamboo. These help keep the rope bottom in a particular position and it allows the rigger to apply various kinds of leverage. In this case he is twisting a rope that goes between her legs which applies a pleasant pressure to a sensitive area.
Most of the techniques currently in use are borrowed or adapted from Japanese practices that date back hundreds of years. You can look up kinbaku here to learn more.
Rope bondage play does not have to be sexual at all, but in this case our intrepid performers wished to explore some of the erotic aspects of the art.
Some riggers are purists and never mix rope bondage with other forms of bondage. However, my friend wanted to try out his new toy which was a beautifully made wood device something like stocks. Our model certainly liked it!
One of the reasons people like to get tied up is that it puts them in a mildly altered state of consciousness. One current popular term for this is being "rope stoned." Some say it's caused by the release of endorphins. It certainly makes people relax, often their eyes will roll back and their mouth will go slack. That's great for them, but as a photographer, I wonder if that looks attractive in the photos. What I do is ask the model/client if she wants images that show her looking rope stoned.
Careful hair pulling is another way to create an altered state of mind.
Lots of people combine SM play with bondage. In this case, that wasn't the plan, but we decided to use a pretty (and expensive) whip as a prop. It's called a "Tomcat" and it is a very sensual toy. In these photos the rigger is just dragging it across her skin.
An important goal for me is to show the "bottom" enjoying the fetish activities. Since Fifty Shades of Gray became popular, there is a lot of interest, but there is also a lot of misinformation out there.
Beyond Boudoir Photo does private erotic photoshoots for women and couples. If you want to know more, read the FAQ, check my rates and contact me with your questions.
Technical notes: The entire shoot was done with a Canon 5D3 and an EF 24-105 F/4 lens. Lighting was provided by three Alien Bees monolights with various modifiers. The first photo was slightly retouched - all the others are unretouched.
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Another Fine Art Nude Photoshoot in the Art Studio
I had to go back to my friend Glenn's art studio for another shoot. The great daylight, the big stunning paintings and the old run down parts of the building were calling me back. I waited for the perfect model to be available. This lovely young lady uses the name Glass Olive on Model Mayhem. She travels around working with photographers, so if you are a photographer and she happens to be in your area, you should give her a try.
The first two photos make use of the vertical wooden beams that are 100+ years old. None of these photos have any significant retouching, just cropping and exposure adjustment.
The next three photos show the lovely window light and rustic interior. I added a bit of fill light from one of my trusty Alien Bees with a simple umbrella.
Now we begin to include some of Glenn's amazing paintings!
This shot with the black, white and red painting was so dramatic that I felt an urge to add something unusual. Guess I got a bit carried away with the grain slider!
That really is a painting behind Glass Olive. It is all black, only the texture is visible.
If you think those paintings are big, wait till you see this one!
Believe it or not, Glenn doesn't really have a web site to promote his art. If you'd like to contact him about buying one of his paintings, drop me an email and I will forward your contact info.
That's all for now!
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The Kinky Wedding Photographer
When I started Beyond Boudoir Photo a few years ago, one of the promises I made to myself was that I would not shoot any weddings. I've done a few for friends and relatives over the years. I enjoyed the challenge, but it comes with way too much stress for what photographers get paid. I really admire wedding photographers. They have to hustle, they have to have good technical skills and they need to be good at promoting themselves. That doesn't fit in with the fact that Beyond Boudoir Photo is my retirement business. I just want to enjoy the art and science of photography, promote a sex positive philosophy and help people feel better about themselves. I leave the stress to others.
So how did I end up agreeing to photograph a wedding?
Well, a couple from the Portland BDSM community found me on FetLife.com last year and asked me to do a private photoshoot for them. So now they are getting married and... who ya gonna call?
So why did I agree to take on this job? First the couple in question are just about the sweetest people you can imagine. They really deserve to have nice photos of their wedding.
Second, the wedding ceremony is going to be very kinky, probably involving some artistic bondage and morphing into a BDSM play party for the invited guests. And the couple is, shall we say, an atypical pair. Can you imagine trying to find a regular commercial wedding photographer who would be comfortable with that kind of scenario?
So that's why I broke my self-promise and decided to shoot a wedding. I'm actually kind of excited about it!
POST WEDDING UPDATE:
In case you were wondering, I survived the wedding and created some great photos for the bride and groom. Some of my favorite photos were taken in the hours before the wedding as the bride was preparing with the aid of her kinky bridesmaids. They had a great time in the master suite of the mansion where the wedding was held. I will only share one photo here. Hope you enjoy it!
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An NSFW Fine Art Nude Photoshoot
There are plenty of photographers who do fine art nude photography. You can tell it's "fine art" because the model is not smiling... seriously! Well, maybe that's a slight over-simplification, but what definition would you use for fine art nude photography?
Another common characteristic of fine art nude photography, is that the model is placed out of the usual context. Instead of being nude in her boudoir, in her bath or with her lover, she is standing nude in a forest, on a deserted city street, or in an empty factory. If those locations are not available, you can pose her in front of a featureless background and still call the resulting image an art nude if the lighting is dramatic enough.
Just for fun, I decided to do my own "Beyond Boudoir" style of photoshoot that could be undeniably labeled "fine art," so here's what I did. I contacted a friend who is a painter and asked if I could shoot in his studio surrounded by his works of fine art! And just to make sure, I even took one shot where the model was not smiling!
Who can argue with that?
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 50 1.2 L, F/1.2, ISO 800, 1/100 sec.
The photo above would probably be a big hit on Model Mayhem, but to me it looks like she's thinking, "This photographer is sooo... annoying, why did I agree to work with him?" I really prefer smiling models in my portfolio, because it looks like they enjoyed shooting with me!
All the photos you see were captured using available light (and with minimal post-processing in Lightroom.) One of the great things about art studios is that they always have nice window light, which is wonderful for photos of people if you know how to use it.
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 50 1.2 L, F/2.8, ISO 400, 1/100 sec.
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 35 F/2 IS, F/2, ISO 100, 1/30 sec.
If you check the exposure data on the shot above, you will notice that I used the stabilized lens at 1/30th, a bit slow for me, but there is no loss of sharpness. This 35mm prime is great for full body portraits under available light. They say this lens has some vignetting wide open, but I wanted more so I added some in Lightroom.
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 35 F/2 IS, F/2, ISO 200, 1/30 sec.
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 50mm F/1.2 L, F/2, ISO 200, 1/50 sec.
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 50mm F/1.2 L, F/2, ISO 200, 1/50 sec.
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 24-70 L II @35mm, F/2.8, ISO 400, 1/50 sec.
Window light does tend to be pretty blue, so you have to adjust the color balance to your own taste. If you compare the photo above and the one below, you will see that my mood shifted slightly while I was working in Lightroom. :) Generally, I feel most viewers of nude images prefer a warmer look.
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 24-70 L II @50mm, F/2.8, ISO 400, 1/50 sec.
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 50 F/1.2 L, F/1.2, ISO 200, 1/40 sec.
OK, enough with the art studio. The next three photos were taken in a different part of this old historic brick building in Portland, Oregon. There were no big windows to flood the room with light, just small windows that gave a more directional light. We had to be careful, as this area was used to store all sorts of odd stuff and debris.
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 50 F/1.2 L, F/2 ISO 400, 1/100 sec.
The photo above uses the small window as a back light, which makes the hair the center of attention. I wanted a little light on the face, so I picked up a broken piece of white painted wallboard with nasty nails sticking out and carefully held it up with my left hand while holding the camera in my right. Then we moved away from the window to a pretty dim area of the room.
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 50 F/1.2 L, F/1.2, ISO 1600, 1/100 sec.
These last two photos are far from any window and I had to push the ISO up to 1600 on my trusty 5D Mark 3. I tried the backlit hair trick, but this far from the window it didn't work. You can see where the window light is behind the model. And yes, that is a Christmas tree back there!
Fortunately, there was a second window behind me that provided enough indirect light to illuminate the model. I forgot to ask my artist friend about the odd sculpture, but I think it may be a fish - or not.
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 50 F/1.2 L, F/1.2, ISO 1600, 1/100 sec.
If you are interested in a sexy photoshoot of your own, please contact me here.
If you are a photographer and want to know more about Chrissy, our lovely model, you can find here here on Model Mayhem. She really is quite talented and well worth her modeling fee. Check her out, she may be traveling to your area!
]]>Fifty Shades of Grey Photoshoot
in a Portland Hotel Room
NSFW!
As everyone knows by now, some of the hot scenes in Fifty Shades of Grey take place in Portland hotel rooms. Although Fifty Shades is pure fantasy, using Portland for some of the action is pretty realistic, since Portland has a large and thriving BDSM scene. Look up Portland Leather Alliance if you want to know more.
I've always enjoyed doing naughty shoots for couples in hotel rooms. It's fun walking past the front desk, acting like an ordinary businessman, knowing that I'm going to be helping in someone's secret erotic adventure. As I have said many times in the pages of this blog, the photos I take for paying clients are absolutely private and you will never see them. Occasionally, I do what I call a "trade shoot" with a woman or couple that are happy to have their images shared with you. They get a free photoshoot, I get images for my portfolio and you get to see the results. It's a win-win-win situation!
Couples often request that I do some sexy shots of the lady first, then the two of them together. You will notice that this lovely lass is enjoying the attention!
For the last several years, the hot trend in the BDSM world has been rope bondage. Not just any rope bondage, but artistic, Japanese-inspired bondage. The woman who asked for this photoshoot has a friend who is an expert in the rope arts. He did not want his full face to be in any images I post here and I had no problem with that; it's a frequent request.
This shoot was done in the late afternoon to take advantage of the natural window light. When shooting on the bed, I also placed a studio strobe at camera right with a gold umbrella to add some interesting color. The entire shoot was done with a Canon 5D Mark 3 and Canon's amazing 24-70 F/2.8 L II lens.
To get the shot below, I was actually standing on the bed looking down at my client. Not an easy thing with the soft and springy mattress used in this upscale Portland hotel.
Afterwards, the happy couple made a visit to the local sex-positive nightclub known as Club Sesso. Check it out if you are visiting Portland and wish to broaden your sexual horizons.
Hope you enjoyed the sexy images! If you happen to be coming to Portland, I'd love to do an erotic photoshoot for you and/or your partner. I can also be persuaded to travel to your city, if your budget is flush. You can contact me here.
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An Erotic Couple's Photoshoot May 2015, NSFW
Most of the photoshoots I do for couples are stricty and irrevocably private. One reason couples come to me is to maintain complete control of their own images. Because of my privacy guarantee, those images will never show up on this site or anywhere else.
Occasionally, a couple offers to do a "trade shoot" which means that they get a free photoshoot and I get to share the results with you. This wonderful couple enjoys posing and creating art that they can share publicly. Part of our agreement was that the man's face would not be recognizable. I think the fact that we did the shoot in their home helped them feel more relaxed. I loved working with the great natural window light.
This couple is pretty typical of those who use my services. They are athletic and proud to be in great shape when many others their age are not. They are also very much in love. It's my job to show that in a way that they will appreciate, now and many years from now when they, or perhaps their great-grandchildren, look at these images.
Color vs. black and white is an important decision in this type of shoot. I prefer black and white when there aren't any interesting colors. That was the case for most of this photoshoot, but there were a few situations where colors entered the scene. You can decide which you like best. Leave a comment if you wish.
Can you feel the love? Please say a silent thank you to my friends for allowing me to share their intimate photos with you.
]]>What Makes You Most Nervous About Having An Erotic Photoshoot?
Since I started this site over two years ago, I've had a lot of inquires from folks who are interested in paying me to do an erotic/intimate/naughty photoshoot for them. Many of them seem quite excited about it, but the most striking thing I've noticed is that only a small percentage ever go through with the shoot. Those that do are very happy with their images and almost always say they would do it again.
There are many things that can cause a person or couple to change their minds about doing an erotic photoshoot. Their relationship situation could change, their job or health status could change, maybe they just get too busy. But I think the most common cause is that people simply get nervous. If I have a chance to meet with a potential client, the nervousness mostly goes away and once we actually begin the photoshoot, they find they are actually enjoying themselves in ways they haven't before. I love watching the transformation. Unfortunately, many are unwilling to take our conversation beyond email and never make it past the barrier.
I could list several things that might make people nervous, but I'd rather hear directly from you. If you are considering an erotic photoshoot, I would love to trade some emails with you regarding the things that make you most nervous. In return, I'll send you the passwords to the protected galleries, if you like.
Drop me a note here and tell me your thoughts!
Feel free to respond no matter how long this blog post has been up. Thanks for your time!
