Great photography is a culmination of disciplines combined down into one single image. Subject, pose, lighting, gear – these and more (when properly) executed form the “perfect” image. Yet one crucial aspect makes it either a brilliant success or perfectly-boring-as-fuck.
That element is story.
If there is a story, a slice of life, a frozen moment in time that tells us where we’ve been and where we might be going, then that image leaps off the page/screen and captures the audience. In boudoir photography the story is far too often left to the revealing nature of the clothing worn by the subject. Put on your sexiest skivvies, spread your legs a bit and turn on the bedroom eyes. That’s a portrait of a person who looks sexy, but that isn’t a story. If anything, it’s meant to excite within, so a sexy story can maybe take place upon viewing it.
The best stories are those that are left to our imagination. That has been the guiding force to my work as an artist, my whole career and it’s paramount to what I teach to other photographers through my travels as an educator. We can weave the thread of the story gently, directly or somewhere in between – often just by a simple decision of how I pose the subject.
Let’s take a look at a few images and discuss the threads of story and what we may or may not see.
First let me set the scene for this series of images – a scene that took place in one of the most romantic countries on planet Earth: Italy. I had the fortune to attend a week long photography event in Verona, Italy in late 2022. This beautiful talent was a model hired from a top agency in Milan and she spent about three hours with a group of 20 photographers, posing and sharing her skill set with us. The leader of the event set this first scene’s image by placing her on the staircase and then letting each photographer grab a few quick frames. The model generally did her own posing, with very little input from the photographers.
My artistic style kicked in immediately as I looked at the physical world around her – the world that she’s weave through as we create our story. The stairs – structured, straight lines, solid (made of gorgeous Italian marble) and a rigid flow that we as humans know so well that we dismiss it. That was my first key – give us a reason to see that structure and not dismiss it. What better way to do that than put a half-naked beautiful human on the stairs – right? Yeah – but it’s not enough for me. I knew that I was immediately going to ask her to lean in one direction the stairs and become an asymmetrical aspect to the symmetry of the stair case. Simply put – I wanted her body shape to break the straight lines of the stairs. As I watched her move, I saw that she favored her right side more than her left and that she was right handed. So when I got my short window to capture this image, I asked her to lean on her right arm and drop her left hand to complete the composition.
Once the shape was set, I then ideally would have worked on expression, emotion, feelings that I wanted to see in the image; the beginning of our story. However out of respect to the other photographers, I didn’t take too much time and let her keep her expression as it was.
This image is what I would call a portrait. Simple mechanics of composition with my tastes of art put atop of it, by respecting the space as well as the eye-candy. Once I knew the frames I captured were acceptable, I decided that instead of going to the back of the line to repeat the same frame, I decided to move on in the story and weave another thread to continue it. I quickly (with permission) walked up the stairs and began to climb the second set leading to the next floor. This placed my view above the model looking straight down at her, out of view of the rest of the crew on the main floor. The model was instructed to sit on the stairs and everyone began capturing the same frames and compositions, just with a person sitting, rather than standing. I had my portrait – I wanted something new.
One of the aspects of story that I love creating in boudoir photography is the “stolen moment.” It’s that moment that we as the audience enjoy being the silent witness to the beauty, allure and sensuality that is before us – without the subject knowing we are peeping. So again to respect the structure of the environment around us, while using the human being to break that symmetry, I capture this image:
This pose and expression was what she created for someone else on the ground floor, but for my purposes it came almost perfectly close to what initially wanted out of this image. We can’t see her eyes – she isn’t aware of us and we get to take in all of the power we see in her body and this beautiful place. However a moment later she became aware that I was above her and she looked up at me (and being the professional she was) she hit a new expression just for me:
That eye contact is a powerful choice and absolutely one of my favorite elements to guide within the story I create with my clients. But it has to come at the right time and this just wasn’t it for me. Part of it for sure is the expression and I again didn’t want to interrupt the other photographers work. However I knew that before we were finished with this look, I was going to get the eye contact that I wanted – at the end of the story. To my surprise it wasn’t long before the other photographers started finding reasons to come up the stairs alongside me and capture their version of this image as well. Which always makes me smile with joy that my imagination can create a spark for other artists.
Soon we brought her up the stairs to another landing and continued to work with her in a new aspect of the environment. That’s when I knew that I wanted to wrap up this story with a few more frames and get that look. I decided to capture another portrait thinking the series would be just three images and I would ditch the previous images:
Beauty, sensuality, no eye contact and the negative space of the stairs suggests a place we can go (hopefully with her) to finish this part of the journey and start a new one. However this one felt too posed, too portrait like – not the enticing glimpse of what is to come before she sees us. So I asked her to look up at another photographer (who was at the top of the stairs) and pose for them:
That’s it! That’s the almost perfect second-to-last moment that we need to see, to set off the imagination and decide where this story is about to end. I was now ready to place the powerful moment of eye contact and bring this story to a close:
The eyes, the parted lips, the hint of skin – an image that leaps off the page with the question left hanging in the air “are you coming?”
That’s the core of my work and one that I am grateful to be able to conceive and flow through with my clients. In the case of this adventure in Italy, I had what I wanted and when everyone else captured their images she proceeded to take her clothes off.
But that’s a story for another time.
All great legends begin with a story – let’s create it together. Be the Legend.
