Back from the Sick Bed

“What was the point of getting that flu shot, anyway?” I growled at my nurse practitioner wife. “Well,” she deigned with that clinical calm we’re all too familiar with, “there are different strains…”

Not much for TV, I spent some of my time in bed thinking about how best to show the transformation I wrote about in my last article—the one using a mouse-over to show Jackie’s before & after. I like the mouse-over approach, and side-by-side comparisons would work as well, but I’m thinking a short video with music is the answer.

So, regular programming will resume in a day or two with a short video clip showing the transformation of an actual client. I’ll also discuss our choice of still image, audio, and video editors as well as a few options for podsafe music. Cool stuff, so check back.

And back by popular demand, today’s before & after images are more of Danielle in her red dress and alabaster skin—a beautiful young women who wanted to try modeling. To all of you who emailed questions, I can only say that this and the previous image are from her test shoot. Regrettably, she never showed for her photoshoot. I wish she had.

Lighting: Beauty dish at camera left shot through a scrim; medium gold reflector at camera right; small silver umbrella at camera right and behind model.

Featured Comment

Jeff writes:

My wife, out of the blue, asked me last Tuesday about having a set of boudoir pictures taken of herself as a present for me. She was/is worried about her body image after having had two children. She talked to a boudoir photographer in our area and the photographer showed my wife her book which included some before/after pictures. What bothered my wife the most about the book was that she felt the photog only showed women that my wife felt were VERY physically attractive before the shoot so that there was not much “transformation” with hair, makeup and wardrobe needed for the after shots. My wife considers herself to be plain-jane and is fearful that none of her inner beauty will show in the pictures. The first thing I did was fire up the computer and show her the before and after pictures from your post on November 20th so you posted at just the right time for us. She remains undecided at the moment whether to go through with the photo session or not, but she should be making a decision soon.

Not being personally familiar with how photographers charge for photo sessions like this, the photographer said she charges $150.00 for a one hour session and then my wife must purchase either the proofs or a photo package on top of the sitting fee. I feel that the mandatory purchase is unfair if she ends up not liking the photos. I can see paying the sitting fee, but forcing her to buy the pictures? Am I wrong for feeling that way?

Response

What a wonderful gift, Jeff! To ensure its success, here are some things to consider.

Because your wife is apprehensive, she needs a photographer who connects with her, a photographer who not only sees her inner beauty—and her inner sexuality—but also understands her issues and has the requisite skills to deal with them all the way to final prints.

In terms of the session time, we’ve managed to produce some good work in one-hour test sessions of young aspiring models. But that was after an hour or so of hair and makeup, which included talking about poses and scenes as well as clothing. So, at a minimum, say, two hours of interaction. But boudoir clients—certainly our boudoir clients—aren’t young aspiring models. They’re women who’ve been married several years, have had one or more children, and have the same fears and apprehensions your wife has. And I do not believe that a one-hour session—if that’s the only time the photographer and client interact—will yield the results your wife is looking for.

As a follow-up on this topic, you might ask your wife to read these articles:

• What Is Boudoir Photography, Anyway?
• Do You Photoshop?
• So, What Is the Purpose of a Boudoir Photograph, and Why Do So Many Miss the Mark?

Now to the cost, or more precisely, what you get for your money. (I won’t address the actual amount, because it’s pointless comparing rates from different parts of the country and from photographers with different skill sets.) Photographers who set low session fees have an expectation that their profit will come from print or DVD sales. And many do set minimum purchase amounts. But until now, I had not heard of a case where the client wasn’t able to see the results of her session without paying for proofs. This seems heavy-handed to me, but then again, I might have misread your comment, so please let me know if I did.

Remember, it’s a business, so the photographer’s profit must come from somewhere. In your wife’s case, it’s obviously not coming from the session, so it must come from print sales. And if the photographer makes that all-important connection with your wife and the print prices are reasonable, then it could be a bargain. On the other hand, if that connection is missing, then cost is irrelevant.

Marketing Boudoir Photography

I don’t believe there is any shortage of women with the wherewithal and desire to engage a boudoir photographer. But finding the ones with enough self-confidence to move from desire to action, well, that’s another story altogether.