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What's The Best Lens For A Foot Fetish Photoshoot?
A friend recently asked me to shoot some photos for her foot fetish web site. I find virtually all fetishes fascinating, so I readily agreed if she would allow me to share the images with you.
When I do fetish photoshoots, I take advantage of the opportunity to learn about that particular fetish from my model. My friend Faune explained that she wanted more than just simple images of her feet; her clients were also interested in shoes and socks, as well as the angles at which her feet were displayed. Even her posture and facial expression would be important.
As I prepared for this photoshoot, I had to think pretty hard about which lens would be best. You might enjoy hearing a little about what goes through my head when I'm planning a shoot, so here goes:
Sometimes I use several prime (single focal length) lenses and switch lenses a lot during the shoot. I make the switch when I tell the model to change positions. However, for this shoot, the model knew more about what she needed than I did, so she would be directing me. I felt that I had to be ready to shoot without making her wait for a lens change. That meant I needed a zoom lens.
I had two zoom lenses available, a Tamron 28-75 F/2.8 and a Canon 24-105 F/4 L IS. I have used both enough to trust them. The Tamron is much smaller and lighter, but the Canon would allow me to zoom in closer at the long end of its zoom range; I felt this might come in handy for closeups of shoe details. The Canon also has image stabilization, which can make for sharper images by reducing camera shake, but using studio strobes made that irrelevant. The short duration of the strobes freezes all types of motion.
The Tamron offers a wider F/2.8 aperture, which gives you shallow depth of field and blurs the background for an artistic look. However, I would probably be shooting at F/5.6 or 8 under the bright studio strobes, so that is another factor that is irrelevant for this shoot.
The photo below, like most of these, was shot at F/6.3. I focused on the foot and let the face go just a bit blurry.
The Canon is definitely the sharper of the two lenses. That, combined with the longer zoom range made me decide in favor of the Canon. So I did the whole shoot with the Canon 24-105 F/4 L IS lens.
In my opinion, the 24-105 is a real workhorse. One reason it isn't talked about a lot by pro photographers is that it's not very expensive. Canon flooded the market with these lenses by including them with thousands of camera bodies as part of a "kit.' Some retailers break up the kit to sell the body and lens separately. Right now, you can find these lenses for not much over $600 US on Ebay.
Another factor in favor of the 24-105 is that its a very durable lens. The folks at LensRentals.com keep track of how often their rental lenses need repairs and they have said this is one their most reliable lenses. I'm not hard on lenses, but it's nice to know it won't wear out easily from being used.
I would highly recommend the Canon 24-105 F/4 L IS lens to any Canon shooter who is making the upgrade to a full frame Canon body, but isn't ready to spend thousands for the really high end professional lenses.
Of course I had to ask Faune to pose for one of my usual artistic nude portraits, so here she is without her shoes:
Since we were shooting under controlled conditions, we got over 700 images for Faune to use. Only a handful were rejects due to posing issues.
Thanks for reading!
]]>When a photographer doesn't have regular access to a studio, they are envious of photographers who do. But those of us who do have a studio tend to get pretty tired of it after a long Winter of indoor shooting. With the arrival of Spring weather, my model friend Maria shared my desire to do an outdoor shoot. My photographer friend J, aka: Zen Hick Photography, kindly volunteered to be my lighting assistant, a valuable thing to have for a night photoshoot. If you like the photos below, you can see all 150 images that I selected as "picks" or "keepers" from this shoot by visiting this gallery. Keeping in mind the fact that Maria has modeling experience, I think the gallery can give a prospective client a rough idea of how I work. Also please note that Maria is in her late thirties, not a skinny, 19 year old.
My plan was to shoot at some of the many fountains that are distributed around downtown Portland. We started out at the Skidmore Fountain, as you can see in the image above. It is in the old, historic part of Portland and has some cool white columns nearby that create an interesting background. We arrived at dusk and took advantage of the fading light in the Western sky. The MAX trains run by the fountain and you can get some interesting effects with slow shutter speeds.
The photo above was taken at the site of the Portland Saturday Market, which just happens to turn into a fountain on weekdays. The market area has a roof over it, which would certainly attract homeless folks when the market is not set up. I could not find any info to back up my theory, but I would bet that the fountain is primarily there to keep homeless people from camping out on the nice dry Market site.
All the lighting for this shoot was provided by a single Alien Bees monolight powered by a Vagabond Mini Lithium battery pack from Paul C. Buff, the maker of Alien Bees. The only light modifier used was a 30 inch umbrella with an integral white fabric diffuser. This is a very cheap alternative to the popular Octobox units. I don't like to take expensive light modifiers outdoors, because the wind usually knocks them over at least once. Sure enough, our light stand fell over once and caused some damage to one of the umbrella spars. No problem, we used it for the rest of the shoot and I recycled it when I got home. About $15 expended, not a big deal, I have more in reserve!
Maria decided to take off her sweater and kneel on one of the concrete blocks that was just outside the water spray. It was a beautiful, warm evening after a few weeks of cool rainy weather. One thing I've learned is to let models do their thing when they have a pose in mind.
There is a fire station in this area with nice glass doors. It was a little tricky balancing the indoor light with the light from the Alien Bee, but it just took a minute. We were able to include some brief nudity. Nobody cared... this is Portland.
Did I mention the historic columns? They make a great place to pose, especially at night. We ended up spending an hour within fifty yards of the Skidmore Fountain, then decided to move to the next fountain on our list.
This is the Lovejoy Fountain. If you follow the link for more info, you will no doubt notice that the fountain was turned off when we arrived on a Thursday night. At first we were angry, but then we realized that the dry steps of the fountain made a fantastic place to pose our lovely model.
I think Maria enjoyed flirting with my friend J who was holding and aiming the light.
I liked this shot without any retouching, because it makes the model look strong and sexy, not soft. A bit different from my usual style. We spent an hour at the Lovejoy Fountain before we called it a night. If you want to see all 150 shots from this photoshoot, (some NSFW) just click through this gallery. No password needed.
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Road Trips, Lolitas and Motorcycles!
NSFW
Gentle Readers,
You may have noticed that I haven't added to this blog in a while. I was on a trip to the Southwest US and have yet to master the art of blogging with an I-pad. I much prefer my custom made, high horsepower desktop work station. It was fun doing private photoshoots and visiting friends in Vegas and Phoenix. The weather was so beautiful! Perhaps someday I might spend the cold part of the year in one or both of those warm cities. Sorry I can't share any of the private photos I did for clients there, but I do have a few goodies for you. Follow the links if you want to know more.
The shot below is an abstract nightscape showing one of the large hotels on the Vegas strip at night with the eerie reflections of other tall buildings. I shot it with my Canon T5i and 18-135mm lens. This combo is great for travel, much smaller and lighter than my professional cameras. It also allows you to use a much lighter tripod for night work!
Here is a photo of famous US Route 66 in Arizona, just East of the historic mining town of Oatman. It's hard to believe this used to be a major cross-continent highway!
One of the highlights of my trip was a visit to Taliesin West, the Winter home and school of the famous architect Frank Loyd Wright. If you go, be sure to pay for the 90 minute guided tour. It's expensive but worth every penny. The image below shows one of the many sculptures on the grounds.
Immediately upon returning to Portland, I did a "Lolita" photoshoot for a young lady after checking her ID three ways! (If you are not truly over 18, please do not ask for a naughty photoshoot!) The definition of Lolita is pretty vague. Last year I did a shoot for a model who called herself a "Goth Lolita" and the two Lolitas could not look more different. I think I'd call this one "kinky Lolita."
Yesterday I met up with my friend Anna who wanted photos of herself looking sexy with her motorcycle. She rides a red Ducati, which made for some dramatic photos. She is a local model who loves posing with her Ducati.
I've also been busy responding to many inquiries regarding erotic photoshoots for couples. If I missed responding to yours, please use the contact form to send me another note.
That's all for this post, stay tuned for more...
]]>A PHOTOSHOOT FOR BRANDY
NSFW
One of the most frequent comments I get from visitors to this site is the impression that I only work with women who are amazingly attractive. That is definitely not the case, but there are reasons why it looks that way.
The most obvious reason is that I go to great lengths to make each women look her best. But there is another factor at work here.
Most of the "normal looking" women I work with are paying clients, whose images are strictly private and can't be shared here. Most of the photos you see are of professional models who need images for self-promotion. These women are quite comfortable posing nude and sharing the photos with you. This results in eye catching photos, but gives the unfortunate impression that I only work with gorgeous professional models. Sometimes I do have a chance to work with a non-model who is willing to have the photos shared here in return for a free photoshoot. I call that a "trade shoot," but the old industry term is TFP or "trade for prints."
Brandy is a sweet thirty-something woman who just wants to dabble in nude modeling for the fun of it. She has discovered that she loves being in front of the camera and was happy to volunteer to be the subject of this blog post.
Let's call this first photo, Basic Brandy:
This photo was taken after Brandy had her makeup applied by my lovely wife/assistant. Makeup is fairly important, but I feel that hair is even more important. In this case Brandy arrived with a beautiful new hair style that would help greatly with her photoshoot.
She wanted to make sure that we documented her unique tattoo, which we did. This is quite common. Here in Portland, almost all women have tattoos.
Now, with some creative posing and a bit of retouching we will turn Brandy into a glamourous model!
Looking glamorous is great, but I also like to capture the personality of my subjects. The photo below is unretouched. Notice the lines near her eyes. I could have removed them with photoshop, but I feel they help the viewer connect with the real Brandy.
In this last photo, I combine my "real girl next door" style with some good old fashioned retouching. Compare this one with the photo above to see the difference retouching makes.
My thanks to Brandy for allowing me to use her for this blog post. I hope you found it helpful. If you are a photographer in the Portland area and would like to work with Brandy, I believe you can find her here.
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A FIFTY SHADES OF GREY PHOTOSHOOT
NSFW
Several times in this blog I've mentioned the effect of the Fifty Shades of Grey novels. Millions of women have read them and been inspired to devote more energy to exploring their sexuality. I believe this is one of the reasons for increased interest in private erotic photoshoots.
Normally, my photoshoots are strictly private, so I depend on friends or paid models to pose for the images you see here on my site. Recently, a local couple kindly offered to allow me to use their images here in return for a free photoshoot. This is called a trade shoot. They wanted their photoshoot to be a bit kinky, which is something I am seeing more often in the post Fifty Shades era. In keeping with the book, they wanted a male dominant, female submissive theme. The husband preferred not to have his face in the photos, which is understandable and not a problem for me.
Please say a silent "thank you" to my friends and enjoy the photos they offer for your viewing. Scroll down to find my photography notes.
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Photography Notes
This fun couple received 48 photos like the ones you see above. I believe they were pretty happy with the results of their erotic photoshoot.
The first three photos you see above, the close-ups, were taken with the Canon 50mm F/1.2 L lens mounted on a Canon 5D Mark III. This lens is an expensive, specialist tool, much loved by wedding photographers. It's job is to blur objects that are not precisely in the plane of focus. In fact it creates massive blur, as you can see! This is often referred to as a "dreamy look." I rather like it! The first three photos were taken with the lens wide open and hand held. The illumination was provided by a large soft box containing six big, 85 watt compact fluorescent bulbs. Only four were turned on to keep the light down to a manageable level. My Paul C. Buff studio strobes are too powerful to use with this lens wide open at F/1.2.
This is only my second time using my new 50 1.2 and I can see some changes I want to make next time. I'm getting plenty of pretty blur, but I want to get the eyes of the model sharper. Always something to work on!
The latter three photos were shot with the Canon 24-105 F/4 L lens using the studio strobes. This combination tends to create very sharp pictures. If you compare the first three shots with the last three, the difference is pretty obvious. Notice the difference in how colors are rendered. I think both lighting systems have their places.
]]>The Free Pass
Not all of my photoshoots are erotic, many don't even include nudity, but lately most of my clients seem to be asking for truly erotic photoshoots. Maybe it's the Fifty Shades of Gray effect. Maybe my reputation is spreading. I'm not really sure about that, but I have been thinking about something that I wanted to share with my readers.
Scheduling an erotic photoshoot creates a variety of emotions for women and couples. Of course everyone is nervous, that's understandable. But something I've noticed during the years I've done erotic photography is very interesting. Many people, both men and women, experience heightened erotic feelings before, during and after their photoshoot. Why does this happen?
My theory is that the photoshoot gives them a free pass to express and enjoy their own sexuality.
