Boudoir Photoshoot with Kat and Sasha

 (Cool phone prop courtesy of Kahulani)

About a week ago I had the chance to team up with makeup artist Kahulani and model Sasha C for a boudoir photoshoot. We were assisted once again by Quddus Ajimine.

Since this was a boudoir shoot, the set was a little more elaborate than usual. However, I wanted to keep it flexible and built only what would be seen in the camera frame.  It was designed so that we could shoot it two ways and get two different looks.

The bed is an air mattress from Sports Authority and is covered with satin sheets found at Ross Dress For Less.  I rigged a semi open bed canopy using wooden poles mounted on 4 C-stands and draped with lengths of tulle from a local fabric store.  Because the top poles would never be seen in the photos, I used clothespins to attach the fabric to the poles.  Two freestanding folding closet doors and some artificial plants were used to hide the rear C-stands.  Behind the bed is a white wall and to the right of the bed is a black curtain.  This way we could shoot through the canopy and get one look with a blue background, then shoot from the left without seeing the fabric and get a black background.

For lighting the set we used a total of 5 AB800s.

Setup #1 (through the canopy)
Main light - AB800 with beauty dish.
Fill - silver 4x6 Photoflex Lightpanel reflector.
Rear Rim Lights - 2 AB800s with small gridded strip softboxes and 1/4 CTO gels.
Background - AB800 with background shovel reflector and a blue gel to light up the white wall behind the bed.

Setup #2 (shooting from the left of the bed)

Main light -AB800 with a small softbox.
Rear lights - the Main light and one of the rim lights from Setup #1 became our rim lights for Setup #2

 

To end the session, we switched to shooting from above.  We took down the 2 front C-stands and pole and wrapped the tulle around our model.

For lighting we lit the bed with two lights - the softbox on the left and the beauty dish on the right.  These were lowered until the light skimmed across the surface of the bed.  We then took one of the rear AB800s and replaced the strip softbox with a 7" reflector and a 20 degree grid and aimed it at the mask of the model's face.

 

Wish we had more time to work with this model as we were just starting to get some really cool shots by the end of the session.