Joanne’s boudoir shoot

This weekend I photographed Joanne’s boudoir shoot. For one reason or another we’d had to reschedule a couple of times before the big day eventually came around. I arrived at her home in Hampshire and went about setting up my studio lighting and backdrops that we’d use during the shoot before moving to her bedroom for some of the rest of the sitting.

We spent the first quarter of an hour or so talking about the types of shots that Jo wanted me to capture and we had a flick through a ‘look book’ (a collection of boudoir style poses) I’d brought with me to give her some more ideas that we could try. Once that was done we looked over the outfits that she’d picked out for the photo shoot and worked out a bit of a shooting plan.

Jo had seen a shot that she wanted to try which was a backless shot with her wrapped loosely in a towel, taken from the rear. That was the first one I shot as it meant that she didn’t have any strap marks that would require extra editing after the shoot to remove them from the picture etc. Bear this things in mind if you are having similar shots in your own boudoir shoot as it can make life easier later on. We shot several different poses in this set up using both the light and dark backdrops.



Moving on from this first set up, Jo wanted some shots in a matching lingerie set that she’d got, so after getting changed into those, she tried a few practice poses before I started shooting again. I got another great selection of shots ranging from Jo standing, to her lying down and everything in betweenI Everything just seemed to flow brilliantly from shot to shot and Jo was able to try out ideas from the posing sheets I’d brought along with me too.

Our third set up was Jo wearing her new basque and stockings, assisted at times by a red feather boa and elbow length black gloves! Jo has been having burlesque dancing lessons and wanted to try and shoot of few of the poses that she’d learnt during her course.

Leaving behind the studio set up for a while we moved upstairs to Jo’s bedroom boudoir and started work on the next set of shots. Starting with her sitting on the bed I got some ‘deep in thought’ shots, followed by a few shots of her sat on the window cill gazing out to the world beyond.

Moving back to her bed and with another outfit change into a new lingerie set from La Senza, I got some reclining shots of Jo, along with some detail shots of her new lingerie.

After getting shots from most flattering angles, we moved back to the studio area and took some more shots. As her confidence had built during the photo shoot, Jo was happy to try some shots using some voile drapes to give her some modesty instead of being completely nude in front of the camera. We managed to capture some very sensual and tasteful shots – the real essence of boudoir photography.

The shots I’ve included in this article are just a selection of those I took during the boudoir photo session. With several hundred photos taken during the shoot, this was carefully whittled down to a manageable 140. Only the finest shots made it through the initial sort which resulted in around 250 final shots with various post processing treatments applied. Of the final photos, a selection of these are going to be arranged into a photo book style album for Joanne to keep for herself and to look back on over the years to come.

I’d like to give Joanne a big thank you for allowing me to capture her at her best and for allowing me to use the photos in this post. I’m hoping that she will write up the experience from her perspective as a client for a follow up post to this – watch this space!

If after reading this, you are interested in booking a boudoir photo shoot, please do get in touch.