We exist in a society that has some pretty messed up attitudes about sex. Just watch television for a while. Sometimes sex is bad, sometimes it's good, but you are never supposed to talk about it openly because it is somehow shameful. If you do talk about it, smarmy innuendo is the way to go. In this environment, the photo studio becomes a place of refuge where the crazy outside rules are left behind for a while. You are free to do whatever you like. Maybe the fact that the studio is in Portland has something to do with it, since the city is known for sexual freedom.
There is actually a social movement called the Sex Positive Movement that is worth checking out if you're interested. In nearby Seattle there is the Center for Sex Positive Culture that promotes healthy attitudes and safe exploration.
Another possible factor is the influence of pornography. We all watch some kind of porn and wish that we could do the things that the performers are doing. But of course that would be bad, so we don't. Being in front of the camera turns us into performers who aren't bound by the confusing rules of general society. The free pass doesn't last long, but you do have the pictures as testament to your bravery.
No doubt each person has their own reasons and influences. I'm sure I haven't thought of everything yet! Check back with me in a couple of years and I may have some new thoughts on this subject.
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Updated February 2023
Before I started this web site, most of my clients were local women who wanted photos for their lovers or to use on adult dating sites. But when people started to discover my site, that changed dramatically. Now, the most popular service I offer is the erotic photoshoot for couples. Originally, I thought that most of my clients would always come from the Portland area. Oddly, it hasn't turned out that way at all. Almost all of the couples who hire me to do erotic photos are from outside the Portland area. Not just outside the state, but from outside the region! I've worked with couples from Canada, Georgia, Montana, the UK, you name it!
It took me a while to figure out why this was happening, but I now think there are at least five reasons.
First, some people don't feel safe doing an erotic photoshoot close to home. They may live in a conservative area where sexuality is not a polite topic. They may have jobs that could be affected if naughty photos ever leaked out. Seeking out a photographer hundreds or thousands of miles away gives a bit more safety margin. At least you won't have to worry about a friend asking why they saw you walking into the photo studio on main street.
Second, people see my web site and realize that I'm comfortable creating the kind of images they want. It seems that the vast majority of "Boudoir" photographers want nothing to do with real eroticism. After being turned away by local photographers, it makes sense that a couple would expand their internet search to find what they need.
Third, many couples seek out my services because of my strict privacy policy. Not all photographers are willing to hand over the rights to the photos they have created. You may be able to negotiate an agreement, but why not just start with a photographer who respects your privacy from the start?
Fourth, Portland is a fun place to visit! In the summer, there is the Oregon Coast, the Cascade Mountains and the Columbia River Gorge within a two hour drive. In the Winter, Portlanders flock to Powell's Books, coffee shops, microbreweries, indie restaurants and small venues for live music. And don't forget the food carts!
Fifth, What happens in Portland, stays in Portland! No need to share intimate details with your friends and family at home, unless you want to!
Update, February 2023 - As you probably know, Portland now has a reputation as a city that has lost it's way. Like some other large cities, there are many problems that make Portland less fun to visit. But what you need to know is that much of the surrounding area is still working just fine. Recently, my visiting clients have found good hotels in Tualatin, Oregon and in Vancouver, Washington. All the scenic areas in Oregon and Washington are still just as beautiful. Feel free to call me before you make travel plans and I will offer whatever advice you wish.
A special thanks to my friends in the photo above for posing for me. When I do paid shoots for clients, the images are not available for use here on my site, so I depend on friends to help out.
]]>And a Review of the Sigma 50mm F/1.4 Art Lens
Most of my photoshoots for couples take place either in my studio or in a hotel room. The Portland weather pretty much forces you to shoot indoors for almost half the year. But when the weather cooperates, I love doing outdoor photoshoots. I have a mental lists of parks and other urban locations where you can create images that show a happy, sexy, couple in Portland.
I recently did a shoot with two friends who were willing to pose in exchange for images. They both do some modeling, so I was hoping they would be easy to pose. As it turns out, they were both delightful to work with.
Making use of the last dry weekend for the foreseeable future, we shot at two locations, a river front park and around Union Station, the Amtrak hub in Portland. We started at the park about an hour after dawn on a Sunday morning. There was some great fog on the river when we arrived, but by the time we walked out to do this shot, it was gone! Fortunately, the clouds shifted, allowing the pale morning light to illuminate what little fog remained.
This shot was taken with the famous 50mm F/1.4 Sigma Art lens on my Canon 5D3. I rented a copy of this new lens from LensRentals.com, because it is new and famous for its sharpness. Unfortunately, it is also known for erratic autofocus performance and I wanted to see for myself how it would work on my camera doing my kind of photography.
A 50mm 1.4 prime lens has two jobs to perform in this kind of photoshoot. It needs to make the people as sharp as possible and the background as blurry as possible. The blurry background is called "bokeh" by photographers and is the subject of spirited discussions.
I've owned the previous version of the Sigma 50mm 1.4 lens for a few years. It has some erratic focus habits that I've learned to work around. Here is a shot with that lens. I call it the Sigma 50 Classic.
Whenever I have a new lens, the first thing I do is perform some tests to see how well the autofocus works. I also perform Micro Focus Adjustment that calibrates the camera to work with the lens. With the Sigma 50 Art, I discovered some interesting things. If I used the center focus point in the viewfinder of my Canon 5D Mark III, the focus was fast and virtually perfect. Unfortunately, when using the outermost focus points, the lens front-focused horribly. Points in between the center and the edge had increasing focus error as you moved outward. I decided to use only the center focus point and see if I could do the planned photoshoot that way.
Here are some more images from the shoot, all done with the Sigma 50 Art lens. My friends had fun posing, as you can see. The first image is a good example of how a 50mm 1.4 lens can separate the subjects from the background. It's almost a 3-D effect.
Using only the central focus point in the viewfinder was working out very well! I'm using the lens wide open here to give the maximum background blur.
Portland is a very sexy city and it should come as no surprise that my models got a bit frisky!
I decided to cool things off a bit with a change of scenery. Miles is showing off his new suit, which was actually the original excuse to do this shoot.
Ah, what a happy Portland couple!
Ooops! There they go again. Well, what can you do? It's Portland!
So what do I think of the Sigma 50 Art lens? Well, I'm pretty frustrated. The lens is fantastically sharp, well constructed and has a fast autofocus motor. Unfortunately, the autofocus algorithms for the peripheral focus points are all screwed up. At the current price of around $900, I'm not at all interested in owning one. Hopefully, Sigma can fix the firmware one of these days and I will give this lens another look.
Thanks for reading my blog! If you would like a photoshoot of your own, use the contact form to send me a note.
]]>NSFW
They say that Portland is the strip club capitol of America - For whatever reason, there is a strip club on almost every major street in some parts of the city. Being a dancer is not an easy life. The hours are irregular and you may have to move from club to club. Girls who have advanced pole dancing skills tend to earn more than those who don't so there is an incentive to practice.
I enjoy doing photoshoots for dancers. It helps that I have a pole in my studio. It actually has bearings that allow the pole to spin, so you can hang on tight. Of course the pole can be removed when it isn't needed. I love trying to catch the girls at just the right moment as they spin around the pole.
Here are some examples that have not been retouched, as I usually do for paying clients:
You can just use the pole as a posing aid if you like. It helps the model hold poses that are flattering to her figure.
Photographing a model who is actively dancing is a cross between sports photography and artistic figure study. You can capture some amazing musculature at work.
The strobe lights freeze the motion, so I get some very interesting poses.
The model does not necessarily have to be nude. There are all kinds of costuming options.
If you know of any pole dancers who would like some professional photos, please send them my way!
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Rainy Season in the Pacific Northwest
Panther Creek Falls Video
As a young photographer growing up in the Portland area, I was fascinated by waterfalls. Learning to photograph them well was my primary goal for many years. One of the first things you learn is to avoid sunny days. Bright sunlight creates way too much contrast for film or digital cameras to deal with.
The second thing you learn is that waterfalls have certain seasons where they look their best. Some look best during times of high water flow and some look best in the Summer when less water is flowing.
The video below shows Panther Creek Falls in the Southwest part of Washington State, near Mt. Adams. It was shot last May at maximum water flow. Two creeks tumble over the cliff at this spot, making this falls somewhat unusual.
Shooting video is a great way to capture a waterfall, especially on a nice cloudy day. Unfortunately, video has its own problem for the avid waterfall photographer - you can't turn the camera vertically! You have to use a different technique to show the whole waterfall from up close, or if the terrain allows, you can back up far enough to fit it into the horizontal frame. What I did here is to move the camera position, starting with the stream above the falls and working my way down.
The video runs less than two minutes. It was shot with my Canon 5D Mark III and a 28mm F/1.8 lens. Check it out and see what you think!
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Photographing a Girl and Her Camaro
NSFW
I love photographing people with their vehicles. Our vehicles are a big part of our lives, almost like family members. So when a friend asked me to photograph her posing with her new (to her) Camaro, I was immediately interested.
She wanted some sexy pix for adult dating sites and was willing to let me use the photos in return for a free photoshoot. That's called a trade shoot, by the way. In the old days, it was called "Trade For Prints" or TFP since the model would receive prints in exchange for her modeling services. For a while, it was called "Trade for CD" but that is old fashioned now as well. I just call it a trade shoot and I email the edited photos to the friend who has posed for me. That way they can easily send the images on to where they are needed with the click of a mouse or touch on their screen.
Deciding where to do a vehicle shoot is tricky. You don't want to block traffic or trespass on sensitive property. If you want to include some nudity, you need privacy. In this case we used a parking lot behind a vacant office building. I always prefer to work in the shade if possible, especially on sunny days when the direct light is harsh and unflattering.
I used a single Alien Bees unit with a battery pack and a simple reflector mounted on a light stand to add some fill light.
When the model leans against the shiny car, you are going to get big smudges. Fortunately I happened to have a microfiber towel handy!
If you want to attract a good man, try letting the air out of your tire!
The photo below is an example of what I call a "Faux Selfie." It's my shameless attempt to take advantage of the selfie craze. I'm still working on this technique. Hopefully the selfie craze won't end before I get it perfected.
If you pretend to have engine trouble, perhaps a handsome man will offer to help.
You may have noticed that the lovely model is a bit older than the girls who typically pose for the images in this blog. Actually, she is pretty typical of my average paying client. I believe the term "Cougar" applies here, so it may seem a bit odd that she drives a Camaro!
]]>Should I Choose a Male or Female Photographer?
When a woman begins to contemplate a sexy solo photoshoot, one of the first decisions she makes is the gender of her photographer. This is a very important question and it has two parts.
The first part concerns the comfort of the woman posing. Some women get very nervous being nude in front of a man, even if the purpose for that nudity is understandable and acceptable. Other women are more nervous being nude in front of a woman. They feel that women are more critical and may be thinking unkind thoughts that they don't reveal.
The most important aspect of a successful boudoir or erotic photoshoot is being comfortable with your photographer, so this question can't be dismissed. You should give it some thought and imagine what is best for you.
The second part of this question is if a male or a female photographer is more likely to get you the kind of images you want. This concept also applies to erotic couple's photoshoots. If you browse several photographers' web sites, you can see that a photographer's style is influenced by their gender. Here at Beyond Boudoir Photo, it's pretty obvious that I'm a male photographer.
Female photographers tend to gravitate toward standard commercial boudoir photography. This style is mostly about the photoshoot experience. The client is pampered, made up, and dressed in expensive looking lingerie. It's much like spending the afternoon at a spa. If the photographer is good at her job, the resulting images are a woman's fantasy of how she wants to see herself. The goal is to make her look like a celebrity. The photos are pretty tame and can easily be shared with friends and relatives.
Male photographers are more likely to bring out a woman's sexuality in a way that a man would appreciate. This can mean more nudity and more suggestive poses. Lingerie and makeup are useful, but they usually play a secondary role. I like to describe the difference in styles as "lingerie catalog vs. men's magazine." Also, some women seek out a male photographer because they feel they will get sexier images if they can flirt a little with the photographer and flirting with a woman doesn't work for them.
Let's say you want hot photos to excite your man, but you aren't comfortable posing nude with a male photographer you hardly know. A great solution is to bring along a trusted girlfriend, that way you get the best of both options!
One thing to watch out for: Many male photographers actually shoot art nudes rather than boudoir or erotic portraits. A typical example will have a nude model posed in some unlikely place, an abandoned building, in a forest or even on a deserted city street. The models are often not looking at the camera and are not in seductive poses. While these can be very artistic and demonstrate the photographer's skill, they may not evoke sexual feelings in the viewer.
