Boudoir portraits are designed to evoke the idea of intimacy, seduction, and the beauty of the body. What better way to stir up those reactions than to highlight the natural curves and add color to the portrait to play on our subject's lingerie.
This portrait can be lit using only two speedlights, so let's start with how we're going to position those two lights strategically in order to accomplish our goal.
Our first speedlight is going to be positioned on camera left and we're going to modify it using a Rogue FlashBender 2 XL Pro Lighting System and the Strip Grid Attachment that is included. This Strip Grid attachment will curve and diffuse our FlashBender 2 in order to get a soft, but narrow and directional beam of light. This allows us to carve out the subject and short-light them when she is posted facing camera left.
Rather than posing her face-on to the camera, having her pose to the side allows the light to rake across her body and give us some mystery which adds to the idea of mysterious seduction. In addition, this creates our initial outline of curves for her legs and chest.
Next we've got to add more light to highlight back curves, and add some color to match and bring out the lingerie our subject is wearing. We're going to do this by adding our second speedlight on camera right behind the subject, pointed towards the wall. Our second speedlight will be modified with a Rogue 3-in-1 Honeycomb Flash Grid. The grid allows us to give the speedlight a spotlight effect and only illuminate a small circle on the wall.
We're also going to add a red Rogue Grid Gel to this grid so that we match the subject's lingerie and give the image an intimate tone that will illuminate the background to highlight the silhouette of the curves on the back of our subject.
For some final posing tips, we want to make sure that our subject is (again) not facing directly towards the camera so we can see the curves on her chest and legs. Also make sure that their lower back is arched a little bit so when the back light illuminates the background we're seeing a nice curve to her back. Finally, have the subject bring her knees together and crop in camera (or in post) to create a narrowing point which will emphasizes the curves throughout her body even more.
With only two speedlights, some small, portable modifiers, and some easy posing tips, we have some incredible boudoir images!
Final Images:
