Planning a Boudoir Set

In today's installment of my on-and-off thoughts on boudoir photography, we'll talk about planning out your concept for a boudoir set.

I find it useful to think of the shoot as a series of pictures telling a very simple story, and of the clothes and props as signifiers that move the story along. Building your photo set around a story concept helps keep it focused and cohesive, and the narrative gives a natural flow to the sequence of pictures.

What that story should be is, of course, up to you. I usually build mine around specific clothes or accessories that I want to show off, which tends to reduce my self-consciousness because I think of it more as showcasing the clothes than myself. But you could just as easily build it around occasions (wedding, birthday, anniversary) or character concepts (Salome, Mata Hari, or just you as yourself -- but "yourself" as a consciously developed character).

Once you settle on a concept, the next step is to build it out using props. There are two main points to consider here: (1) the visual impact of the props (picking pieces with contrasting colors, textures, and purposes helps the pictures pop); and (2) how the props convey your story through symbolic shorthand.

For example!, if you were doing a bridal set, the obvious props would be the wedding veil (sheer fabric and lace can be used for lots of interesting visual effects and light/shadow contrasts, e.g., light falling through a window and being filtered through the veil onto skin), the ring (his and hers; the classic wedding photographer's two-rings-stacked shot can be redone over skin, or you could play around with the man's ring by holding it poised over puckered lips, impaling it on a stiletto heel, whatever works for you), a bouquet of flowers (visual contrast with color and texture, gives you something to play with/tease/shred), and so forth. All of those props are immediately recognizable as wedding symbols, and all can be used to center photographs.

If you wanted to do a character set -- let's say you wanted to play Mata Hari -- then you might pull together some turn-of-the-century Orientalist jewelry and a coin-draped dancer's bra, silk scarves, jeweled slippers, a worn satchel full of maps and papers to be caught rifling through. Theda Bara eyes, vamp lips, something gilded in the hair. The story: Mata Hari spying on a sleeping lover's work, and undressing to distract him after being caught peeking at the reports tucked into his satchel.

And if you wanted to just be yourself, then you'd pick through the symbols and signifiers of your own life (or your shared life together with the pictures' intended recipient), drawing on whatever you felt was both sentimentally significant and visually striking. A college sweater from back when you were boyfriend/girlfriend, a kitschy gift from an early date, a grandmother's cherished heirloom necklace. Whatever speaks to you.

Don't feel limited to lingerie. I've never once in my life done the standard bra-and-panties thing, and I don't see any reason that anyone else should feel bound to that either (of course, if you want to do it, that's a different story entirely!). Pick clothes you feel comfortable in. If an oversized T-shirt or a silly hat with novelty stockings is more authentically you, then do that. The point, after all, is to convey some aspect of your own personality, not to come off as an assembly-line Generic Widget o' Sex.

Couple of quick practical notes:

-- be careful about clothes or accessories that are likely to mess up your hair or makeup if they have to be pulled over your head.

-- if you're wearing stockings, bring an extra pair in case of runs.

-- if you have painted nails or toenails, bring the polish in case you need to touch up big chips.

-- there's a reason so many classic strip dancers and burlesque performers like to use scarves and feathered fans in their dances: you can do a lot with those big swirly splashes of color and sensual textures. While you needn't use a pair of peacock fans in your set, the basic premise might be worth considering: what would be fun to drag and drape over skin?

-- you can get a lot of miscellaneous props cheap on eBay; this is particularly useful for background stuff like colorful glass bottles, weird taxidermy, etc. It's fun to poke around looking at all the bizarre stuff for sale, and sometimes you get good ideas browsing through the listings.

-- keep in mind that the camera won't show the entire studio, so you really only need to build out a tiny part of the background behind your pose. I think it's better to have one or two strong symbolic pieces than a whole bunch of clutter (remember, you're the center focus, not the props, and you don't want to distract from that), so in general I'd recommend just picking out a few minimal signifiers per scene. If you need more than that, you're probably looking at a location shoot rather than a studio shoot anyway.

-- finally, although it's not really a prop-prop, it's often prudent to bring a little bottle of juice or a few pieces of candy to keep yourself from flagging. Even a mini shoot takes a few hours, and holding poses can be more challenging than you might expect. It's a good idea to have a light snack on hand, although I would recommend something compact and calorie-dense so you don't have to worry about whether the bulk will show in the pictures (at my very first shoot we stopped for pizza halfway through, which was a BAD IDEA; take it from me, you do not want to house half a pizza and then immediately go take a bunch of pictures with nearly-no clothes on).

Next up: what to expect at the actual shoot.