With varying degrees of success—and failure—we’ve tried most of the obvious means for marketing our boudoir photography services:

• website
• blog
• word of mouth
• adult and lingerie stores
• art shows
• direct contact

Let’s examine each of these in turn. 

The website generates a lot of initial interview appointments from women who are excited to have found us and anxious to proceed. And we’ve booked and shot each woman who kept that initial interview appointment. The problem is, most don’t—keep the appointment, that is.

The blog gets a lot of hits—thanks to all those who link to us—but it’s relatively new, so no sales metrics yet. However, clients and models say they enjoy getting to know us this way—and that’s good marketing.

As you would expect, word of mouth generates a great deal of interest. You know, she’s excited because she just saw her friend’s album and wants to talk about her own boudoir photography session. But like the website contacts, many don’t show up for that initial interview.

You’d think adult and lingerie stores would be a natural place to advertise. More than just advertise, we opened a studio in one. This may be hard to believe, but we booked only one client from that source. We did, however, meet two young women who would ultimately model for us and who have already graced these pages.

We’ve been featured in two art shows this year and both generated print sales, website hits, and two or three new models. They also generated contacts interested in our boudoir photography offerings. Unlike the Internet contacts, most of these showed up for their initial interview. Subsequent bookings were high.

But what about our last strategy—direct contact? First, what is it? Direct contact is initiating a conversation about boudoir photography with a woman we consider a potential client. In contrast to the other methods mentioned here, not one woman who made an appointment for the initial interview following our direct contact ever failed to be there! Furthermore, we have booked every one of those interviewed for a boudoir session.

So, why the disparity? Why do some methods work so well while others are marginally or not at all effective? To understand the dynamics, Patty and I followed up with the no-shows as well as with those who demonstrated a great deal of desire but were unable to commit. Of course, some never got back to us. But for those who did, and while the reasons given may have sounded different, the overarching deterrent was this: fear resulting from shyness and a lack of self-confidence.

We found that women who viewed our websites, or visited our art shows at times when we weren’t present, were the least likely to make or keep their initial interview appointment. Why? Well, there were those, of course, who couldn’t move forward without telling their husbands, an issue I’ve written about before. But as it turns out, most had compared themselves unfavorably with our portfolio images. This had the same effect as reading a typical women’s magazine: a dramatic loss of self-esteem.ⁿ¹ Not at all what we had hoped!

Without our direct contact, these women did not factor in the transformation process that takes place with expert makeup, clothing, and lighting—not to mention a few lessons in projecting one’s sexual persona. Essentially, their day-to-day perceptions of themselves didn’t stack up to the examples. As a result, whatever self-confidence they had coming in was gone or severely diminished, giving us no chance of converting them to boudoir photography clients.

At its core, marketing boudoir photography is about building self-confidence and overcoming fear. As we’ve witnessed, presenting a woman with only beautiful after-transformation images of other sexy, expressive women—whether on a website, at an art show, or in a portfolio—can actually have an adverse effect. Rather than igniting a desire to perform, it can douse what self-confidence that woman brought to the table. To avert this, we’re changing our electronic and print media to show the transformation that we describe when meeting a potential client face-to-face. And, at the same time, we will increase our direct contact with potential clients.

Today’s image: Jackie—before and after. Actually, it’s almost before: She’s midway into her makeup session. To see the before move your mouse cursor over the image. As always, clicking the image will take you to larger samples.
Lighting: Large silver umbrella with scrim covering at camera right; medium gold reflector at camera left; small silver umbrella at camera left and behind model.

(n1) Patty’s been interested in the effect of the media on women and their self-confidence since studying for her masters in nursing. A classmate wrote her thesis on this very subject. For further reading, Patty recommends these articles:

• The influence of fashion magazines on the body image satisfaction of college women: an exploratory analysis, Sherry L. Turner et al.
• Depleting Body Image: The effects of female magazine models on the self-esteem and body image of college-age women, Mary-Signe Chojnacki et al.
• Woman and Self Confidence, Colette Dowling, M.S.W.

Stage Presence

This video is deliciously fun to watch—at least twice, I might add! It's also a great deal more than that.

It demonstrates two boudoir photography fundamentals in a wonderfully titillating way: (1) stage presence sells—whether it's on a huge public stage like the one in this video, or on a small private stage at a photo shoot; and (2) as I wrote in my previous post, the connection is key—whether between a performer and her audience as in this video, or between you and your client at a photo shoot.

