1500 Poses: A Boudoir, Glamour, and Portrait Shot Guide for Photographers Copyright Dedication Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Lying down on your back Lying down on your stomach On your side shots On the knees shots Sexier poses Siting shots: knee up & leg toward camera Sitting shots: legs to the side Standing poses: basic standing shots Standing poses: against a wall or with a prop Standing poses: side & booty shots Standing poses: movement shots Close-up shots Detail shots Using a couch Using a bed Using a bench Using a chair: basic sitting shots Using a chair: on your knees Using a chair: standing or leaning Using a stool More Info 1500 POSES FOR WOMEN: A BOUDOIR, GLAMOUR, & PORTRAIT SHOT GUIDE FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS & MODELS THE BOUDOIR DIVAS, KIMBERLEE WEST & MARISSA BOUCHER Copyright © 2014 by The Boudoir Divas, Inc. EDITORS, COMPOSITION: Kimberlee West and Marissa Boucher COVER: Marissa Boucher INTERIOR DESIGN: Kimberlee West and Marissa Boucher PROOFREADERS: Erin Greene & Sarah McAllister INTERIOR PHOTOGRAPHS: All images were taken by the Boudoir Divas & Staff; Marissa Boucher, Kimberlee West, Deena Cormier, Erin Greene, and Sarah McAllister HAIR & MAKEUP ARTISTS: Peggy Rogers, Erin Greene, and Marissa Boucher. NOTICE OF RIGHTS All rights reserved. This ebook or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. First Printing, 2014 ISBN: 978-0-9896541-2-8 The Boudoir Divas Inc. 10025 Huennekens St. Ste B San Diego, CA 92121 www.TheBoudoirDivas.com Dedication For our clients: every woman who has been brave enough to trust us with her boudoir experience and given us the opportunity to help her see herself in a new light. You are our inspiration and the reason why we do what we do. Thank you for giving us the honor of helping to capture your unique beauty. Preface We have been teaching professional photographers about the art of boudoir photography since January 2008. Through our workshops, educational DVDs, webinars, and speaking programs, we have aimed to help photographers better their craft, connect with their female clients, and create stunning images. Posing has always been one of the most difficult aspects of boudoir photography. For years, we have received questions from professional photographers asking us for advice and guidance in regards to posing women. As a result, we have created two other boudoir posing guides, which have helped photographers with the basics of posing techniques. We decided to create this new ebook because we wanted to go even more in-depth with posing inspiration. Although our specialty is boudoir and glamour photography, many of the poses found in this book could easily be applicable for any other genre, from portrait to fashion photography. Acknowledgments We are incredibly grateful to be surrounded with so many wonderful people who love and support us and who have helped us follow our dreams. First and foremost, our amazing team that we have had for years now at the Boudoir Divas studio in San Diego: Deena Cormier, Erin Greene, Sarah McAllister, Lindsey Estes, and Peggy Rogers. Your support and dedication to the Boudoir Divas vision and mission has helped our studio become one of the most sought-after boudoir studios in the world. Not only that, but it is because of your dedication that we have been given the freedom to pursue teaching and writing. Thank you for all you have done in helping us create this new ebook. In addition, we want to be sure to mention that Deena, Erin, and Sarah are all contributors to this book specifically as photographers. Thank you for capturing so many of the beautiful images that we feature throughout this book. You are amazing photographers and we are incredibly thankful to have you on our team, helping out clients feel beautiful every day. We also have to give a shout- out to our muse, Sarah, who is not only behind the lens, but in front of it as our model throughout this book. Peggy, our fabulous hair and makeup artist - thank you for making our clients and models look amazing. Your work is featured throughout the pages of this book, so thank you for helping bringing out the ‘diva’ side of these women. Lindsey, thank you for modeling for us – we are honored that you’ve allowed us to use your images in this book. We are also incredibly thankful to you and the role that you play at our studio on a daily basis, as our “Production Princess.” Thank you for making our clients look their best through the post-production process, from editing and airbrushing to album design. We would also like to acknowledge Weston Boucher, for being such an integral part of our team. You have spent countless hours giving your input into our studio and boudoir business, and specifically into the publication process of our books. We will be forever grateful for all that you have done to help make our dreams a reality. Our incredibly supportive sponsors, Bay Photo and Graphistudio. We are so thankful for all that you do, and for believing in us. Thank you for helping us to bring our knowledge and experience to the photography community, by sponsoring our workshops and speaking programs in the US and Internationally. Special thanks to our blog readers and workshop attendees, for all of your support and love throughout the years. Even if we have never met you face-to-face, your comments and connection through the internet world truly mean so much to us. Workshop attendees, we love you all so much and we are so thankful that you have taken the time to learn from us at a past workshop. To our members of Boudoir International, thank you for believing in our vision and being a member of a community that is trying to spread the word about boudoir photography. Boudoir photographers, UNITE! Our families… Kimberlee: My husband, Eric – I am so thankful to have you as a teammate. Thank you for loving me, supporting me, and always encouraging me in my personal life, spiritual life, and business life. Your love means more to me than I can express in words. To my sweet stepdaughter and new baby boy, I love you both so much. It is a joy, honor, and challenge to learn how to be parent, and I thank God that he has given me the opportunity to be a part of your lives. Marissa: Weston Boucher, my husband. Thank you for being a best friend, for always dropping everything to help me with any task, as mundane as it may be. I am so blessed to call you family. Thank you to the rest of my family, my mom, Cecelia, in particular, who has always rooted me on. I love you guys so much. Last but certainly not least, we want to give a special thank you to all of the women who were brave enough to let us share their images throughout this book. Some are models, some are past clients, and some are friends. We are so thankful that you have allowed us to share your beautiful photos. With love and gratitude, Kimberlee & Marissa Introduction Through the years, we have worked with literally hundreds of female models and clients. Some women are more comfortable with posing, but for the most part, even professional models need a little guidance and direction. If you are a professional photographer, this book will give you inspiration and ideas for posing women with your boudoir, glamour, fashion, or other portrait photography sessions. When you are working with real women, you will definitely need to have a game plan for posing – and this book is intended to give you just that. If you are a model or aspiring model, you will find this book extremely helpful as you study the art of posing. Learning how to move and control your body in front of the camera is incredibly important for your modeling career, and this book will help you try out new poses, angles, and expressions. Our goal with this ebook was to fit as many poses and shots in here as possible, and as a result, we have over 1500 shots to give you inspiration and ideas for posing women. The book has been broken down into various sections, based on the type of pose, or the props you may have available to you. You will easily be able to jump from one section to the next, based on your specific needs for your photo shoot. We highly recommend that you become comfortable with ‘flow posing’ – moving quickly from one pose to the next, and finding poses that are easy to transition from one to the other. For this reason, we have grouped our poses and shots together in a flow style, and we show examples of the variety that you can capture within each pose before moving on to the next. Now it’s time to have fun! We wish you the very best as you pursue your passion.