Today’s Post by Blue Moon Staff
“Women who wear black lead colorful lives.” – Neiman Marcus
Lately these blog posts have featured a lot of nudity but nudity is not always necessary for the best intimate portrait. “The secret of any portrait—especially intimate portraiture—is for the person being photographed to be as comfortable as possible. If you’re comfortable then the finished portraits will look better and you’ll be happier with the results.
I wanted to share this idea because some people don’t own any lingerie other than basic underwear. (“Not that there’s anything wrong with that”— to quote Seinfeld.) I’ve done many sessions with the client in basic bra and panties, or in the today’s image with her choice of black is important because ultimately any intimate portrait is about the subject’s face.
The number one concern clients have about their first intimate portrait session is surprisingly not about their appearance but that they don’t know how to pose. After all, this may be their first portrait session since their wedding photos or even their high school yearbook picture…and they’re going to be wearing a lot less clothing.
You don’t have to worry about—we’ll take care of the posing. And we have a simple philosophy about that subject: Our aim is to create a natural looking pose even if the situation under which the portrait is being made is anything but natural.
How I made this photograph: The featured image of famous Internet model Maria Cedar was made during one of our last photo shoots together. This image was one of the images I made of her in a 12-shot sequence; This pose was frame number 9. The portrait was made in my home studio with lighting from a Paul C. Buff DigiBee DB800 with Plume Ltd Wafer softbox mounted that was placed at camera right as the key light. An Alien Bee B800 with 16×30-inch Westcott Apollo Strip soft box is at camera left while another Digibee with a 48-inch Dynalite Quad Square black/silver umbrella was located at camera left in a back corner of my studio .
The camera used was a Panasonic Lumix GH4 with Lumix G Vario 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 lens (at 45mm) with an exposure of 1/160 sec at f/6.3 and ISO 200. Background was an inexpensive muslin.
