this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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Photography
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As a professional photographer of over a decade and a woman, I’ll just say that it’s been my experience in the industry that the dudes doing hobbyist boudoir sessions for free tend to be creeps that just want to take photos of pretty young girls. Most don’t even understand how to light properly to flatter the subject and their posing skills are well, trashy. It’s always come off a bit predatory to me. Maybe they manage to behave well for most shoots but there’s eventually rumors and negative stories that get out. A good boudoir photographer is booked solid for weeks if not months out and isn’t working for free. Someone with a more fine art style should have a substantial portfolio of work and a great rep and should probably be paying you to model and should include hair/makeup.
If you decide to go through with this, make sure his work is good enough that you feel it’s worth your time. Insist on seeing the model release and making sure you understand where these images could end up - depending on your career or future plans, it could be a bad thing to have suggestive photos of yourself living on the internet if you end up becoming a teacher, or running for a local election or really anything where you’re in the public eye, especially in a leadership role. Is it fair? No. But it’s the reality of being a woman. People will use whatever ammunition they can find to tear a woman down. Would you be okay with your parents or (future) kids coming across them?
If you’ve considered all that and are okay with it, then go for it, but absolutely bring someone with you. If you get any pushback about bringing someone, that’s a huge red flag. Maybe even have some kind of code word so your buddy can invent an emergency that requires you both to leave if you’re uncomfortable with how the shoot is going.
As a male photographer who has mostly commercial clients (events/corporate) that pay way more than boudoir and would like to explore boudoir photography I find it’s very difficult to even get clients for boudoir without a portfolio so you would definitely need to do a few for free or at least low priced.
I feel most women simply only want to work with a female photographer and I’ve seen women not be great at photography for all the things you just listed above. Also the women I’ve seen who do boudoir definitely share and post the content all over their social media and the shoots are just as tasteless, with trashy sexual poses no different from their male counterparts.
So when it comes down to it, doesn’t seem like a skill thing. Just a matter of “well at least the photographer is a female capturing me.”
Oh, NO DOUBT there are some shittastic female boudoir photographers out there. I follow one mainly because she keeps stealing our interiors photos to use to promote her sessions. Her lighting is fucking terrible and she knows fuck all about posing larger bodies. There’s shitty photogs everywhere. But the female boudoir photogs usually aren’t sending sus texts after the session or trying to have a deeper relationship like the badly behaved male ones. There’s literally instagram accounts for models to keep track of which photographers are sketchy.
Why even bother doing boudoir? Like you said, commercial work pays way better and is less emotionally fraught. I shot a couple back when I did weddings and it was better than doing newborns but it’s not a genre that’s going to result in additional sales from other parties, and the client willing to invest 4 figures or more is kind of rare unless you have a super popular boudoir brand.
If it really “speaks” to you artistically then just hire a model. Much easier to make sure you’re getting what you need for your portfolio when you can call all the shots on styling, make-up, wardrobe, etc.
My biggest pet peeve with boudoir photographers is that a solid 95% cannot pronounce the word “boudoir” correctly. How is anyone supposed to take you seriously when you can’t even say what you do. If I hear “boo-door” one more time…
Haha I get you about the pronunciation of the word.
The thing is there’s creeps and weirdos on both sides women just make more noise about it. Men brush it off and keep it moving.
As for why do boudoir even if the pay isn’t as much, it’s not always about bread (money). If that was the case I wouldn’t take photos of half the things I capture, most of what I do is because I’m interested in it and I like the look of it so I want to freeze that moment. It’s no different with boudoir or capturing a beautiful woman. Inspiration starts with an interest, nothing wrong with that or admitting to it.
The whole label of men photographers being just in it to be creepy is lame, even the OP’s own friends vouched for the guy after having shoots with him.