Boudoir photography for anyone!

Boudoir photography for anyone!

Catch unique climate thanks to Godox lights

When someone hears “portrait”, they usually think about sunny shots, outside, or perfectly lit studio compositions. Not everyone has access to this professional environment, and the difficulties of traveling or weather conditions don’t help with outdoor photography. We have a perfect solution for you - boudoir photography at your home. A photoshoot like this will help you catch your model’s beauty and allows for lots of creativity while staying in your four walls.

Boudoir photography is easy!

At first glance, sensual photography might seem complicated and challenging. But that’s not true! Modern Godox LED lights don’t generate any heat, and are quiet, allowing for a convenient work environment. Besides that, continuous light allows easier control over direction and brightness. Allowing for easier shaping of light. Thanks to that, we can easily control the angle of the light. Lightning up the model from the front, achieving nicely leveled exposition. If we decide on moving it to the side, we will get stronger shadows. Depending on your creative choice, you can easily get what you want. Continuous LED light, has another advantage, you can easily adjust the brightness  SL-100 can be adjusted between 10 and 100%and the SL 200II model even between 0% and 100%! This wide range can be useful when you want to keep your iris wide open and get that beautiful bokeh. With Godox light you can also use a wide range of modifications thanks to Bowens mount. Starting from simple things like a reflector, which provides strong and focused light (for example RFT-17 Pro) to special snoots, providing light to light up hair (SN-05 Pro) or beauty-dish (BDR-S55) which a compromise between harsh, direct light and soft, from the large modifier. When we are on the subject of soft illumination, it’s worth mentioning softboxes. They provide a nice and soft light. The larger the softbox is, the softer will be the light.  You can purchase either standard square-shaped (SB-GUSW6060) or less typical round shape lantern (CS-85D).

Prepare your camera and choose the right lighting solution, that works for your photoshoot

Modern cameras, both mirrorless, and DSLR evolved a lot, and currently, work great even in a dark environment. Remember only about your shutter speed (too long, for example, 1/125 can cause loss of sharpness and “moved” image) and ISO (higher causes more grain). Compared to flash photography, working with continuous lightning we can rely more on semi-automatic settings. Fast glass, especially in prime lenses, can help blur the background, which gives the more subtle atmosphere, which is often desired with moody photoshoots. When choosing focal length it’s important to think about distortion, that wide-angle lenses can cause, making the body shape look unnatural. But with the right usage, it can help us stretch the model or for example legs, but with a close-up, it might not be the best choice, here we recommend something closer to 85mm. When our camera is set properly we should begin our work on lighting up the subject. Depending on the effect we are trying to achieve we should choose the right modifiers and types of light. We can either choose LED panels, or more classic-looking LED Lights that can accept much more modifiers. When we decide on low-key lightning, we choose darker tones, greys, and deep black. To achieve that look, we will need the right modifiers, that will help us shape the light in a proper way to focus it just on one subject. We can choose a softbox with honeycomb, reflector, or snoot. Thanks to those technologies, the photos will be much more intimate. High-key means much more bright tones, less black, and soft shadows. Thanks to those techniques we will get a delicate and soft look. Modifiers to achieve look like this should be much bigger. We can reflect the light from bright surfaces like a wall or ceiling or use large softboxes like Godox SB-UE120, which would be a good compromise between size and weight. Light set up and its amount should be chosen based on the desired effect. Interesting results we can achieve even using one light source, but once we decide on more, we get much more freedom. We recommend watching backstage videos from photoshoots, read and analyze other photographer’s setups (available here strobox.com or Instagram profile @ISO1200). Its recommended to test different solutions and find the right one for you. 

Below is an example setup:

Communication during a photoshoot is a must

Intimate shoots are very personal. Requiring from the model, to show off her character, so besides the right equipment its important to build friendly atmosphere. It’s good to get the model comfortable with the camera, make sure she feels cozy, and keep the talk appropriate. Its all-important elements, to make sure the pictures come out naturally.

Emphasize the mood

Sensual photography is not only studying the pose but mostly character and emotions. We can achieve the right look, thanks to proper lighting. Once we decide on warm, soft light or more harsh light. It all depends on us. With many light modifiers, you can choose from the Godox lineup, shaping the light will be easy. 

LIGHTING MODIFIERS

Experiment with the light

Thanks to Godox we are not restricted by light on the location. We can bet on many available solutions. If you don’t have much space, choose for example small LED panel like LED500W. If we want to fully control the situation, create a setup, built from three-point lighting, used often in film. You can use soft key light (like very powerful and modern SL-200WII which can be accompanied by GUE-120 softbox), the fill light, and the backlight. For this kind of setup, the SL series would be the best, which is cheap and convenient. You can also unleash your creativity and add some color! We won’t need any special gels for that, we can just use handy Godox R1, which can shine in any color we want. Unconventional light, can help shape the model better, and add an amazing, background. The sky is the limit here! 

Our recommendations

To help you create the best photos, we created a recommended sets, to make your life easier: 

1. Cheap and solid:

Godox SL-100W and UB-85D umbrella

2. Two panels:

Godox LED500W and Godox R1 

3. Full set up for needy:

Godox SL-200WII, Godox SL-100W, and Softbox GUE-120 + Softbox GUSW-6060


And last but not least, using promo code „BOUDOIR” you can get an 8% discount on any LED continuous lights!

All comments

  • Łukasz

    Godox to świetny sprzęt, doskonale się sprawdza nawet w plenerze :)

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