Table Of Content

Featuring Emily Wei The Art of Boudoir Photography with Speedlights From the author of SmokingStrobes • use reliable lighting setups • enjoy shooting stunning photos • make your models proud The Art of Boudoir Photography with Speedlights Copyright 2011 by Michael Zelbel. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author. Contents Introduction 5 My Painful First Bedroom Shoot 5 The Perfect Studio 7 The Concept of “Going NUTS” 9 Step 1: Know Your Bedroom Basics 10 Hot Shoes – For Hot Lighting 11 Prime Time – For Your Lens 11 Great Little Gear 12 Playing Light Jockey 14 Besides the Bed 16 Go Nuts: Furniture Resembling Body Lines 18 Step 2: Choose The Right Lingerie 19 A White Shirt 20 Lingerie with Lace 21 Bridal Fashion 22 High Heels 23 Simple Underwear 24 Go Nuts: Striptease 25 Hot Pants 26 A Blanket 27 Clothes That Won’t Work 28 Step 3: Setup Your Light 29 One Light Setup 31 Bodyscapes 34 One Light + Accent Light 35 One Light + Kicker Light 37 The Lighting Sandwich 39 Beauty Light 44 Natural Light 46 Go NUTS: Back Lighting 50 Setups: Those We Don’t Speak Of 52 Step 4: Posing Your Model 53 S-Curve 54 45 Degree 54 Facial Expressions 55 Tell A Story 56 Lazy Posing: Body Parts 56 Go Nuts: Stretchy Poses 59 Step 5: Choose Interesting Angles 60 Find the Chocolate Side 60 Tilt Your Camera 60 Lines 61 Boring Dead Center 61 Rule of Thirds 61 Go NUTS: Shoot from Her Feet 63 “Climb Into Bed” Height 63 Go NUTS: Eagle’s Perspective 64 Focal Point 65 Step 6: The Don’ts: Avoid the Most Common Mistakes 66 No Bad Hands Too Much Distrac… Oh, Shiny! 66 Too Many Colors 67 Too Tight Lingerie… Ouch! 67 Fat Wide-Angle Photos 67 Dirty Heels 67 Uncared Nails 68 Go to the next level 69 Creating a Pool of Shooting Ideas 69 Your Regular Portfolio Shoot 70 A Helping Hand 71 Author Bio 73 Acknowledgements 74 Bedroom Photo Setups Michael Zelbel Introduction I am probably not the fanciest artist you have ever seen. In fact, I still like to think of myself as an amateur photographer – although when your hobby starts bringing in some good money, you get kicked out of the “non-professional zone” by public opinion. I’m starting to feel it as of late, but I still enjoy being an amateur. For me, this means freedom of experi- mentation and also being able to get away with occasional mistakes or artistic decisions that a hardcore pro would be crucified for! Sharing has always been a big part of my activities in the photography community. The way I get other people acquainted with my techniques and methods varies from real-world workshops and blog posts on SmokingStrobes.com to personal coaching sessions in my little ProPortfolioClub.com. If by chance you have tried to become a member, but found us unable to accept new people at the moment, please keep reading – at the end of the guide you will find a handy loophole that makes the process a lot easier! Now that we are through talking about how awesome I am, we should get to the meat and potatoes of this e-book – making high-quality boudoir photography. We will go through the very basic aspects of preparing your bedroom studio for a shoot, adorning your model with all sorts of neat apparel (or stripping her naked, o la la!); then we will move on to something more advanced – various lighting setups, poses and shooting angles. Lastly, we are going to top everything off with a list of things you should NOT do if you want your pictures to be any good. Before we go any further and delve deep into the bottomless pit of photographic knowledge (although I’m probably just flattering myself), may I interest you in a bit of storytelling? Don’t fret – it won’t take long. But by the end of it, you will have come to appreciate the conveniences of small lighting gear and eager models. Because, you see, when I was starting out in beauty photography, things were a lot more complicated. My Painful First Bedroom Shoot I can still recall the first time that I was confronted with a real boudoir photography challenge. A few days after I had purchased my first DSLR camera and a set of monoblocks on lightstands, I could not resist bragging with this great stuff to anyone within earshot when a friend of mine visited me. She is a very beautiful lady – and, to my genuine surprise, she wanted me to take some good bedroom pictures of her. I thought I had died and went to Heaven. Back then I hadn’t the faintest clue about lighting, composition and posing. As you can probably guess, I was pretty terrible – a lot worse than Nonja, the famous orangutan photographer from Vienna. 