My Boudoir Shoot Experience (as told by a client)

Many many thanks to this wonderful lady who came for a boudoir shoot recently.  If you are of sensitive disposition do please be warned this has interesting language!  But if you want an engaging , up close and personal view of what it really means to have a boudoir shoot experience then this is as honest as it comes.  Thank you my lovely  for allowing me to share this with everyone  If  you want an boudoir shoot experience that you will never forget then do consider getting in touch with me to talk about your boudoir shoot.  I promise it is a LOT of fun.  .

So -are you ready?  Then we will begin 🙂

The Boudoir Shoot Experience – (by Steph)

“Ladies, if you have never done a sexy photo shoot before, YOU MUST DO ONE. It will be the sexiest you have ever felt or looked. You will also feel like you are recreating the hilarious photo shoot scene from Austin Powers but we’ll get onto that later…
I’ve always wanted to do a boudoir shoot, even before I was in a relationship. I can’t think of anything more empowering for a woman than to celebrate her body, sexuality and sensuality by being photographed in whatever outfits and poses SHE chooses to. I’m a feminist in the sense that I believe in a woman doing whatever the fuck she wants to do, not because society expects them to do (or not do) something.
So if that means you want to do raunchy pics for your husband then great. I don’t feel it is disempowering or making women sexual commodities at all. If a woman gets off on being desired by men then I salute that woman. Because I AM that woman.
I chose to do my boudoir shoot yesterday for me. Not Dave (although he will certainly appreciate it ) but for me. I’m in the best shape of my life, my confidence has never been higher, and I’m not getting any younger. And I can’t think of a better way to commiserate the fact that I’m still not pregnant yet than by documenting how fucking awesome my body looked before babies come along and change all of that.
The day before I went to Ann Summers and treated myself to some new underwear. Now this is ‘bedroom underwear’ if you catch my drift. It was a set – bra, suspender belt and thong – in a pewter bronze kind of colour with black lace overlay and a LOT of strappy bits. Kind of a bondage look but in a tasteful way. The bra had two black straps that went over the bust to highlight the curve of my tits, the suspender belt had three straps either side which really accentuated my waist, and the thong had two straps to enhance my hips. So all in all, with these straps all over my body I felt like a fucking goddess. There wasn’t an angle I wasn’t happy with. And my strappy heels that I wore with the outfit just finished it off perfectly.
The amazing woman who shot me, was my wedding photographer Sharon from Symply Photography.  She was so brilliant at our wedding three years ago, capturing everything exactly how we wanted it and making us feel at ease, that I knew I would be back to do a boudoir shoot with her. Her house is simply stunning and the perfect location to do sexy shots, with windows, doorways and beds to get the right poses. She also has the best make up artist and assistant   Katie who made me feel at ease right away with her friendly, relaxed nature and simply made me look stunning. I’d recommend both of them so please check out their websites.

After a quick catch up (and a super big hug with Sharon!) we discussed my vision for the shoot. Now, you can’t do something like this without being on the same page and feel 100% comfortable with what you’re agreeing to. You have to be clear with how you see your photographs turning out and the poses you want to do, but you also have to be able to trust the professionals to know what works and what will look right. I’m a flexible kind of person so I just made it clear what I didn’t want (innocent, girly, vintage, smiling) and what I did (sultry, seductive, sassy, sexy, smoky, sensual, no smiling) and left it in Sharon’s and Katie’s hands to work their magic. They looked at the underwear I’d brought along and discussed the make up that would work with it. I also showed Sharon a selection of shots that I’d saved off the internet to give them an idea of what I wanted. I knew it was going to be a right laugh when one of the negligees that I’d brought with me (but didn’t use) was the same one Sharon herself had! No wonder I get along so well with the woman. Now bearing in mind that I bought this outfit from Ann Summers back when I first started dating Dave (so over 10 years ago), I’m not quite sure what it says about Sharon and I that we still have it in our possession over a decade later haha.

Okay. So that’s the background out of the way. Let’s get down to business. I know you all want to know what exactly happened at my boudoir shoot experience.
When I first looked in the mirror in my full underwear set, heels, make up on point and my hair (freshly done by my lovely hairdresser  the day before) all messy and shagged, I was literally dumbstruck. I’m going to blow my own trumpet here – I LOOKED FUCKING SENSATIONAL. Yeah there were parts of my body that aren’t my favourite, but after losing 45lbs since January and wearing size 10-12 I looked like a Victoria’s Secret model… but a healthy one that actually enjoys eating and having a pint every now and then.

I was feeling that confident, and that sassy, and that badass, that I would have happily walked down Oxford Street in London on a Saturday afternoon wearing that get up. I knew my photos were going to look phenomenal.

Now, I’m going to describe the great bits first. And then I’ll tell you the hilarious reality. Because that’s what I’m known for after all.
The poses we did were raunchy but tasteful and I wanted all of them to be shot in black and white only. The ones I can remember were me kneeling on the bed holding a bed sheet up, laying on my back arching up off the bed, my legs straight up against the back wall with my hands above my head in handcuffs (ohhhhh yesssss!),  a close up of one of my heels catching my thong and pulling it out and away from me (that looked HOT), lying on my front with my ass up and pulling a stocking in my teeth that was wrapped around my wrists, standing against a wall with my hands above my head and one leg bent against the wall,

standing against the backdrop of a window to get the full silhouetted rear shot, leaning against an archway… and those were just the bedroom shots.
When we went to the studio, things really rocked up a gear. A couple of ultimate poses I wanted to get were with me laying on my back, a fierce arch up off the floor, one leg bent, arms outstretched behind me, tits thrust upwards and my head thrown right back. Like the Flashdance pose but waaaaaay sexier. The piece de resistance though, was the chair shot. Everybody knows the chair shot. .

 

The famous Christine Keeler one, topless, legs akimbo.  We did it both ways – starting with my back to camera and me looking over my shoulder, capturing the full bondage look of my back. We then did it with my wrists bound in handcuffs again above my head. We finished with me facing the camera, topless (the chair just about hiding my tits) and me swinging my bra off one finger whilst I stared straight into the camera. And that was a wrap! .

After my wedding day, they were 3 and a half of the best hours of my life.
But of course, there was a lot more to it than that…

Let’s move onto the reality. It takes a shitload of effort to look sexy. In fact, I have a newfound respect for models (never thought I’d say that!) but it’s true. The photos may look effortless but actually it takes a lot of muscle strength and stamina to hold a pose.
Your legs get cramp. Your arms ache. In fact at one point my bum started twitching and my neck started shaking when I was in one position for ages. I felt like I was doing fucking yoga!
And it ain’t glamorous.

Case in point: when we were trying to get the shot with my thong hooked on my heel I had to arch my back as far as it would go, thrust my arse up as high has I could get it, twist my hip so that one was higher than the other, and reach my little stumpy leg back far enough for the heel to reach my arse crack. Once we’d practised it, then came the part where Katie had the delightful job of hooking my thong out of said arse crack with her finger and pulling it high enough out to hook onto my heel without snapping my underwear completely.

Let me tell you, you may think you have had wedgies before, but you haven’t had THAT kind of wedgie. If Katie and Sharon decided to leave me in that position I would still be stuck there now.
“Hello, fire service? Yeah I need some assistance with removing my thong from my heel as I am currently trapped with the worst front wedgie ever and I can’t reach round because I’m handcuffed…”

Then of course, there were the poses. I didn’t want to be smiling in these shots because when I smile I look too girly, and the look we were going for was sultry and fierce. So I had to channel my inner siren and stare down that camera lens. But it doesn’t take a lot for me to lose it. Especially when Sharon started giving me encouragement and shouting ‘yes!’ when I mastered the look she wanted.
You know the scene in Austin Powers where he’s directing Ivana Humpalot on that ridiculous photo shoot?
“Yeah baby, you’re a tiger! You’re an ANIMAL!”
Oh god I just lost it.

And I lost it when I was putting the stocking in my teeth and pulling it whilst trying to snarl in a futile attempt to look seductive. Instead I felt like a dog playing tug on a toy. And when I said I hope the stocking had been washed since it was last worn, Katie retorted that Sharon had worn it the previous night, I literally spat it out.
There were also shameless moments where you lose all dignity but you go with it.
Like when I crawled off the bed to discover my entire right tit had escaped from my bra and Katie just casually reached over and popped my nipple back in. You know, as you do.

And when I did the topless shot on the chair. You just gotta whip that bra off and whap those tits out girls! 
And there’s no point being embarrassed. The chair I was sitting on was draped with black satin. Because I’d been sat on it for a few minutes, when I stood up it had stuck between my legs and went with me. Well, thank goodness there were no snail trails left behind on it, is all I can say…
Speaking of snails, I felt like a fucking snail when I was crawling along the foil that I was posing on in the studio, sticking to it and peeling my knees and hands off it like some weird fetish game of Twister.

When she started rolling it out I thought I was going to be wrapped in it like a fucking turkey. And don’t get me started on the arse prints I’d left behind on it. Along with the DNA of previous clients who had also slimed their way across it in an attempt to look sexy. Yes I certainly felt fucking graceful and sexy doing that haha!
I asked Sharon if she wipes down the foil between sessions. She says yes. I think she’s lying haha. I swear I could make out the arse crack of someone else just inches from my face. But no bother. I left behind a lot more of me on it that’s for sure!
One thing both Sharon and Katie said which I will always remember is that they thought I was a natural and it was one of the most fun shoots they had ever done. Sharon also said that there would be very little airbrushing needed to be done on them.
I think she’s lying again.
Unless Photoshop has a new feature that I don’t know about where you can edit a snail to look like a sexy goddess…?
Sharon – you were a great Austin Powers. And I had great fun being your Ivana.”