As boudoir photography continues to gain momentum as a highly creative, and profitable, photo genre year after year, more and more photographers are either adding it to their business model or deciding to specialize in just boudoir. Either way, there’s a variety of boudoir photography ideas, tips and techniques to conquer and perfect, including posing, styling, putting clients at ease, building an experiential brand and more. Here, we bring you a compilation of some of the best coverage Rangefinder has published to help you build your boudoir photography brand—sourced from the experts themselves.

Boudoir Photography Basics: The Building Blocks to a Thriving Brand:

• The Logistics
• Business and Branding
• Creating Client Comfort
• Lighting Lessons
• Posing That Flatters
• Inclusivity

THE LOGISTICS

How to Incorporate a Bed into Your Boudoir Posing Routine
How do boudoir photographers keep creatively fresh with a key element in the studio which generally takes up a good amount of their overall space? Shawn Black says you have two options. “First, remove the bed entirely and move forward without one, which is entirely a viable option. Option two, for those of us who don’t want to spend hours with an Allen head wrench disassembling their bed, need to get creative in how we approach using this studio staple.” Shawn breaks down his boudoir photography ideas and tips here.

Boudoir Photography Location Ideas: 12 Alternatives to a Studio
How do you shoot boudoir photography if you don’t have a studio space? Sioux Falls boudoir photographer Emma Christine breaks it down for us and includes a laundry list of items to bring with you in those locations.

How to Start a Boudoir Photography Business That Stands Out
When people enter Shawn Black’s studio for a boudoir photography session, he wants them to leave feeling completely empowered by their time there. “It’s about creating that full experience that is going to be potentially life-changing for your clients” he said during his recent webinar, “How to Build a Boudoir Photography Brand That Stands Out. Boudoir sessions are not only empowering for clients; starting a boudoir photography business can also be profitable for photographers. Here’s how to begin.

BUSINESS AND BRANDING

How to Simplify Your Boudoir Photography Pricing and Increase Sales

Boudoir photographer and business coach Tanya Smith shares her tips and upselling strategies to help you get your boudoir photo brand in the black. The key, she says? Simplify your pricing: “I just charge per image,” she says. “If you want these 21 images, it costs you $3,200. Would you like that in an album or digitally? If you want both, you pay that price for the album, and then the digital images are an add-on. It’s $690 for the digital images, no matter how many you choose.” Read on for more of her examples and tips.

5 Ways to Build Momentum in Your Boudoir Business
Photographer Jasmin Jade, a military wife who moves from station to station with her family every couple of years needed to figure out a different way to gain momentum (and clients) for her boudoir studio brand, Sugar & Lace. Here are five things that helped pave the way to positive brand exposure.

Seamlessly Switching Photo Specialties Without Losing Clients
After years of being known as the “Tattooed Bride Photographer Guy,” Mike Allebach managed to switch gears—just a little bit, anyway—to now establish himself as the “Couples Boudoir Photography Guy.” Yes, it’s a thing. And yes, it’s different from regular boudoir shoots.

Everything You Need to Know to Start Your Boudoir Business
Photographers Nick Murray, Ewan and Brianna Phelan, and Brian Callaway of Callaway Gable each discuss the nitty-gritty of this seductive genre, including how they tackle prepping for client sessions, location scouting, posing perspectives, contract language and more.

Real. Sexy. Photography: The Art and Business of Boudoir
Wedding and boudoir photographer Dani Klein-Williams is known for her chic, flirty, and feminine boudoir portrait style and ability to showcase each woman’s best assets. Her timeless book by Amherst offers bulletpoint advice on planning for the session, lighting and exposure strategies, flattering posing, post-production and sale, among other topics, and supports her guiding personal philosophy that “every woman has a beauty all her own.”

Bold, Beautiful Boudoir: Finding Your Niche and Creative Voice
With more and more photographers creating boudoir photography for a wider range of clients, building a highly creative and profitable niche in the boudoir business has never been more compelling. Here, three photo studios share their secrets to boudoir success while staying true to their distinctive styles and attracting clients who share their sensibilities.

BOUDOIR PHOTOGRAPHY IDEAS FOR CREATING CLIENT COMFORT

Getting Boudoir Photography Clients Comfortable With You and Your Camera
Many of Jess Pereira’s clients are not models, so they have never been in front of a professional camera before. “Needless to say, they are usually a rack of nerves at the thought of such a session,” she says. “That is why I place such importance on assuring them that it will be a wonderful and enjoyable experience.”