Obviously I have oversimplified this rather complex situation. There is nothing to keep male photographers from shooting the commercial boudoir style images that are typically done by female photographers and in fact many do, since there is more money to be made in that genre. Most men who do this have female partners and assistants who help create the pampered experience that goes with this style.
Now here's a tougher question: Can female photographers shoot the more sexual images typically created by male photographers? On a technical level, of course they can. But from what I've seen, very few are comfortable or experienced with this style. It's an interesting example of the complex psychology involved in erotic photography.
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Erotic Photoshoot in a Portland Apartment
NSFW
One of the questions I'm often asked is if I will do an erotic photoshoot for someone in their own home or apartment. Of course, the answer is yes, but since the photos I take for clients are private, they can't be used here on my site. Photographers need examples of their work. That's why I recently paid a lovely Portland model for the privilege of doing a photoshoot in her apartment.
I did bring my studio lights with me, they are reasonably portable, but if possible I like to do this kind of shoot with available light. It helps preserve the atmosphere, I feel. In this case we had plenty of daylight coming in the windows. The first three shots were in the living room, which is on the north side of the apartment.
I did the entire shoot with three prime lenses, because I like the background blur I get from shooting at large apertures and the extra light is handy when shooting indoors. The camera was my trusty Canon 5D3.
The photo below was taken with a 50mm Sigma classic (not the Art lens) at F/2.8, ISO 400, 1/60:
Canon 85mm F/1.8 at F/2.5, 1/60, ISO 400:
Yes, the next photo is intentionally tilted. I picked up that style from Scott Church, a photographer who is known for his workshops and prolific nude work. Sigma 50 1.4 at F/2.0, 1/125, ISO 400:
The bedroom is almost always a great place for intimate photos. This image was created with a Canon 35mm F/2 IS lens, which I was renting from LensRentals.com to see if it belonged in my camera bag. I was shooting wide open to see how much background blur I'd get with this lens. I think it looks pretty good, but remember that this is very close range work, roughly three feet from the model's face. My back was against the bedroom wall, so the 50mm lens would not have worked. I was pretty happy with the sharpness of this lens; the model's eyes are extremely sharp, although you can't tell on an image this size.
The kitchen is a good place to get some fun, playful images. I used the Canon 35 F/2 IS wide open here to create some background blur. It worked pretty well in the first image, because I was only about 4-5 feet from the model. The windows are on the South side of the building with direct sun on the white blinds, so I deliberately let them be completely washed out.
The next photo looks like a great example of selective blur with a wide aperture lens, but looks can be deceiving. I was shooting about ten feet from the model, and there was actually very little background or foreground blur. I used photoshop to fake the blurry areas. Sometimes, Gaussian Blur is your friend!
Canon 35mm F/2 IS wide open at 1/60, ISO 400:
Same lens and settings as the photo above. Rather than creating fake blur to reduce the visual clutter, I cropped this one down to about 25% of original image area.
Arguably, the most intimate photos are taken in the bathroom. Space is usually very tight, so a wide lens like the 35mm is needed. I shot this one at F/3.2 in order to increase the depth of field a bit, but not too much. Do you notice that your eye bounces back and forth between the blurry real image and the sharp reflected image?
One more with the 35mm lens at F/2.5, 1/100, ISO 400:
That's all for this photoshoot. If you would like to have me do a photoshoot for you, please check my rates, read the FAQ and use the contact form to drop me a note. Thanks for reading!
]]>Canon 85mm Lens Comparison EF 85 1.8 vs 85 1.2 L
PART ONE
Portrait and glamour photographers who use full frame cameras love 85mm lenses for two main reasons:
First, this focal length helps keep a person's facial features in proportion. Shorter focal lengths can make the nose look too large. (Longer focal lengths require you to back away from the model, so they are harder to use indoors and can make it difficult to communicate with the model.)
Second, 85mm lenses are great at creating smooth background blur called "bokeh" that helps to separate the model from the distracting background. Photographers love to talk about which portrait lens creates the best bokeh.
The king of bokeh-producing portrait lenses is the Canon EF 85mm F/1.2 L, which sells for around two thousand dollars. You can check the latest price here if you wish: Canon Price Watch is a great place to keep track of current prices.
Canon also makes the EF 85mm F/1.8, which is about one fourth the cost of the "king." It also weighs much less, 425 grams compared to it's big brother's 1,025 grams! I've been using this lens for a few years with good results, but I've read so much about the 1.2 L that I had to try it out. Fortunately, there are good places to rent lenses. My favorite is LensRentals.com, where Roger Cicala has an interesting comment about this lens.
The lens arrived by FedEx on schedule, with a return shipping label included in the price. I had one week to try it out in my style of shooting and decide if it was worth two grand to me.
Here are the two lenses side by side. The first thing you notice about the 1.2 L is the odd shape, the second thing you notice is the massive weight. It feels like it is made of cast iron, because it weighs over two pounds.
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The first thing I do when I get my hands on a new lens, especially a large aperture prime lens, is test the focus accuracy. If necessary, I will use the Autofocus Micro Adjust feature on my camera to correct any front or back focus error. The method I use for this is primitive, but effective. The camera/lens combo is placed on a tripod, angled down toward a large cardboard chart that looks like graph paper. A simple piece of black tape makes a good focus target and the graph lines allow me to easily find the actual point of focus.
I like to test at roughly the distance that I expect to use the lens, since some lenses are known to have differing focus errors at different distances. In this case, the camera is ten feet from the target. Each one of the little squares is one inch, which will give you an idea of the depth of field. Ignore the differences in brightness and color, they are not caused by the lenses.
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Canon 1.2 L wide open
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Canon EF 1.8 can't compete here |
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Canon 1.2 L at F/1.8
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Canon EF 1.8 at F/1.8
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Canon 1.2 L at F 2.8
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Canon EF 1.8 at F/2.8
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I've used this grid chart to test at least a dozen lenses, so please allow me to add some comments based on my experience.
Neither of these lenses is built for absolute sharpness. They both have very visible chromatic aberration at wide apertures. You can see the obvious purple fringing just in front of the black target and mild green just behind it, especially in the wide open shots. They both lose some contrast and sharpness wide open. They both focus very accurately under these conditions. The 1.2 is using +1 AFMA and the 1.8 is using zero.
I don't see much difference in focus accuracy or sharpness. These are both great portrait lenses, which is my sole criteria for comparison. I did not check for vignetting, because I generally add a lot of that in post processing to get the look I want.
The most important thing to point out for most readers is the extremely shallow depth of field. Shooting at ten feet at F/1.2, there is roughly a three inch zone of sharp focus. Yes, that's why we use these lenses, but making it work for your style of photography can be difficult. It's a good thing they both autofocus accurately, if they didn't it would be a nightmare. And remember that your camera body is a big part of autofocus accuracy. Not all cameras focus as well as the 5D III.
The 1.2 is known to have a slow moving autofocus motor. If you aren't shooting sports, it probably isn't an issue. The only time I was bothered was when I tried to go from near the minimum focusing distance to infinity, not something I do very often.
With the focus calibration finished, it's time to shoot some real photos. On to part two, which is Not Safe For Work!
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Canon 85mm Lens Comparison EF 85 1.8 vs 85 1.2 L
PART TWO
NSFW
Now that I've explored depth of field and autofocus accuracy, it's time for me to use the Canon EF 85mm F/1.2L lens in a couple of photoshoots typical of my photographic style. The first shoot is in the studio, with Alien Bees strobes for illumination. Strobes generally make everything look pretty sharp and make lenses look their best. All shots using the expensive L lens on this page were shot wide open, at F/1.2. The 1.8 lens was also used wide open. The camera was a Canon 5D Mark III.
The first image is an example of how the shallow depth of field affects portraits. Standing about six or seven feet away, I put the focus point on the model's right eye. The photo is cropped so that we only see about 25% of the original image. You can see that the left eye is is undeniably out of focus. Some fans of this lens feel this is a good thing and use terms like "magical rendering" to describe this look.
If you want both eyes in focus, the model needs to have her face pretty square with the camera, like in the image below.
I backed up to about ten feet for the next one - minimal cropping. Still wide open at F/1.2, notice how some of the hair is quite blurred. Rather a nice effect, I think, but would I pay two thousand dollars for it?
Backing up to about 15 feet allows full body portraiture. At this range, all parts of the body are in good focus, only the background is blurred.
While the 1.2 is a fine lens, I wasn't really seeing any qualities that I needed for my studio work. I did, unfortunately, notice the weight and rather slow focusing. Neither was a big issue in the studio, but did negatively effect my overall impression of the lens.
Perhaps the 1.2 L would really show it's stuff outdoors? My old friend Miss Cupcake needed some photos for her blog to illustrate a post that combined her Gothic Lolita costume with some theatrical magic. Magical powers are often ascribed to the 85 1.2 L, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity!
The image below was taken with Canon's trusty workhorse, the 24-105, wide open at F/4. Notice that the background is only slightly blurred.
The two photos on the left were taken with the L lens wide open, The two in the right column were taken with my old 85mm F/1.8 wide open. Check them out carefully and see if you can spot the difference.
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F/1.2
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F/1.8
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F/1.2
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F/1.8
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Seeing these photos made me recall a comment I read about these two lenses a long time ago. Someone said that "The 1.8 blurs the background, the 1.2 obliterates it." I think that's a pretty accurate statement, but I was expecting a more dramatic difference. Perhaps you don't get the full effect of the huge aperture if you aren't standing close enough to the model. Let's get a bit closer and see what happens.
During the outdoor shoot, I really started to feel the weight of the 1.2. Switching back and forth with the 1.8 highlighted the difference. Even the big 24-105 was substantially lighter. I also found it difficult to keep the very active model in the zone of focus. Both the photographer and the model need to hold still or her face will slip out of the zone and look blurry. People have said that the 1.2 is not a good choice for sports due to the slow autofocus - I would add that the very shallow depth of field makes it difficult to use with moving subjects. If I had to use it, I'd stop it down to roughly F/2, but if I did that, I might as well use the EF 85 1.8, which is far lighter, has lightning quick autofocus and ties up a much smaller amount of my cash.
So what is this very expensive, heavy and slow focusing lens good for?
Thanks for reading my blog!
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Three Photoshoots for a Special Model (and her harp)
NSFW
My goal when photographing people is to capture their personality in still photos. Often, it takes more than one image. Sometimes I do more than one photoshoot, but it's not often that I do three photoshoots with the same model within a few months. In this case, the model was something special and it took three shoots for me to feel like I had captured her complex personality. Even then, there was something missing, which gave me a push to expand my limited video skills. So this blog post is the first one that includes a short video clip. After you view it, please leave a comment and tell me if you feel it added to the overall experience.
Her model name is elflilly and I found her on a well known website where photographers and models meet. She was just getting into modeling and wanted some nice photos for her portfolio. We started with a simple studio photoshoot. I was immediately impressed with her unusual combination of sophistication, womanly curves and a sharp intellect. Definitely not the norm for models in her age range!
Here are some photos from our first shoot. I used my typical studio setup of four Alien Bees. These two images were captured with my trusty Canon 85mm F/1.8 on the 5D3.
As regular readers know, I love to do urban outdoor shoots in downtown Portland, so it was an easy choice for the next shoot with Elflilly. The exact spots where I shoot vary with the weather and the time of day. I prefer to use the natural light and that means timing is critical. The first photos were taken on the East bank of the Willamette River. This one shows the Hawthorne bridge in the background. I have been experimenting with HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography and this seemed like a good spot for it. That's why the colors and tones have a somewhat impressionistic look.
The cloudy morning skies were slowly clearing, which meant that I'd need to keep the sky out of the photos to avoid the ugly white sky look. This stairway made a great stage for several shots. I used the 85mm lens at F/2 in order to blur the background. The white sky acted like a gigantic softbox as long as the model was facing South as she is in the first image. In the second, she is facing North and you can see that her face is not as well lit.
At this point the sun was starting to come out and the harsh light drove us into the shadows. The following image shows how you sometimes find white reflectors in the environment that supplement the overhead light.
Searching for more shaded areas, I decided to make use of this ancient bridge support, which gives a bit of a grungy, industrial look.
After getting to know Elflilly during the first two photoshoots, I realized that her harp is a big part of her life. She wanted to get some photos of herself looking sexy with her harp, so a third shoot was scheduled in my studio. I started with the white background for a high key look. I haven't photographed a harpist before and had fun figuring out the best poses and lighting. You have to watch out for the shadow cast by the harp on the model's body.
After several poses on the white background, it was time to change the mood and go for the black.
