My First Boudoir Session

A friend of mine was needing a little pick me up, and requested a boudoir session. I have been on the model side of glamour photography but I hadn't shot any myself yet. I felt like this was prime opportunity for a new experience and accepted. I found the session fun, but very challenging. We used my own bedroom for the backdrop, which I was resistant to, but it actually came out quite cute. I always shoot in natural light, alternate lighting is the death of me every time. My client however, wanted to do the shoot at night and so we did. That in itself was a large step out of the box for me, and during the shoot I found establishing the right settings on my camera difficult. Too often I was either producing too dark images or too blurry ones. My biggest hurdle was the subject herself. She was feeling a bit uncomfortable and though I tried to be silly and have fun, I just couldn't pull her out of it. Posing was difficult, I would move an isolated body part and she would turn to jello. I tried explaining that she was to only move the part I was touching but often we wound up giggling and distracted. I know that with practice and study I can learn techniques that will help in situations such as these. I came out of the session with low expectations and found myself pleasantly surprised! I definitely lost a lot of images to darkness, blur, or awkward set up, but I also had a moderate amount to choose from for final edits. I can come out of this experience knowing a little better what to expect out of a boudoir shoot, and I plan to research ways in which I can improve my approach.