5 Bedroom Photo Setups Michael Zelbel Predictably, this led to a hilarious photo shoot and some lame pictures that did my stunningly beautiful model no justice at all. I wasn’t experienced enough to know what exactly was wrong with those images – or just how horrible they were – but I felt quite embarrassed all the same. I thought I had just my one-in-a- million chance to shoot boudoir pictures of a hot girl. Stupid man... Now, after several years and count- less photo shoots, I have come to realize two very important things: a) Learning means grad- ually going from bad to good. It depends not so much on your inborn genius, but on practice and skill. Vision, as well as technique, can be developed through trial and error. The vast majority of people start out shooting crappy pictures – it is a neces- sary milestone. b) There is no shortage of attractive women – some of them soul- 6 Bedroom Photo Setups Michael Zelbel crushingly gorgeous – ready to be your models. to deal with a mind-boggling quantity of clunky Bond with your potential subjects online on Face- gear. If your goal was to shoot magazine quality book and other communities, or meet them in real pictures, there was no way around it – you just had world situations like gatherings of civic groups, to have all that stuff! Intense lighting was needed foreign country associations and the like. due to little sensitivity that film used to possess back then. But those days are over (fortunately). When I started to learn more and more about pho- Nowadays any DSLR you can buy, be it a high-end tography, the first thing I practiced was setting up camera or an entry level device, delivers much bet- light with the help of really big photography gear. ter image quality than any medium format camera You know, like gigantic softboxes, and octaboxes, did 10 years ago. It also doesn’t require anywhere and powerful monoblocks. Later on, inspired by near as much light. Speedlights are nowadays so the strobist movement I moved my primary focus powerful that the issue of insufficient lighting is on attaining the same excellent lighting by means practically nonexistent. of very small gear. I moved on to using only speedlights, umbrellas and very lightweight lightstands. In fact, you are more likely to experience problems with light that is too bright and too intense – but This was the point of no return for me – taking those are easily remedied. I’ll show you how to deal pictures became much easier. Portable and pow- with all sorts of hiccups related to lighting set-ups erful equipment made boudoir photography less in this very guide. For now, don’t concern yourself difficult to pull off in such locations as bedrooms with this and let’s carry on. that possess a lot of artistic potential but prove unsuitable for studio gear. With speedlights, how- The Perfect Studio ever, you could shoot inside a dollhouse! Well, not really – but they are still a lot more versatile than As unlikely as it sounds, a bedroom is an ideal loca- your everyday studio equipment. tion for taking beauty and nude photos. It gives you substantial opportunities for manipulating the As a result, now I can parade into a bedroom and light and positioning your model, which makes it, set up some compelling and dramatic lighting in essence, a studio. That’s right – a bedroom is just in a matter of minutes. Then I pose my model in another photo studio for you. The one you need to the most flattering way possible and start taking know inside and out, the one you need to master. pictures. Easy as pie – no missed opportunities, no pressing deadlines, no complex lighting contrap- Any beauty photographer who is striving to bring tions that nobody has any idea how to use. in good money with his skill should be flexible and able to shoot with limited time and resources. I work much smarter now. The best part is, my Your clients and your friends who want you to take clients don’t care how big and complex my gear is, boudoir pictures can’t relate to all the difficulties of as long as the results are stunning. They are paying organizing a shoot. That’s why it would be expedi- me serious money for doing what is essentially my ent for you to make it as time-saving and minimal- biggest passion. How cool is that? istic as possible. Back in the golden days a photographer’s lot was 7 Bedroom Photo Setups Michael Zelbel If you can walk into a bedroom, set everything up, least become less dependent on expensive equip- pull out your camera and shoot away, producing ment and professional venues. images of wonderful quality, asking why you won’t do it in an actual studio would be the last thing on The photos in