Halloween is Coming ft. Dame d'Voltaire

In anticipation of Halloween I love including skulls with boudoir sessions. Using forced perspective to give a creepy vibe to the poses, here is Dame d'Voltaire playing with my favorite skull.

Curtain Call ft. Kat

Studio photography has the potential to get repetitive and stale. How do you avoid that? You have to find a way to reinvent and renew your small space. Props are a great way to add a little variety to each pose and it gives the model something to interact with as well. In this instance, my prop of choice wa a set of sheer, white curtains I have hung in my studio. I didn't have to give much direction here. My main instruction was to wrap yourself in the fabric and play a sexy peek-a-boo game with the camera. Its one of those series where you want to keep looking to see if there's more to see.

Day of the Dead - Life & Death

Welcome to the next installment of my mask series. In this instance, I layered a second mask designed to look like an aged skull and affixed it with strong magnets to eliminate additional straps or attachments. I wanted to have a juxtaposition of beauty & horror with a life & death mask. I painted the skull piece to completion before beginning the beauty design in blue. By doing this, I was able to align the nose and teeth more accurately between the two layers. Having two complete and separate masks, I can easily use them together or separately and still maintain a complete look. The beauty mask stands on its own and doesn't need to make use of the skull appliance. My technique for applying the magnets to the skull piece also allows it to be used independently if my model chose to adhere magnets to her skin using a makeup glue. This has not yet been a chosen method but perhaps in the future, I will find a model willing to experiment with that look.

No Evil

Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil

I love this series. There are so many ways to interpret each pose. The images I composited all seemed a good match with each other, but I will also include some outtakes below. A huge thank you goes out to Kat for bringing her own spin on this set.

Day of the Dead - Blood Lust

This is the next installment in my mask-making series. I have been creating masks as a hobby to build on my creative impulses. This is a continuation of my first tear-away Day of the Dead mask with this one being much more graphic with drips and blood stains across the entire face of the mask. All the blood details between the masks are hand-sculpted and are 3-D with hand-painted detail in varying shades of red to simulate blood and muscle beneath the surface. The smaller mask attaches with magnets embedded within the sculpture so no strings or fasteners are visible. The eye sockets are filled with black and red lace in order to separate the model's eyes from the mask. Black silk roses are splattered with red paint to mimic blood splatter and matches the other details on the masks. The juxtaposition of the horror of the mask and the beauty of the model is my new favorite technique.

The Fan as Art ft. Kat

My all-time favorite prop is definitely the folding, fabric fan. Fans offer a barrier to the model as a way to hide themselves from the viewer, in whole or in part. It lets her show only what she wants you to see, whether she is hiding her face or her body, you only get to see what she allows.

Golden Goddess - Day of the Dead

Halloween is coming!!!
I have a hobby of making elaborate masks. This is one of my personal favorites. It features some common features in the Day of the Dead sugar skull masks, but I have put my own spin it. I have never seen a golden version in my research, so I took the liberty of creating one for myself.

The Parasol featuring Kahlan

Playing with lavender. Kahlan's lingerie matched the parasol in my prop kit perfectly. It makes a wonderful accessory and a beautiful cover-up for the more sensual poses. Playing with props adds a bit of whimsy to a boudoir photo session. After all, if you can't have fun with it, what good is it?

Fine Art Nude featuring Kahlan

Presenting the always beautiful Kahlan!

Fine Art Nude featuring Lacey

Always stunning!

Lacey in black & white fine-art nude wearing a string of pearls.

Portfolio Building with Mileah

I love when I have the opportunity to help a new model build her portfolio. Mileah is one such model. She had never modeled with a professional photographer before. She would have her boyfriend take a photograph, then look at it and decide yes or no and it could be several minutes from one photo to the next. This destroys the flow of poses and makes natural-looking poses much more difficult. It also has a negative impact on the model's confidence when she is picking apart everything about her expression, body, or pose.

 I prefer a much more consistent pace that allows for a natural rhythm of posing. The smallest turn or twist of the body can change a mediocre pose into something stunning. Expressions also change from moment to moment in ways the model isn't always aware of that can be shy, sensual, or seductive in a matter of moments.

Each item of her wardrobe here is from my prop kit. A lace fan and garter complimented by the lace body-wrap combine to form a truly sensual image. You might have noticed this is also the wardrobe for the Day of the Dead on Ice. Those images came just moments before the mask was put away to make way for this series.

Kahlan - Model Portraits

Its always great when a model will help you realize a creative concept.

Kahlan is a wonderful model to work with, and makes selecting favorites a challenge because of the sheer number of good poses she is able to achieve. I came to her with several different ideas in poses and lighting and she was happy to help.

Here are some of my favorite portraits from our most recent session:

Kahlan - Sheer Beauty

Kahlan is such a fun model to work with. Each of our sessions has produced so many fantastic shots, it is quite difficult to choose favorites. I love shooting different wardrobe and props because it gives the model more creative freedom to act with pieces she may not have used before. The sheath dress in this series is part of my prop kit, as is the fan pictured in a few of the images.

These images are Not Safe For Work:

American Beauty featuring Lacey

The movie "American Beauty" has been around since 1999 and since it's release photographers have been re-creating one iconic scene. This animation shows a small clip from the movie so you can see the inspiration for this session. Roses are the key ingredient for emulating the original, I opted for silk rose petals to give longevity to the look and prevent unnecessary cost for the destruction of long-stem roses. I feel that the petals enhance the sensual tone and maintain a bit of mystery while shooting nudes. I love seeing rose petals utilized  as a prop in boudoir photography.

Rather than shooting exclusively from above, I moved around her with and without a ladder. I climbed up until my head touched the ceiling and extended my reach to capture full length poses. I also crouched down with the camera just a few inches off the floor for closeup and detail shots. My studio is small, so I had to be creative in placement of the vertical backdrop as well as the white fleece she was laying on. Some touch-ups at the edges were necessary during editing but the majority of the photos are true to life. I do very little to modify the model's natural beauty and aside from temporary blemish reduction. I let them shine through as themselves, or whichever personality they want to convey for a particular set.

Rose petals are the only wardrobe used in this set. 

These images are Not Safe For Work

Lacey - Exploring Shadows

With Lacey's help, I was able to explore different lighting techniques by only lighting from the side and slightly behind her. This enabled me to create an implied silhouette by keeping most of her body in shadow, and allowing the light to only shine on the edges of her figure. This technique is called rim lighting. A black lace wrap adds a touch of implied decency, while still being playful giving hints of shapes and forms within the shadows.

Although these images are artistic in nature,
They contain nudity and are Not Safe For Work:

Kahlan's First Photos

I have yet to share all of my favorite sets with Kahlan. I have had limited shooting time with her, but each of our sessions has gone over two hours and produced hundreds of images from each. I have picked a few favorites in the past but was hesitant to share too much. I have gone back through many sessions and hope to be posting more models soon. This session was held on location in a bed & breakfast and offered a new depth I could not achieve since closing my studio.

The mirror came with the room

 I brought my camera and set the lighting, 

But it was Kahlan who brought life to the images. 

These images are suggestive in nature and contain some nudity, and are Not Safe For Work:

Introducing Lacey

Lacey is a part-time model who graciously agreed to help me build my portfolio and hers while playing around in my studio. We shot for over two hours, and had tons of fun playing around with lighting, props, wardrobe, and lots of fun poses. I have so many favorites from our session, it will take time to share more of them.