By this time, Elflilly had actually played short pieces on the harp several times, enough for me to discover that she really is quite talented. Music is something that still photos can't capture, so we agreed to shoot some video. I'm a still photographer, not a videographer, so please excuse the amateur quality. I shot this with my Canon 7D, which is my backup camera, using the internal microphone and a big softbox with compact fluorescent bulbs for lighting. The 5D3 is technically a better video camera, but since the clip was only intended to be posted on the net, I didn't think the extra image quality would be visible.
After this shoot, I have promised myself that I will work hard to improve my video skills. Perhaps you will be seeing more videos in this blog!
]]>High Dynamic Range for Portraiture
High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography involves the use of more than one image of the same subject that are created with different exposures. These images are combined during post-processing using special HDR software. The primary purpose of HDR photography is to record scenes that have a very large range of brightness, too large to be recorded by current digital camera sensors... like this photo of Diablo Dam. On the day I was there, the light was horrible for photography - harsh and glaring. By using HDR, I was able to control the tonal range in a way that resulted in a pretty, rather artistic photo, that looked more like the way the human eye would remember the scene.
There are several HDR programs on the market. The one I'm currently using is Photomatix Pro. Some of the latest cameras have a built-in HDR function that will do the work for you, but of course with less control.
In the simple version of HDR, you take three images as fast as possible, using variations in shutter speed to provide the different exposures you need for HDR. The camera must be on a tripod to keep the multiple photos exactly aligned. As you might guess, moving subjects are a problem, so HDR has traditionally been thought of as something used for landscape and still life photography. Photos of people were not considered a good use of the HDR technique. If the person moved slightly between exposures, the resulting photo would have annoying ghost images.
I have always loved taking waterfall photos. One thing a waterfall photographer quickly learns is that you don't photograph them on sunny days. The contrast between the white water and the dark surrounding terrain is just too much for either film or digital cameras to record. A few years ago, when I first heard about HDR, I eagerly tried an early version of Photomatix to process some waterfall photos. Due to the moving water and waving tree limbs, my HDR images looked pretty bad. I gave up on HDR for a few years. Just recently I tried again and found that I could create a usable waterfall image by combining three photos in Photomatix Pro. The software has become much smarter, especially when it comes to "de-ghosting" the images. Not only that, but it is so good at aligning the images, you no longer need to use a tripod! I put this to the test several weeks ago by shooting a three shot HDR series of Rainbow Falls in the North Cascades of Washington. No tripod used.
I was quite impressed at what Photomatix Pro could do with my hand held images. There is no way I could have created a usable photo of Rainbow Falls with normal photography at the time I was there. This photo was processed to give a natural appearance, but HDR has a reputation for creating wild, artistic effects that make photos look like paintings, as you will see in the next photo.
When I realized how much HDR software had improved, I decided immediately to find a use for HDR photography in my business of photographing people. My first attempt involved an outdoor shoot with a gentleman who wanted a portrait of himself and his car. I wanted to make use of a classic HDR effect - dramatic, stormy skies. We picked a spot that had a sentimental value for him and positioned the car so we could get plenty of sky in the picture. It was June in Portland, so the skies had some pretty nice clouds already. They were just too bright to capture in the same image with the subject and his car using normal photography. I used a tripod to help line up the shot precisely.
My client loved his photo, so I started using HDR for other outdoor portraits where I had a good view of the sky and some clouds to work with. The following image uses a more realistic HDR processing mode. Instead of the surreal style above, this one looks more like a regular photo. The main effect of the HDR is to give us a dark blue sky with wispy white clouds, while properly exposing the subjects on their motorcycle. Without HDR, the sky would have been a boring white. I think this shot looks a bit like an old Kodachrome photo as seen on postcards a few decades ago.
My next chance to use HDR was a shoot I did for a group of five "curvalicious" women who wanted to celebrate together at a local nude beach. For this shoot I left the tripod at home and truly put Photomatix Pro to the test.
I did an entire photoshoot handheld including several HDR images. I found that I could choose various processing options to create a fantasy look. More images from this shoot will appear in a future post.
This post may be updated as I find more uses for HDR photography in my work.
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NSFW
One of the most frequent requests I hear is to keep a client's face unrecognizable in her photos. There are now many places on the internet where a woman might want to post sexy photos without exposing her true identity, so naughty photographers need to understand how to do this well.
It can be a real challenge to make a client look sexy without showing her face, since the face is what shows the personality and gives the viewer a sense of connection. If possible, I always like to include eye contact with the camera in my boudoir and erotic images. I feel they are much more powerful that way. But sometimes with a paying client you must be able to hide the face while still creating sexy photos.
Here's my pet peeve: The worst possible way is to use an editing program to blur out the face or put a black spot over it, just like the old fashioned censors used to do with body parts that would be too shocking for public view. I hate that! And it is certainly very poor advertising for the woman in the photo. I'm not even going to post an example, you've seen hundreds of those on the net. Ugh!
There are many methods to capture a good erotic photo without showing the face and I will demonstrate a few of my favorites. The simplest is just to crop below the face. This works great if you have a shapely body and some nice exposed skin, like these three images:
You can use the hair to hide the face, if it's long enough. It's up to the client to decide how much of her face must be obscured, so I always discuss this with her in advance, then try to provide several variations for her to choose from. If the client has very long hair, it is tempting to just let it hang down in front of the face, like this example:
My problem with this pose it that there is too much hair in a rather featureless mass. It reminds me of "Cousin It" from the Addams Family. See what I mean?
I think the photo below is a somewhat better example of hiding the face with the hair. The black hair with reflected highlights forms a more three dimensional, sculpted head of hair.
Another way to avoid the Cousin It look is to break up the mass of hair with an arm or other object, so that the hair doesn't overwhelm the other elements of the composition, which are the various curves of the body.
I like the example below, because the hair is a good size in relation to the other elements, the hair has a nice three dimensional look and there are other sexy details to catch the eye.
My favorite method for hiding the face with the hair is to allow an eye, a mouth or a nose to show as you can see in the photo below. This can be tricky, because everyone has their own thoughts about how much of the face has to be hidden to protect someone's identity. I always discuss this with my client in advance to avoid creating photos she can't use.
If you have a shapely back and/or derriere to work with, you can simply have the model face away from the camera. But remember, the camera adds weight, so this works better for thinner and more toned subjects.
One of the easiest ways to avoid showing the face is to shoot close ups of the body parts that are traditionally considered erotic. Here is a rather tame example. FYI, most of my clients prefer something more graphic.
There are many other ways to hide the face during an erotic photoshoot. The subject can wear a mask, hold a scarf in front of her face or wear a wide brimmed hat tilted down.
The hardest situation to work with is when the client says she wants to look really sexy, but does not want to show her face or body. Yes, I've actually been asked to do that several times. It is possible to zoom in on a pair of feet in high heeled shoes, a pretty piece of jewelry or simply the subject's hands and make them look interesting, even elegant, but sexy? My guess is that many women would say yes, but most men would say no, so it depends on your target audience.
And one last thought about hiding the client's identity. It all depends on who she is hiding it from. If you are just trying to avoid the face-recognition software on social media sites, simply hiding most of the face is probably enough. But if you are trying to hide from an ex-lover, don't forget those pesky tattoos!
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NSFW
I receive many inquiries from women who are older than the typical models one sees in the media. They want to know if I do nude photoshoots for women over a certain age. My answer is always yes, but I write back with a few questions that will help me create the kind of images they are imagining.
The first question I ask is if there are certain parts of the body they want to show off or hide. The answers I get back vary a lot. Some moms want to hide their stretch marks or scars. Others want to show them off as proud battle scars. If a woman is into physical fitness, she might want to show off her toned muscles. Sometimes they have a great smile, attractive breasts or pretty feet. Sometimes she has a very attractive feature that she is not aware of and I have the fun of discovering it during her photoshoot.
I recently worked with a thirty-something model who helped me illustrate some concepts that you might find interesting. The image below illustrates the importance of the face in determining both a person's age and their personality. As you can see, this model has age signs around her eyes. Some clients want me to remove these with Photoshop, which I can certainly do as you can see in this example of facial retouching with Photoshop. But personally, I like to leave these age signs more or less as they are. Maybe it's because I'm an old guy now myself. I think it makes a woman seem more interesting, experienced and intelligent.
If I back up a little, the age signs are less noticeable and there are other pretty things to attract the viewer.
An almost full body portrait makes those pesky wrinkles inconsequential! The angle of the lighting helps too.
I shot this sans-face image for another blog post I'm planning, but decided to use it here since it shows how perspective control can change or emphasize the proportions of the body. It was taken with a 50mm lens which is usually ideal for this type of portrait. In this case the pose makes body parts closer to the camera appear larger and the parts farther away look smaller. It's a great way to change the model's proportions if you wish to do so. This particular model had legs that were naturally a bit large, so I wanted to make them look smaller.
I also softened the skin to hide small blemishes and sun damage. Most clients appreciate this, but I always ask first.
To illustrate how different lenses change the perspective and therefore the proportions of the model, I took the two shots below. The first one is with a 135mm lens. I had to back off about 16 feet from the model to keep her in the frame. Notice how her hips seem quite large in relation to her shoulders? This effect can be useful for portraits where you want to reduce the apparent size of someone's nose, but in this case it is not appreciated! Can you imagine a client saying, "I want you to make my ass look bigger?"
Let's go back to our old friend, the 50mm lens. As you can see the hips look much smaller now. You really have to use the right lens at the right time!
Thanks for reading this blog post! If you are interested in having a photoshoot of your own, please use the contact form to drop me a note.
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One of the most rewarding photoshoot genres for me is the erotic couple's photoshoot. When a happy couple wants to record their passion, I consider it an honor to apply my artistic talents toward creating images they'll be proud to own many years from now.
Because of my strict privacy policy, it isn't often that I can share images from these very private photoshoots. In this case two friends who are very public about their sexuality kindly agreed to have their photos posted here on my blog.
Doing an intimate photoshoot for a couple is all about comfort. First, the couple has to be comfortable with the photographer's commitment to protecting their privacy. Then, there has to be some friendly chemistry between the couple and the photographer. Maintaining an erotic mood is always a delicate thing - even more so when a third person is invited to watch. In fact, the photographer needs to do more than watch. He or she needs to do a certain amount of directing in order to get well composed and illuminated images. As you can imagine, it's easy to kill the mood if the photographer says or does the wrong thing.
Most photographers would never consider doing this kind of shoot, and with good reasons. Not many are sufficiently "sex positive" (follow the link to Wikepidia if you are unfamiliar with the term) and of course lots of things can go wrong with a shoot like this. I've been doing this kind of photography for around two decades, so it feels natural to me now, but it didn't start out that way. As in all things, there is no substitute for practice. The photographer needs to be non-judgmental at all times and encouraging at just the right times.
Each couple has their own concept of how they want their images to look. It's the photographer's job to understand their vision and try to create images as close as possible to that goal. A pre-shoot conversation is vital, but can be done partially by phone or email. There are a few critical issues that must be decided in advance. For example, you should decide how explicit the images are going to be and, most importantly, you should try to establish the nature of the sexual chemistry between the two subjects. It is also helpful to find out how the couple feels about their body image, as this will effect how they should be posed and what kind of draping or costuming, if any, will be used to reduce body exposure.
Most couples have one partner who takes the dominant role, although they may switch places. Some couples are laughing and playful, some are rough and animalistic, you get the idea! The photographer needs to be ready to capture all this in a series of still images. The ultimate goal is to show the personality of the subjects and the spirit of their relationship.
One last note... when people inquire about having me do a shoot like this for them, they often want to know how explicit their images can be. My more explicit images are password protected to avoid excessive traffic. If you are considering a photoshoot of this type and want to see my more explicit work, use the contact form to send me a note. Please tell me approximately where you are located and when you might be interested in scheduling a photoshoot.
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Potential clients often ask me how much we can accomplish during their photoshoot. It's easy to attempt too many poses or outfits, so some photographers limit their photoshoots to a certain number of "looks," ie: costume changes. My preference is to limit my standard photoshoots to two hours of shooting time.
So what can I accomplish in two hours? Well of course it varies a lot depending on who is posing and what our goals are. If you plan well, you can get a surprising amount of good photos. I'm posting images from this shoot, because I feel it represents the maximum number of different looks and backgrounds that I've ever managed to include in a two hour shoot.
Due to my strict privacy policy, photos I shoot for paying clients are not available for use in in my online portfolio. Unlike traditional portrait or wedding photographers, that means that I have to do photoshoots strictly for the purpose of creating images for my portfolio.
