Boudoir Photography How To

If you’re looking for inspiration for your next boudoir shoot, pro photographer Lindsay Adler’s video below is a great place to start. In the tutorial she shows you how to create a vintage pin-up style art nude photo, which should go over well with boudoir clients who don’t mind showing a little extra skin.

In the clip, Adler gives you the back story on the image and then shows you how to create it on your own. The finished photo was taken from her Fine Art Nude photography workshop.

“People often ask me what inspires me. The short answer is everything!” Adler says. “I really love getting inspiration from paintings or old Hollywood and even pinup photography. I often tie these elements into my own work in some capacity or another. The concept for this image was to create something with a vintage feel. I wanted it to feel timeless, pin-up like and of course have a modern twist!”

Shooting nudes might not be in everyone’s skillset so Adler walks you through this most intimate form of portrait photography.

“When photographing fine art nudes, the focus is typically all about the model and the human form,” she says. “While I have many different exciting and creative setups at my workshops, this one was meant to be more simplistic and elegant. It also helps when your model has that pinup girl look.”

Lighting

“For the shot, I end up using four different strobes. I began by lighting the background which was Savage Universal Seamless Coral with two strobes on either side. The main light I chose my go-to modifier which is the Westcott Optical Spot. Using this modifier, I was able to control exactly what part of the body would be illuminated. Since the main light focused on one area the rest of her body fell into dark shadow, so to fix that, I introduced a medium umbrella with diffusion on the right to fill in those shadows. “

Post Processing

“Now, some of the things that I'm analyzing that I don't like in this shot, I definitely don't like the highlight that I see on the background that is from the optical spot spilling on to it. I could have changed the angle of the optical spot, maybe move the subject further away, but I didn't so I knew that I'd have to fix that in post. I cleaned up a few other areas of the image, including some frayed hairs as well as desaturated everything a bit and warmed things up to try to emulate more of a vintage look. What I captured on camera is quite close, but we were able to achieve much more of that vintage look and that timeless vibe with my color grading and also the perfection of the retouching.”