Enjoy.

Articles of Note

This week in the blogshpere: Two exceptionally well-written articles relevant to boudoir photographers!

The first: The key to good photography is composition — posted by Lin at Fluffytek.

In this article, I was struck by commenter Grommit’s question: “Can I see with my own eyes the person to person connection that existed between the photographer and model, or subject?”

That is the critical question for boudoir photographers, because it’s this connection that transfers the experience to the client’s lover and changes an image from just a pretty snapshot to visual foreplay.

The second: “Unbearable Lightness” — by guest poster Unbearable Lightness at Iris Dassault’s blog.

This is a story to inspire. At the age of fifty-eight, the author decided to model. Five years later, at sixty-three, she posed for her first full nude shot. “I finally own myself,” she writes, “which is to say I am confident, free of youthful self-doubt and fear.”

This one sentence underlines what stands between boudoir photographers and so many potential clients. In the end, the marketing of boudoir photography is—more than anything else—about overcoming the client’s self-doubt and fear. I’ll share how Patty and I address this in a future post.

Today’s image: Danielle in Red No. 0016.
Lighting: Beauty dish at camera left shot through a scrim; medium gold reflector at camera right; small silver umbrella at camera right and behind model.

Good Vibrations...

Patty hadn’t been gone five minutes when she called from her cellphone. “You’ve got to iTunes Norah Jones singing Turn Me On. It’s perfect for the last scene, you know, the one where she climbs onto that big four-poster featherbed!” And perfect it was—not only for that photo shoot scene but also for the client’s DVD.

Finding the perfect mood-changing sounds and words that will heighten sexual tension is always an adventure for us. We delight in seeing how the right music enables our clients to reveal their sexual personas.

So, how do we select music for a shoot? Since music supports scenes, scene selection comes first (see previous article). After that, it’s a matter of finding the music that focuses her attention on the mood needed for each scene.

During the initial interview we ask the client what type of music she or her lover plays as a signal that sex is in the offing. What do they listen to during foreplay? And what turns her on and what turns her off? While a few have thought about it at this level of detail, many have not, but if phrased effectively, her answers will give us a pretty good idea of what will stir her during the various scenes. (And asking these questions opens the door for her to reveal her sexual self, which is so important for the upcoming photo shoot.)

I should point out, that many clients tell us they love what we play in our website galleries and leave it up to us. The interesting thing is that using our experience and intuition to select timeless and intense music rather than the latest fad usually works out fairly well—not only for women over forty but also for the twenty-somethings.

Some key points about our selection process:

• create storyboard of scenes first
• select individual songs, not albums
• choose timeless music that enhances the tempo and the sexual emotion of the scene
• use both vocals and instrumentals
• keep in mind that a subset of this selection will be ideal for the client’s DVD

I know everyone is a sucker for good lyrics, but don’t discount instrumentals. Without the lyrics, the photographer can more easily direct the client during a scene.

Last, where do we buy this music and how do we organize it? One word: iTunes. I know there are other services, and when we can’t find what we want on iTunes, we use them, but eighty to ninety percent of what we buy comes from iTunes. For each shoot, we organize the music by playlists that correspond to the scenes and rest periods on the storyboard. Patty uses that storyboard to coordinate the music and scene selections throughout the shoot. (Remember to buy two copies of any song you intend to use on the client’s DVD.)

Because our photo shoots are always on location, the playback system we use must be small and portable—meaning no AC cables—and the sound must rise to the occasion. We attach an iPod or an old Apple iBook (our “Baby Mac”) to a set of battery-powered Logitech speakers. The whole system fits comfortably into my rolling camera case or in Patty’s backpack.

And since several of you asked, here’s a playlist we used at a recent shoot:

The cool thing for us is that the adventure of discovering the perfect music continues with each photoshoot, and it usually begins with my cell phone ringing and Patty gushing about the song she “just discovered.” We love it! And believe me, I’d sooner use a point-and-shoot than attempt a photo shoot without the right music.

Today’s images: Bree in Leather No. 0503 and No. 0532.
Lighting: Key light is a large umbrella with a flag at camera left; fill light is a reflector to camera right; edge light is a small umbrella at camera right and behind subject.