You might say I cheated by hiring a professional model and you'd be right. A pro model has two advantages over an ordinary subject. Number one: she has nearly a perfect body so you don't have to work very hard to guide her into flattering poses. Number two: she can pose herself and change her facial expressions between shots without needing much direction.
Some of my photographer friends refuse to pay models to pose for them. I think this is being penny-wise and pound-foolish. When I pay a professional model to pose for me, I get far more usable images than when I'm doing a trade shoot with a non-model friend or a newbie model who is just starting out. All photographers want beautiful images for their portfolio or web site, the question is: how much is your time worth? I consider my time to be pretty valuable, so paying a model to help me create a lot of great images in a short time makes sense.
One other thing I like about working with pro models. Since I'm paying them out of my own pocket, the clock is ticking in my head and I'm always moving quickly to get a great shot and move on. This is good practice for working productively with paying clients. They want their money to produce as many flattering images as possible and I'm comfortable working fast, because I've practiced doing it.
The model is Amelia Simone, MM# 2277933. The shoot was done earlier today. We started out in the studio...
None of these images are photoshopped. All I did was adjust the tones in Lightroom.
I'm using my usual studio lighting setup which consists of four Alien Bees, one at each corner of the shooting space. The two in front of the model are equipped with large umbrellas which have white fabric over the opening creating large soft boxes, or brolly boxes as the Brits call them. The two ABs in the rear are using the standard reflector with a 20 or 30 degree grid to act as hair lights.
A man's dress shirt make a wonderful costume for glamour and boudoir shoots. Choosing the color can be fun, but in this case I went with a neutral gray.
My studio is set up so that I can switch between low key and high key images in about five minutes if I hurry and don't get distracted.
To make the switch to high key lighting, I just take the grids off the two rear lights and aim them at the white fabric backdrop. Then I turn up the power until the background is pretty close to perfectly white. I try to avoid more light than necessary, since the spill from the backdrop can start to affect the details of the model. Notice how one of her black shoes is starting to look a little washed out in this shot.
After about an hour and a half in the studio, it was time to go outside for some fresh air. This is Portland in May, so the rhododendrons were in bloom.
You don't need to go to S. E. Asia to find bamboo! And the cloudy Portland skies create a nice soft light for photography.
After the shoot, Amelia socializes with the famous author Jack Quaiz, author of the underground adult classic, Submission in Seattle.
This shoot produced over 900 images. The ones you see here were selected quickly after the shoot. There are roughly two hundred that would be worth considering for display in my portfolio. Of course I only want to show a handful, so now comes the hardest part, choosing the best ones and rejecting the rest.
Thanks for reading my blog! If you or someone you care about needs an adventurous Boudoir photographer, please use the contact page to drop me a note.
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NSFW
Friends tell me they can spot my photos, because they have a certain look or style, but I'm hard to pin down into a specific genre. I don't stay within the boundaries of Boudoir, Pinup, Art Nude or Glamour photography. Obviously I don't fit into the fashion category either! I guess I just like to make images that seem sexy to me.
One thing I know is that I feel I must capture the personality of the person who is posing for me. Even a physically gorgeous model doesn't seem sexy to me if she never looks at the camera or if she has the stereotypical, blank, fashion model look on her face. I think the idea with that look is to make the model seem unattainable, but I just don't find that concept attractive. When I photograph a person, it's not just about shapely body parts. I want the viewer to think, "I'd like to get to know them."
The theme for this photoshoot and blog post is "fitness erotica." Photos in this genre are fairly rare, unless you include the images of female body builders who have developed more or less male physiques. I've been waiting to find a model with an athletic, but feminine body who wanted to do a fully nude, fitness-themed photoshoot. It was a long wait, but I finally found a great model who recently moved to my area and was looking for local photographers to work with. Ashli Skyy is a former basketball player, not a bodybuilder. She surprised me by showing up with her hair in a Mohawk. At first, I thought this might be a problem, but as we talked, I began to see how the hair style fit perfectly with her high energy personality.
I started with a high-key look, ie: a white background. Two Alien Bees to light the background and two in front using umbrellas. Since this was my first erotic fitness shoot, I used the minimum amount of fitness equipment, just a pair of 10 lb weights and a bench. I wasn't sure about the pink sneakers, but she liked them, so why not?
OK, we both wanted to do an erotic fitness shoot, so it was time to heat things up!
All that beautiful musculature made me decide to ditch the high-key style and try a contrasty art nude look. It takes me about five minutes to reconfigure the studio.
I like the way the black and white art nude shot turned out, but since you can't see the model's face, it's rather depersonalizing. Not really what I wanted to get from this shoot. Let's try including the face and processing in full color now.
Now that's more like what I envisioned! But can we get just a bit more seductive?
That's the look I wanted! Powerful, seductive, muscular, yet soft and feminine. Mission accomplished!
Ashlii was pleased with the photos too, and sent this note: "My first erotic fitness shoot was fantastic. The pictures came out incredible! Beyond Boudoir Photo was very professional and helped me with my poses. Being a new model, it was great to work with someone who knew what to capture."
Here is her Model Mayhem profile: http://www.modelmayhem.com/3354678 If you are a photographer in the Portland area and need a model with her look, I highly recommend her. By the way, she has a number of wigs if the Mohawk doesn't work for you! : )
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A Nice Alternative to Hotels for Private Photoshoots
NSFW
There are many details that go into a great boudoir photoshoot. One that doesn’t get enough consideration is the location of the shoot. Most commercial boudoir studios shoot in... wait for it... their studio! It’s a lot more cost effective and time efficient than shooting at an alternate location but if you ask me, it’s boring and stereotypical.
Sure, I have a nice studio, but I can only cram in so many props and backgrounds. After a while it starts to conflict with my artistic need to be creative, so I am always watching for alternatives.
In the past, I’ve done shoots in private homes, outdoors and in hotel rooms. Shooting in the client’s home often gives the best results, since that is where they are the most comfortable - a critical factor in an intimate photoshoot! But in many cases, doing a house call isn’t possible. The client may be from out of town or they may not want their housemates and neighbors to know that they have hired a naughty photographer.
Hotel rooms all look like, well... hotel rooms. Unless you are willing to spend the money for a luxury suite, which can be nice but expensive.
There is another option that is fairly new. I’m talking about online vacation rentals. Companies like Airbnb.com bring people with houses, apartments and rooms to rent together with travelers who want an alternative to traditional hotels. Airbnb was in the local news recently, because they are opening a large customer service center in Portland.
I’ve done three shoots for visiting clients in vacation rentals before, but I hadn’t rented one myself. It seemed like a good time to try out the online system and set up a shoot with a model friend I’ve been wanting to work with again.
This little apartment was carved out of a very unusual old house on Portland’s East side. It’s on the slopes of Portland’s friendly little volcano. I’m not going to give the address here, but if you like the look and want to try it yourself, drop me a note. I only paid sixty bucks for the rental, so I was not going to be heartbroken if it turned out to be less than a stellar photography location.
In most cases, photos posted on the web by the owner are going to give you the best possible impression of the property. In real life it might not be quite so magical. In this case the space was a lot smaller than I expected. The kitchen and bathroom were both the size of closets and the lovely french doors actually opened out onto a driveway with recycling bins. I had been hoping to use the incoming daylight, but the weather was dark and rainy so I just closed the drapes and set up my Alien Bees.
The real treasure in this little apartment turned out to be the huge mirror next to the bed. We had a lot of fun with that mirror, but I’m only going to post a few images here.
There was just enough room for my two light stands which both had to be positioned to camera right. Believe it or not, the ceiling was painted red, making a ceiling bounce problematic. I experimented with different lighting variations, but my options were limited by the confined space.
The shot below was taken with the Canon 40 mm pancake lens on my 5D3. All others were taken with the Sigma 50mm lens. Generally for indoor shoots in confined spaces like this, my favorite lenses are in the 35-50mm range.
These shots on the bed bring up an important point about shooting in a privately owned vacation rental. The owners often try to give the space some character by selecting linens and bedspreads with interesting colors. That's not always the best for a boudoir photoshoot. I suggest bringing your own white sheet and pillowcases.
After I got all the mirror shots I could possibly use, I decided to try using the dim daylight from the front window that looked out to the rainy street.
After shooting a few traditional window shots with available light, I switched on one of the strobes and aimed it at a butterscotch colored wall for a nice warm bounce effect.
As always, the photos you see here on my blog are posted with the permission of the model, Selene, who is a real professional. Images of my paying clients are protected by my strict privacy policy.
To see more of Selene, you can visit her Model Mayhem profile.
If you would like a photoshoot of your own, please use the contact form to send me a note.
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While I love working with professional models, the most rewarding type of photoshoot for me is when I work with a "curvy girl." Larger ladies are not treated well by our culture, so they are very appreciative when they see photos that make them look as sexy as they feel. Perhaps you read my earlier blog post: Photographing Curvy Women.
This episode of An Adventurous Photographer in Portland, Oregon is a follow up to that earlier post. You will see how I do a photoshoot with a particular curvy client. Many of the images you see on this web site are of professional models, but this lovely lady is a friend of mine who just happens to be quite the exhibitionist. You can enjoy viewing her photos and she enjoys having you view them. It's truly a win-win situation!
We started the shoot with some simple poses using a very large umbrella to camera left, a large brolly box to camera right and two hair lights in the back corners of the studio. The camera is a 5D Mark III and the lens is a Canon EF 70-300 F/4-5.6 IS set at 130mm. This is normally considered a consumer-grade lens, not a professional lens, but I wanted to show a friend that you can do nice work with any lens if you know its limitations.
I refrained from my usual Photoshop tricks and processed these photos only in Lightroom. I adjusted the exposure, color and added some vignetting to highlight the model.
This first photo is the only one that is technically safe for work. After this one they are NSFW!
One of my favorite costume options is a simple man's dress shirt. It can be used with a tie or without. If possible, I ask the client to bring one of her husband's shirts that he will recognize in the photos. It certainly sends a strong message!
Notice how a change in head position and facial expression dramatically changes the mood of the next photo!
Everyone loves a girl wearing glasses and nothing else!
The next photo shows a classic pose for curvy girls. Normally I would have thinned the arms a bit and retouched under the eyes with Photoshop, but I left this one unmodified for you. This shot is with the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 lens, generally considered to be a much sharper lens than the zoom lens used in the images above.
Hubby gets in on the fun and the Fifty Shades of Gray Effect kicks in. By this point in the shoot, everyone is happy and playful. Shot with the Sigma 50 on the 5D Mark III.
Were you able to tell which lenses were used? I didn't think so. I could not tell without going back and looking at the EXIF data. The most important factor in a successful photoshoot of this type is the chemistry between the photographer and the clients.
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Several weeks ago, I put out the word that I wanted to do some photoshoots in private homes so that I could post some photos on my blog. Since the images of my paying clients are protected by my strict privacy policy, that means I needed to work with models who already have their images all over the net and are OK with me posting them here on my blog.
I had not worked with Floofie in a long time, but she remembered me when she saw my casting call on Model Mayhem. Floofie is more than just an internationally famous model. As I found out, she has a lovely old home in Portland that was built in 1906. She also has two adorable cats that like posing for adventurous boudoir photographers.
When I do a house call, I have two types of shots that I always try to set up. The first is by a large window that lets in soft daylight. Sometimes it's tricky to get the light at the right angle without have something distracting in the background. Floofie's great old house actually had two large windows, one in the living room and one in the kitchen. It was a very cloudy day and the South facing windows cast a lovely diffused light. Sitting in front of a South facing window with your hot coffee is something that Portlanders do to survive the long, cloudy winters.
Canon 40mm "pancake" lens at f/2.8 on Canon 5D3 at ISO 400, window light
Canon 40mm "pancake" lens at f/2.8 on Canon 5D3 at ISO 400, window light
Sigma 50mm at f/2.2 on Canon 5D3 at ISO 400, 1/160, window light
Canon 40mm "pancake" at f/2.8 on Canon 5D3 at ISO 400, 1/100, window light
The second type of shot I like to do when I make house calls is more or less classic boudoir photography. In this case, the bedroom was just fine for some photos of Floofie on the bed. There was no natural lighting, so I used a single Alien Bee B400 monolight with a modifier that the Brits call a Brolly Box. It looks like a typical reflective umbrella, but it has translucent fabric across the opening like a soft box. To me, it works just like a soft box, except that it's super-easy to set up and it is very efficient. I rarely need more than 1/4 power. You might notice that the second photo is a bit softer than the first. That is entirely due to a shift of a single slider in Lightroom.