this e-book were taken during a people’s minds! super long session with my wife Emily in our bedroom at home. Emily is very beautiful, but she is A full-fledged studio encounter with your model is not a photo model; nor is every pose shown here costly, laborious and time-consuming. The results ideal for her. But I wanted to keep it real and take are sometimes unpredictable, because not many the pictures for this guide “in the field” as opposed non-professional models can relax in a studio. to just choosing some perfect examples from my Relaxing in a bedroom is much easier – that’s what portfolio. In this darn age photography is clearly a bedrooms are for! With this guide showing you team sports. Makeup artists, stylists and assistants how to take care of the gear and the pose, you will are REQUIRED on set. But in order keep this exam- be able if not to ditch studio photography, but at ple shoot reproducibly on a shoestring budget I 8 Bedroom Photo Setups Michael Zelbel opted for doing it without any third party help - just Emily and myself. I think it got paid off in terms of learning value. Had I just selected a couple of dozens of pictures from my portfolio and declared them as the standard, I would probably end up with something irreproducible. I wanted to encourage ex- perimentation and freedom of expression. So whenever you see the examples in the book, please keep in mind that the same poses might look different with your model, and a different type of lighting can change the mood and the overall impression dramatically. I urge you to try everything and knock yourself out in every way imaginable! The Concept of “Going NUTS” One particular thing I’m using throughout this guide is the concept of “going nuts”. N.U.T.S. stands for “not the usual tame stuff”. As I stated a couple of lines above, I want to encourage your creative expression and make all the process as interactive as it can get with reading a boudoir photography guide. Let me explain the idea to you. Despite being all about inspiration and originality, art is built on rules. It is important to learn them and know how to apply them. However, it is even more important to bend these rules occasionally – or downright break them. When you have tried the lighting setups and the poses that I provide in this guide, it means the time has come to put a twist on this material and see what happens. Just go with your gut feeling and see if you produce something fresh and good. You might succeed – or maybe not. Whatever result you end up with, don’t let it discourage you. Don’t be afraid to do something wrong. When you are scared of being wrong, you deny your own right to be original. Fresh perspective is the single most important thing that no education must take away from you! Now do me a favor and go nuts! Go NUTS! You will find fun and practical advice (with many more saucy pictures) on how to go nuts and deliver crazy creative twists in colored captions like these, scattered throughout the guide. They are all over the place, so keep your eyes open! 9 Bedroom Photo Setups Michael Zelbel Step 1: Know Your Bedroom Basics Once you master photography in the bedroom then there’s one thing which makes it all worthwhile, and that’s flexibility. Wherever you go, there is always a bedroom of some sort. This basically means that you will have “a studio” regardless of where you end up. Whether you are visiting friends in order to take their pictures, or you are on holiday, or for any other rea- son, there is always a bedroom. It can be a simple one (in a house or an apartment) or a fancy one (you often get those in hotels, though kitsch costs extra!). You can produce awesome pictures in any bedroom, humble or posh. One significant drawback of bedrooms as compared to studios is their pretty confined space – I’m talking both width and height. A full body image would often require a wide angle lens, and those can introduce a lot of distortion to the photos, specifically – to your model’s body. Needless to say, you should use such gear with caution; not everyone has keen artistic taste, but everybody can spot weird details in other people’s anatomy! Limited size of most bedrooms also makes it more difficult to set up the light; it tends to bounce off every surface and illuminate the places you’d rather keep in shade. However, doing this correctly is quite easy to learn. We will talk about the matter in the next chapter – as well as many other aspects of creating beautiful bedroom lighting. In order to create visual depth and add appropriate mood with lighting, you don’t need a lot of equipment. 1