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.  

Blue BoudoirIn her boudoir - from an erotic apartment photoshoot.

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!