Sigma 50mm on Canon 5D3 at f/2.5, ISO 50, single brolly box on alien bee 400
Sigma 50mm on Canon 5D3 at f/2.5, ISO 50, single brolly box on alien bee 400
We did one more scene in the kitchen, where I used the brolly box as a fill light to balance the light outdoors. The trick here is to make sure the light does not reflect back at the camera in the window. It took me a few tries to get the light positioned correctly. This shot is actually a reject, since you can see the hexagonal shape of the brolly box in the window. Again, this is with a single Alien Bee on a light stand to camera right.
Canon 85/1.8 on Canon 5D3 at f/2.5, ISO 100, brolly box on Alien Bee 400
The next photo shows the result of proper placement of the brolly box in relation to the camera. To remove the reflection, the light was raised much higher. If this photo were for a client, I would probably remove some background distractions, but I wanted to leave it as shot for this blog post.
Canon 85/1.8 on Canon 5D3 at f/2.5, ISO 100, brolly box on Alien Bee 400
If you like the concept of a boudoir photographer who makes house calls, you might enjoy reading an earlier blog post: Beyond Boudoir Photo Makes a House Call
If you would like to follow Floofie's blog, you can find it here.
Stay tuned for the next episode of Tales of an Adventurous Photographer in Portland Oregon!
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Getting out of the studio and shooting in a different environment is a treat for a boudoir photographer. That's why I make house calls. Each house or apartment has different lighting, furniture and backgrounds. It adds to the challenge and uses skills that aren't needed in the studio. I have also found that my clients are usually more comfortable in their own home than they are if they drive to my studio. It doesn't take as long for them to warm up and enjoy the shoot.
Another advantage is that the home environment reflects the personality of the subject. The way a person decorates their home says a lot about their personality and capturing a client's personality is my primary goal.
Due to my strict privacy policy, I can't share most of my house call photos, so I arranged to do a photoshoot in the home of a friend who is a model and is happy to share her images with you. If you are a photographer and would like to contact her, she has a profile on Model Mayhem.
The first four photos you see below are a nice example of what you can do with simple daylight coming in the window on a cloudy Winter day.
Warning! NSFW below this point!
The photos below are obviously in the bedroom and more of a traditional boudoir style. These were illuminated with a single strobe and softbox. When shooting boudoir poses in an actual bedroom, you really have to watch out for distracting objects in the background. If the bedroom is small, it can limit the places where the photographer can stand. Photographing a woman in her own bedroom may detract slightly from the technical perfection of the photos, but I think it more than makes up for that by creating images that seem more intimate and relaxed.
If you would like to have me do a house call for you, use the contact form to send me an email!
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I do all sorts of photoshoots for people, from guys with their beloved motorcycle to couples who wish to record their erotic passion for each other. It's the latter that provides the basis for this blog post. Most of the shoots I do for couples are for folks who live in the area, but there is a definite trend toward couples traveling a long distance.
The couples often come from about two states away (or Canada) and have another reason to be visiting Portland. They seem to live in smaller cities in conservative areas. We may be looking at a case of "what happens in Portland, stays in Portland." If you think about it, finding an erotica-friendly photographer you feel comfortable with in your small home town would be pretty close to impossible. Flying to a distant city and working with someone who doesn't know you at all must seem pretty attractive by comparison. By using search engines, it's easy to research photographers in any city you wish and pick one to trade some messages with. A few emails, a phone call, and a PayPal transaction is all it takes.
The Fifty Shades of Grey Effect
The couples I'm seeing are well-off, professional types. Usually, they are over 40, but in very good shape. Understandably, they are especially concerned about the security of their private images and they appreciate my strict policies regarding privacy. Most have recently read "Fifty Shades of Grey," which features many scenes in Portland. Perhaps just a coincidence?
Sometimes the husband/boyfriend just wants to sit back and watch his lovely lady enjoy her photoshoot, but more often they want to get wild together. Either way is fine with me, as long as they are having fun.
Hotel Room Photoshoots
I recently did a shoot like this for a couple who was staying in a very expensive downtown hotel. It's interesting how some couples from out of town want to come to my studio and some want me to come to their hotel. It may just depend on how they arrived in Portland. If they drove their car, it's easy for them to get to my place. If they are using public transportation to get around, it's easier for me to come to them.
Hotel shoots are fun for me, as it gets me out of the studio and lets me explore my creativity. No worries about bad weather! Another aspect that is fun for me is the idea that nobody else in the hotel knows that I'm there to do a naughty photoshoot.
Did I watch too many James Bond movies in my youth? I prefer to think that I'm helping to protect my client's privacy. For this shoot, I dressed as a fashionable traveling businessman. My lighting gear went into a wheeled suitcase instead of my usual photo equipment case. I fit in perfectly and did not get a second glance from any of the hotel staff.
I met with the couple in the bar before going to their room. It was a lovely room with elaborate wallpaper and pillows sufficient for a platoon of boudoir models. I politely declined a glass of wine, as I need to keep a clear head while working. A member of the hotel staff knocked on the door to ask if we needed anything, so I stepped back out of view for a moment. Then it was time to set up my portable lighting equipment and begin creating sexy images.
My clients were great fun - mature professional folks like myself, so we immediately felt comfortable with each other. While we were shooting, the lady mentioned that she had read all the books of the Fifty Shades series, which led to some interesting photo ideas.
Before leaving, I gave them some ideas for fun places to visit in Portland. They already had some great restaurants scoped out, so I recommended Voodoo Doughnuts, Lush and Escential Oils. I'm sure they had a very memorable visit.
I sent them one photo by email the next morning, then processed the rest over the next two days so the images were waiting when they got home. They picked their favorites and let me know I could delete the files. I felt quite honored when they sent me this nice review to share with you:
Our photo shoot was a gift of trust, but in the end it was much more. It was a playful connection of love for each other and our bodies--as is. There we were, in the raw, and BeyondBoudoirPhoto was private, professional and fun. We chose several sensual erotic photos that we did not even want photo-shopped because he did such a good job. I wish we had done this years ago. These photos are sacred treasures for us. Do not hesitate, just go for it! Using the art of photography is a healthy and beautiful way to express yourself. We are so happy we found BeyondBoudoirPhoto. We highly recommend this photographer. Who knew how hot we could look! -Anonymous
Sorry, no images in this blog post. Privacy comes first you know!
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Photographing Curvy Women
NSFW 18+
Boudoir Photography comes with a built in contradiction. The vast majority of photos that you see on photographer's websites are of thin, young, models. But many of the potential clients who can afford to pay for a professional photoshoot are older and heavier. Most have had children, some have old injuries, surgical scars and other signs of an active life.
Many photographers, especially those who are just starting out, have trouble photographing large women. Before I decide how to photograph a woman of size, I ask some questions and get to know her. I think it's critical to talk to the client and find out what her goal is. Some women are very comfortable with their bodies and don't want me to hide anything, but most appreciate it if I work my magic.
Perhaps she wants to show her large derriere, but not her stretch marks. Her voluptuous bosom, but not her double chin. Each client is unique and deserves to set her own priorities. Of course this is challenging for the photographer, but that just makes it more fun. One downside to photographing curvy women is that the percentage of "keepers" from the shoot will be a lot lower than a shoot with a thin model. It's just the nature of this genre. When you get a few great images, you appreciate them all the more for the challenge.
The most popular approach is to minimize her size and her "flaws" with the usual tricks: makeup, age and size appropriate posing, cropping, draping, lighting, corsets, photoshopping, etc...
An example of an alternative approach is the late Leonard Nimoy's "The Full Body Project." (Yes our own Mr. Spock was an avid photographer when he wan't saving the galaxy.) He has some great photos, but I notice his subjects don't look very happy. Nimoy makes no effort at all to flatter his subjects or get them to smile. You can tell he is an artist trying to make a statement and not a photographer trying to please his clients!
I rarely meet women of size who are as comfortable in their skin as the ladies photographed by Mr. Nimoy. I can do that style, but it feels strange. I'm more comfortable making my clients look their best according to my own taste, but the client's wishes take precedence.
Here are some images where I have used various posing techniques to make larger ladies look their best. The well-posed photos are on the right. Normally, you would never see the photos on the left and frankly, it was rather difficult for me to post them here. It goes against my artistic instincts!
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NSFW, 18+
Clients often ask me if we can shoot some of their intimate photos in black and white. It has been said that an erotic photo in black and white is automatically considered art, whereas the same photo in full color is more likely to be considered offensive by some viewers.
Most modern digital cameras have the option of saving images as black and white, but I don't know any photographer who does it that way. We save all of our images in color, then use software on our computer to convert the color image to black and white. So you don't have to decide in advance which one you want. You can have either one or both and you can change your mind later!
Removing the color from a photo affects how our brain perceives the image and the way we feel about it. It simplifies the image.
Eliminating color cues forces our brain to analyze the image based only on shapes and the degree of brightness. We can't see that the model is blushing and we can't tell if she has olive skin or brown skin. We can't see that the room behind her is decorated in pastel feminine colors or that she has orange/red lipstick. But we can tell if she has feminine curves and a nice smile. In fact, since other cues are removed, those things things really stand out to us.
This concept is used heavily in art nude photography. The model is often posed on a black or featureless background, so her body is the only object you see. It's all about shapes, curves and shadows, like this:
Here is an example of a photo in which conversion to black and white eliminates the distraction of bright green forest colors in the background. Once again, this helps to focus our attention on the model and provides a more dramatic look.
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Contrast and brighness:
When converting color images to black and white, there is often a button to click that appears to do the whole job automatically. Unfortunately, the resulting image usually looks pretty boring and ordinary. It's up to the photographer to manipulate the brightness and contrast to get the desired look. In current software like Lightroom and Photoshop, a lot of this manipulation is done with "sliders" on the screen that you move right and left. The changes are applied to the entire image. The trick is knowing what each slider really does. You might use up to a dozen different sliders to create a nice looking black and white image. If that doesn't do the job, there are lots more options!
Modern software also allows the photographer to change the brightness of certain objects in the image. This is especially useful in a black and white photo, since brightness is now the main visual cue.
Here is an example of a rather cluttered photo before and after adjustment. I changed the tonal values to emphasize parts of the photo that I felt were most important. Which one do you like better?
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Tinting:
The most recognized form of tinting is called sepia tone. In the old days of chemical darkrooms, the print was placed in a bath of rather poisonous chemicals to give it a pleasing brownish tone before it was washed and dried. I sometimes like to use a sepia-like tone on photos that show a lot of skin, since it gives a warmer, more lifelike look.
Grain:
Most of us still remember old fashioned film photography. Many famous black and white photos taken up until around 1980 were quite grainy, due to the grains of silver halide on the film. We now associate this look with the great photographs of the past. It's another way to change the emotions evoked by an image.
It is easy to add grain to a photo these days, just by moving a few sliders during post-processing. I sometimes combine grain with a bit of a tint as well. If I'm feeling really artistic, I'll allow some of the original color to come back into the photo in specific areas. Notice the lips on the lovely model below - just a hint of the original color.
Thanks for letting me share my art with you! If you are interested in a photoshoot for yourself or your partner, please use the contact page to drop me a note.
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These photos are from a shoot I did in September on Shellrock Mountain with a hiker that I happened to meet on the trail. The flat spot the model is sitting on is actually an old stone roadbed that is now covered with moss and grass. It is a slowly-vanishing remnant of the first road through the Gorge circa 1850 and is often called the Old Military Road. To me, it looks like it was built by the Romans, although I suspect they would have done a better job. It's amazing that this small section still exists.
The lighting can be very tricky here. Direct sunlight is pretty harsh so I prefer to wait until later in the afternoon when the site is in shade. Of course that means the background, Wind Mountain on the Washington side, is still in full sun. I decided to do something unusual for me. I used an on-camera speedlight for fill, to balance the light on the model with the light on the background. You can see the intent in the first photo, but notice that the speedlight is aimed a little high.
I clicked the strobe head down a couple of notches and things looked better.
We got quite a few nice images using this setup, when I realized that the speedlight was not keeping up with our pace. About every fourth shot, it wouldn't fire, resulting in pix that looked like this:
I wasn't upset, because we still had many great shots, but during post-processing I decided to see what the latest version of Lightroom would do with this. I used the adjustment tool with "automask" active, to brighten the model and the foreground. This quick and dirty result is somewhat surrealistic, but I kind of like it. With my previous cameras, brightening the shadows this much would have ruined the photo, but with the 5D Mark 3, I still got a usable photo. Isn't technology great? BTW, the lens is the jack of all trades Canon 24-105 at F/4, which is why the background is blurred just enough to give an impression of distance.
