It all started with reading some fellow bloggers’ posts about their own Boudoir Experience. They reminded me that I’d considered doing this before the wedding, and that the idea still appealed. So, I started looking around at photographers in my city who did boudoir photography.
I knew I wanted to go with a female photographer as I was more comfortable with that. I looked through some photographers’ sites, looking at their portfolio and testimonials. Finally, I landed on A Beautiful Photo. This is run by Victoria Vincent, who does portrait, lifestyle and commercial photography. However, she says that her passion is boudoir and beauty photography. On her site, the first step to this is meeting up for a coffee catch up. Where you can chat more about why you might want to do a boudoir shoot, share ideas, and she’ll explain more about what you can expect. So that’s what I did. I sent off an email, and we met up later that week.
Victoria was friendly and open from the get go. She made me feel at ease, got me a drink, and we sat down and had a chat at her office. She had a few albums I could look through while she talked about what I could expect at the boudoir shoot. Hair and makeup was part of the deal, and she’s happy to go to the client’s house and do a photoshoot there. It was really nice talking with her, and it’s clear that she was a professional and just passionate about what she does. She gave me some tips about how I could prepare myself for the shoot, as well as what colours work best with her style of photography (black and deep red, which are pretty classic colours). We talked for ages, and I decided that I wanted to do this. So we chose a date that worked for both of us, set up payment, and there was nothing to do but wait!
The week before the shoot, I tried to remember to drink even more water. I was more careful with my skin care routine than I normally am. The weekend before, I even went out to a few lingerie stores and shopped around a little. It was all a lot of fun and got me even more excited for the shoot. Finally, the day came!
I was a frazzle of nerves as I waited for Victoria and her makeup artist to arrive. I’ve since blanked on the lovely hair and makeup artist’s name, and I lost her card! I feel so bad, but like I said, I was a basket of nerves, and can’t find where I put her card! Anyway, they both were friendly and chatty, and seemed unbothered by my nerves. They kept talking to me, getting me at ease, and by the time my hair and makeup were done, I was feeling a lot better.
When it came time for the shoot, we started with some beauty portraits first. So I was in a dress, and standing against a black backdrop that Victoria brought. This was when I got my first taste of posing. Victoria encouraged me, helped make me feel relaxed, and even got a few genuine laughs out of me, as she directed me how to stand, where to put my arms etc. It was actually nice to be told what to do, as otherwise I would have just stood there at a loss. Once we were happy with these, we moved on to the main event.
The more the shoot went on, the more comfortable I was. Mentally anyway, there were some poses from inspiration photos that Victoria or I wanted to do. We actually managed to do quite a few of them. Maybe that yoga I’ve been doing is slowly helping. We didn’t do anything crazy, but I’m kind of looking forward to seeing the photos! Plus, I felt pretty good and kinda sultry in my ‘outfits’. I put them in quotation marks, as I don’t think you can really call them outfits. Time flew by pretty fast, and before I knew it, three hours had gone by and Victoria was saying that she was really happy with all the different shots she had. She asked if there was anything else I wanted to do, but I realized I was starting to lose energy, and I trusted that we had a lot to work with haha!
All in all, I looooved the experience, and it was definitely pretty empowering. I would consider doing it again at another time, and maybe even being a little more daring. For my first ever time though, I had so much fun! I cannot wait to see the photos in a few weeks! If you guys have the opportunity to do something like this, go for it!
This was a bit rambly, but that’s how I roll! Have you guys ever done a boudoir shoot?
Angela.
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