This session is the entire reason I shoot boudoir. It’s not only a beautiful and artistic form of photography, there’s something about a well done session that is so rewarding and inspiring.  It's also a testament to how important it is to establish a rapport between client and photographer and within minutes of her arrival, we were laughing and joking around with our client….and her mother and aunt!  It may be the first time a client has brought family to the studio, but it was not awkward at all – in fact, I'm going to go so far as to say it's a pretty good idea to have a familiar face around

Really, this was in my top five favorite studio sessions of the year and today I received a call from our client thanking us for our services, which literally made my entire day!

I had a lot of fun with lighting this time around and did a few unique setups; rather than set up a beauty dish or softbox like I normally do, I wanted something with even smoother coverage, so I positioned a 30" reflector in front of our model and an unmodified strobe behind her.  The strobe behind her acted as a hair light, but the light bouncing off of the reflector acted as a main light and gave this snappy contrast to the skin, with a nice delineation of light and shadow without any excess light spillage and a secondary strobe to light up part of the background. 

Next up, I set up a couple of strobes from behind a sheer white curtain and we shot a few bridal boudoir images and wrapped up with some backlit diffusion screen shots.  I made a little sandwich of light by throwing in a softbox on either side of her to add in definition and did the last few shots as silhouettes. 

Much of the magic of shooting in studio is the creative ways to manipulate light and I really loved how everything turned out.  Best of all though was our client's patience; I always joke that shooting in studio is 80% lighting and 20% photography, which isn't usually a problem, except we had a little (BIG) issue with our heater and our studio space was around 50 degrees the whole time.  But her natural photogenic nature and grace really showed through and you'd never know from the shots that we were all freezing!

For this shoot, Sarah did more of a 'sultry' and glamorous style of hair and makeup, which turned out beautifully and her eye makeup is to die for!