This photoshoot location can provide several different "looks" depending on direction and background. In this photo, we are still looking in the same direction (West) as the other photos, but the background is made up of shaded grass and dark trees. The lens is the Canon 85mm 1.8 at 2.5, ISO 200, 1/125. I used some yellow and red fabric under the model in an attempt to counteract the blue and green light from the trees and sky. I'm not sure I like the result, what do you think?
I'm a big fan of the 85mm 1.8 for the great bokeh it produces. For non-photographers, bokeh refers to the nicely blurred background. Ideally, the model remains sharp which helps to separate her from the otherwise distracting background. Some lenses do this better than others. This was shot at F/2.2 for those who keep track of these things.
Did you catch my little fiction at the beginning? I'd love to be able to say that The Gorge is populated by beautiful nudist hikers, but sadly that is not true. The model is known as True Rebel and if you want to work with her you can find her profile on Model Mayhem. And I see she now has a fan page! She really is a fantastic model to work with. Shoot her if you can!
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Answer: It depends on your goal!
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If you are reading this blog, you've probably seen a lot of boudoir photos. You may be a photographer yourself. How do you know which images achieve their desired goal and which ones don't? Unfortunately, you can't really tell until you realize that there are two different goals in boudoir photography and therefore, two quite different styles. Let's call them types A and B.
TYPE A: Please see the image above for an example of the most commonly seen type of boudoir photos. Traditionally, the client is posed in a bedroom-like setting, but in recent years, some photographers have taken the brave step of using the living room as well. They are created to improve the self-confidence and self-image of the subject. Most women have a poor body image and a skillful photographer can show her how beautiful she really is. It is the photographer's job to pick out her best features and highlight them. So basically, the images are his interpretation of her beauty as he thinks she wants to see it.
A good Type A photo will make the subject look as thin as possible and hide her physical flaws. A great professional makeup artist and a nice collection of expensive lingerie top it off.
Eroticism is really not the goal of these photos. We just want the client to feel good about herself when she views the images and when she shows them to her girlfriends, which generates a lot of referral business for commercial boudoir studios.
One way to identify this style of boudoir photo is that the lingerie is the star of the show. There is nothing that could technically be called nudity and nothing really sexual. Often the woman has heavy makeup, false eyelashes and is heavily photoshopped to remove most of the texture from her skin. You have seen similar photos in lingerie catalogs and you may notice some similarities to wedding photos, since many boudoir photographers also shoot weddings.
It makes perfect sense that this kind of photo is what you usually see on boudoir photography websites. They won't scare away potential clients and they appeal to the women who are booking the shoots and paying the fees. This is standard American-style, commercial, boudoir photography.
Unfortunately, lots of women think this is what their husbands and boyfriends want to see. They think it will remind him of why he is in a relationship with her or why he's planning to marry her. Sure, he will exclaim how beautiful they are, what else can he say? But unless he has a fetish for lingerie or false eyelashes, he doesn't really care and may not even understand why his lady has gone to so much trouble.
These photos sometimes end up on the wall where they won't offend Aunt Mildred when she drops in, but mostly they just end up in the closet with the other old photos. Now, let's talk about Type B.
TYPE B: The other type of boudoir photography is what I call erotic portraiture. It's primarily intended to cause a feeling of sexual desire in the lover of the woman posing. This is what many photographers have trouble with. The reason this is so difficult is that you must get into the mind of her man, the intended audience for the photos. In most cases, he is not present at the shoot and has never spoken to the photographer.
Each man has his own unique concept of what he finds sexy in his partner. It could be certain parts of the body. It could be a particular look she gives him when she's in the mood or a particular fetish they share. Since the man is not available to question, you can only try to get this from the woman. Most women will automatically deny having this knowledge. Most boudoir photographers don't even ask, because they aren't comfortable discussing intimate sexual issues and because time is money. The less time spent on a photoshoot the better.
It takes an unusually sensitive and committed photographer to elicit this very personal information from a client. She may have a lot of puritanical inhibitions or may simply be afraid of rejection if she reveals her sexual secrets. It's really common for both parties to avoid this conversation entirely and concentrate on which pieces of lingerie the client wants to wear next. This results in the stereotypical, Type A photos.
There are ways to gently breach the barriers and create hot images that will be erotic for her partner. First, the photographer needs to let the client know that he will not be judgmental about what she reveals. Second, the client and the photographer need to spend some time talking, even if just by email, about what erotic elements will be most appreciated by the intended audience. An erotic portraiture photshoot is a team effort. Once in the studio, the photographer must be respectful, yet complimentary. A woman who is posing in a sexual manner wants to know that she is attractive. It is said that there should be a bit of sexual tension between the two collaborators in the studio. I believe this leads to the best erotic portrait photos, but it must exist in an atmosphere of trust and safety.
If the photographer is really good, the client will also receive a nice boost to her self image, even more than she would get from Type A photos. There will also be a greater sense of liberation. This is what sets a good erotic portrait artist apart from the typical commercial formula, boudoir shooter.
Erotic portraits can be taken almost anywhere that the client and the photographer can find a little privacy. Get out of the studio if you can. Use the forest, a hotel room, a friend's cool apartment or whatever venue presents itself. This will set your photos farther apart from those boring Type A images. My style is influenced by glamour, pinup, cheesecake and yes, Hugh Hefner's style from fifty years ago.
These images are rarely printed and hung on the wall. Often they remain in digital form and are sent to lovers in another state or on the other side of the planet. The fortunate man who receives these photos knows exactly what the woman is saying. She wants her man back in her bed as soon as possible!
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Couples celebrate their union in many ways. In our culture, there is an expectation that professional wedding photos will be taken that follow a fairly rigid style. Gradually, we are seeing couples look for other ways to remember the early days of their relationship and the intense feelings they have for each other.
It is now common to have a professional photographer take engagement photos. For most, they follow the usual format and look a lot like wedding photos. But for those who follow their own path, there is the erotic engagement photoshoot. (warning, naughty photos below)
I believe there are several reasons for the increasing popularity of this style of shoot. Young people today are more comfortable with nudity and they are more comfortable being in front of a camera. They have been photographed constantly since birth, so the idea of having their own artistic nude photoshoot appeals to them more than previous generations. They are also more self-aware. They know that the years of hot passion and tight bodies aren't going to last. Memories fade, but photos are forever.
Although I refer to these shoots as engagement shoots, about a quarter of them are done after the wedding. This makes sense, since the pre-wedding months tend to be busy and stressful. They are usually done in the studio, and often processed in black and white.
The photos I create are usually very private, but one couple did agree to allow me to use their photos. I thank them for that! Take a look and see if you can feel the love.
Of course, each erotic engagement photoshoot is different. Some are done in the client's home, some are done in upscale hotel rooms and some are done outdoors when the weather permits. If you would like to find out more about scheduling your own erotic photoshoot, please Contact me by email to schedule your own photoshoot. And of course, please read the Beyond Boudoir Photo FAQ for more information and answers to your questions.
]]>How do you meet people these days? Dating at work is taboo. You don't want everyone knowing your love life at church or in your business group. That's why virtually every adult who is single and looking for a partner is now using internet dating sites. It's a big time saver and you don't have to hang out in smoky bars with a lot of drunks!
The downside is that you are now competing with hundreds of other men or women in your city instead of just the dozen or so in the bar on a particular evening. And, you still have to meet at some point. If you misrepresent yourself, you could waste a lot of time going on unproductive first dates. The questions are: how do you make yourself stand out and how do you attract potential partners who will be interested in the real you?
The rules are different for men and women and they vary depending on how prudish or sexy your dating site happens to be. Let's leave out the adult dating sites for now and concentrate on mainstream sites.
Creating Effective Dating Photos for Women
If you are a woman, you need to remember that men are very visual creatures. You may think that they will read through all the profiles on the dating site before they decide who to contact, but in reality, they just browse through the pictures.
They pass right by the blurry cell phone shots, the old vacation photos and the couple's photos with the ex cropped out. They are looking for women they think are visually attractive. Then, they read the profile text!
Next time you are browsing a dating site, think about which photos catch your eye? Most likely it is the rare professional portrait. No, not the stuffy business headshots, the sexy, flirty portraits. Right?
So, you need to find a good portrait/boudoir photographer.
Don't be afraid to show a little skin, but make sure you stay within the guidelines of your particular dating site.
Show off the visual elements that define your look. Tattoos are very popular these days. Glasses are very fashionable too. If you have cool frames, go ahead and include them in some of your photos.
Show more than one side of your personality. For example, some men love dominant women.
Don't ask the photographer to do a lot retouching with Photoshop. The photos here, for example, are unretouched. It is important not to create unrealistic expectations. Do try to show your overall shape and size. If you make a man wait for the first date to know if you are short or tall, heavy or slender, old or young-looking for your age, it is not a very efficient way to meet people.
FYI: the woman in these photos is in her late forties and recently lost over 100 pounds. She also just found her perfect mate!
Creating Effective Dating Photos for Men
The rules for men are different. No surprise there. Women look for different things, like eyes, hands and facial expression. They are also looking for clues to your economic and social status. Men's photos should show them well dressed and looking squarely into the lens.
A traditional portrait may be a good choice for a man's dating profile. They can show a lot about your personality, but remember that women are very sensitive to facial expressions and will draw strong conclusions based on their intuition. Small things can make a big difference. Consider these two portraits. The first shows a man in soft, flattering lighting with a smile. The second uses more dramatic lighting and a mysterious expression. Think very carefully about what message you wish to send!
Once you have chosen a main profile picture that shows your face the way you like, then you can have some fun with different facets of your personality. Women love clothes, so if you happen to enjoy dressing up, have your photographer create some images of you in your favorite fun outfit.
You may wish to create an environmental portrait that shows you with the things that are part of your life. Here is a fun image of Portland musician and photographer David Rolin with his car.
You can also use a bicycle, a boat, or whatever shows you doing the things you love. Think about having a photographer record you playing soccer, riding your bike along the river or jogging in the park. You can even have photos of you working in your garden or playing the piano. Women want to know all about you, so find a good photographer and take the time to create a portfolio of your life!
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Collins Beach, the clothing optional section of the river front, is the location of one of Portland's weirdest sights. It's an old, derelict boat that looks like a UFO.
Its origin has been a mystery for many years. There is a post on an internet forum by a fellow who claims his father built the boat in 1971 and the family used it for recreation on the lower Columbia River. Nobody knows what happened after that, but apparently it broke loose from where it was moored and drifted ashore on the nude beach. This may have happened during the big flood of 1996, but nobody seems to be sure. The boat is now fastened to the trees with two stout cables, so it isn't going anywhere unless the county park authorities decide to remove it.
Marine enthusiasts love to speculate about how and why it was built. My guess is that it was intended to be a party boat for family fun. The boat is built of concrete over steel mesh. It's about twelve feet tall. There is no sign of any engine, so I assume it was powered by an outboard motor - most likely a couple of big ones, due to it's mass. But then a party boat doesn't need to go anywhere in a hurry, so who knows?
The interior was gutted a long time ago and everything that could be removed is long gone. If you decide to climb around on it, make sure your tetanus shot is up to date. Oh, and watch out for the wasp nest that is often found inside!
Update: here is a link to a local TV news story about the mysterious boat!
Update: Please note the comment below by someone who is familiar with the boat.
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By the way, the model is M. Martinez, who is a "Dudoir" photographer, ie: she takes sexy photos of men. Her website is listed in my FAQ.
I've been wanting to do more outdoor urban photoshoots and today we finally had suitable weather. Local model Rosalee Rae posed for me at several locations around downtown Portland. This spot with the interesting light was near Union Station. We were going for a candid "street photography" look, so she is not smiling or looking at the camera.
This was primarily a scouting trip to find places suitable for future urban photoshoots that I might do with paying clients. We found some spots with great potential! I came back to this spot later. See if you can find it in my galleries!
Portland artist and musician David Rolin posed for me with his car in a cemetery. If you use I-tunes, look up his song: "Don't Say Odette."
]]>A friend of mine recently moved into a place that has a barn, which can be an ideal place for rope play and fetish photoshoots. A cute model friend with a lot of bondage experience volunteered to be the subject of this photoshoot. Fortunately, the barn owner is also an accomplished bondage rigger, that is the person who applies the ropes and watches out for the safety of the model. He says I can bring other girls over for rope photoshoots any time. Now that's a true friend!
Here is one sample from that shoot:
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When three very energetic women get going, they can come up with an endless number of fun ideas. The photo you see is a very mild example of their whips and chains theme. That is actually half a pair of tire chains! I asked if I could post this photo on my blog and they were more than happy to agree.
You don't have to be young and thin to have fun in front of the camera.
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