To Build a Boudoir Brand, Focus on the Experience
Shawn Black began his journey into boudoir photography by creating little black books filled with pretty pictures for brides from his wedding brand to give as gifts to their significant others. “It wasn’t until I shot my first non-bridal client that I realized I needed to do things differently,” he admits. “Seven words changed everything for me: ‘You have no idea how this feels.'”

Stripped Down Boudoir Photography
Jennifer Rozenbaum always makes a point to learn what her client feels are her best physical assets. During the shoot, only the “perfect” poses and camera angles are used to accent those favorable areas. Discussions about the client’s self-consciousness are forbidden.

LIGHTING LESSONS

3 Ways Natural Light Can Shape Your Boudoir Portraits
A self-proclaimed “natural-light worker,” Jess Pereira, of Beautifully Undressed Boudoir in the UK, loves to see natural shadows fall on the face and body. “To me, they help create mood in my images. I can use the light to highlight certain parts of the body and to shade certain parts too, making the images more thought-provoking.” Discover how Pereira works with back light, side light and full light and more to accent women’s unique and beautiful shapes.

Lindsay Adler Breaks Down How To Complement Posing with Lighting in Boudoir Photography 
Posing and lighting have to be particularly refined when it comes to boudoir photography, and that’s what Lindsay Adler focuses on in this video. It’s far too easy to shoot an unflattering photo of someone in boudoir, simply because you have to carefully consider every angle and the placement of each part of the body. Here, Adler slowly builds in the light, adjusting the posing as she goes, slightly but purposefully, to demonstrate how to create a boudoir portrait that’s simple yet classic.

BOUDOIR PHOTOGRAPHY POSING IDEAS THAT FLATTER

Dynamics of Boudoir Photography Posing: 5 Key Elements
Whether youʼve been shooting boudoir photography for years or are just starting out in the genre, knowing how to pose your clients dynamically will produce more impactful images and result in larger sales, says Couture Black’s Shawn Black.

The Best Boudoir Posing Method That Flatters Every Female Client
When it comes to boudoir photography, Jen Rozenbaum’s motto is “size doesn’t matter.” She poses each woman—whether they are skinny, curvy, short, older, fuller-figured, etc.—in a way that makes her look amazing for her own particular body and she does it by employing her 8 Points of Posing method. “If done right, it’s foolproof.”

6 Natural Boudoir Photography Tips and Poses That Will Flatter Clients
The number one lesson Jen Fairchild, a family-at-home and intimate-portrait photographer based in Salt Lake City, has learned while shooting intimate portraits is to avoid giving any instruction that’s tied to the subject producing a specific look. “This generally leads to awkward, tense facial expressions and static energy, not unlike a deer in the headlights,” she explains. Instead, she uses 6 specific techniques to get more natural looking images.

Graceful Boudoir Photography Posing
For one client who wanted to give her fiancé a boudoir album as a gift, Jennifer James of SuperNova Boudoir came up with creative “bodyscape” posing for a unique and sensual image.

Top Tips for Posing the Feminine Form
Posing is one of the most challenging aspects of photography to master. That said, learning the ins and outs of posing women for alluring boudoir imagery can take your images to a new level and also allow your clients to connect with their personas like never before.

Hip Action: Boudoir Posing Tricks from Jen Rozenbaum
The way Jen Rozenbaum approaches boudoir photography is simple: “There are eight points of posing that make women look, and feel, their best,” she says. “Before I press the shutter, every single time, I check a woman’s head, shoulders, arms, wrists, waist, hips, knees and ankles.”

INCLUSIVITY

Teri Hofford on a Building a Body Inclusive Brand
Empowerment photographer and Body Image Expert Teri Hofford is driven to help people challenge their body image biases and beliefs. “Empowerment is not about telling people who to be; it’s about listening to who they are and helping them find confidence within that,” she says. “This is especially true for those who exist in marginalized bodies. That is why it’s so important for me to focus on empowerment photography and having a body-inclusive boudoir photography brand.”

Boon Ong’s Boudoir Photography Approach: Embrace Who Your Are
When Boon Ong decided to start up Figuratif by Boon Ong—a separate line of business that offers figurative art and intimate lifestyle photography to clients of all age, gender, body shape and sexuality—he admits it took a while to learn and come up with a business model that worked for him while maintaining a unique storytelling style.