My 5 Guiding Principles For Powerful Boudoir Posing

It’s always a good idea to have some guiding principles that can help steer you towards your desired outcome.

Like a tennis player that goes into a match without a game plan, they’ll just be hitting the ball back over the net with no thought behind it.

In boudoir you win by having a successful shoot that captures poses you want with emotional impact.

But how do you do that?

Below are my 5 guiding principles I use to achieve that. Otherwise I’m just hitting the ball back over the net with no thought behind it… I’m just taking pictures of what someone looks like in lingerie as opposed to capturing an energy.

By applying these principles you’ll see changes in your posing from subtle to dramatic. You can do your part but it’s up to your subject to do hers as well… or as best she can.

1. Always Try To Marry An Emotion With A Pose

Creating emotion with a pose is a combination of several factors that include wardrobe, lighting, setting, along with your subject.

With respect to subject, emotion is expressed by two means, with facial expression and through body language.

To increase the interest of any pose it’s good practice to fuel a pose with an emotion.

This requires slowing down and not burning through your flow-posing sequence like the house is on fire. You need to spend a little time here helping your client express an authentic emotion as best she can.

This may involve describing an imaginary scenario that she’s in and how that makes her feel with regard to the pose you’re attempting to capture.

It may involve asking who her favorite actress or singer is and then telling her, “How would Ms. X do this pose?” Giving her the freedom to pretend to be someone else can be very freeing.

Or suggest she’s posing for her significant other or fantasy lover and she must communicate with them using only body language.

Notice how all the emotion is in the hands.

Regardless of the method, fueling a pose with an emotion will kick it up several degrees in intensity and make it a more interesting image.

Without this key element it’s just a picture of someone in a pose. There’s no meaning behind it.

There’s no emotion connected to it. There’s no story.

It can be done in close-ups as well.

A close-up of just a hand intensely gripping a sheet tells an entire story and is full of emotion.

I’ll admit, sometimes I find myself forgetting to do this, with my attention getting caught up in other details, and some poses lend themselves to this technique better than others, but if a pose is not working this is a great way to try and get that pose on track.

And… Action!

When I was studying acting I was taught to always be doing an action that was appropriate for the scene.

For example, a simple scene between a man and a woman on a bench talking about the weather isn’t really about the weather, it’s about the subtext, or rather the actions they’re both doing while talking about the weather.

Some examples of actions are:

Seducing

Interrogating

Entertaining

Challenging

Questioning

Ignoring

Dominating

With regard to boudoir poses the subject’s expression and body language should reflect the action they’ve chosen.

Now, a lot of times that action will be “to seduce” because of the nature of boudoir… but think of all the other actions that are never used that could make that image uniquely different.

For example:

To challenge

To dare

To connive

To surrender

To control

To tease

To play

To submit

Just to name a few.

If you throw out these actions to your subject and tell them to express that as best they can while performing the pose, you’ll come up with some pretty interesting and unique variations of that pose.

Which action do you think is being expressed here?

An Added Benefit

Another benefit from using the techniques above is that it gets the client out of their own head and gives them something to focus on instead of the insecurities they may have about their body.

Their thoughts are funneled in a positive direction instead of feeling vulnerable in front of a camera half-naked… or in some cases, fully nude.

2. Strive For the Full Potential of a Pose For Maximum Effect

The main purpose of posing in boudoir is to showcase and show off the female form (in my opinion).

Granted, a close-up boudoir portrait will feature the face, but in general you’re capturing the undulating curves of a woman’s body.

Knowing this is your goal, you’ll want to guide your subject into achieving the full potential of each pose, or put another way, you want to push that pose to its limit… so it “says” more and be a more impactful image.

Comparing Boudoir Posing to Yoga

I’ve compared posing in boudoir to posing in yoga before, and I think it’s worth mentioning here again because it’s a comparison a lot of women can relate to (if they’ve practiced yoga for any length of time).

Using a simple scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the easiest (or laziest) and 5 the hardest (or most energetic), you can hold a yoga pose anywhere on that scale depending on how hard you want to work. The higher up the scale you go, the more benefit your body will receive in the long run.

Using that same scale for boudoir, your subject will automatically get into a pose and probably settle in at around a 3. Sometimes a 2 and sometimes a 4 but rarely ever at a 5.

That leaves one or two degrees of improvement you can utilize to emphasize the female form to a greater extent and create a sexier, more sensual, more erotic image.

What I’m talking about here is arching the back to its fullest potential, pointing the toes to their limit, popping that hip as far as it will go, or whatever the pose calls for that engages specific parts of the body.

Notice how the one on the right is saying more. I got her to push herself deeper into the pose.

It’s a subtle difference most of the time, unless your subject is starting at a 1 or a 2, but a difference none the less — and personally, I’ve seen poses come alive right before my eyes by instructing women to really push themselves deeper into the pose.

You have to remember that most women have never posed for pictures in this manner before… so you, as the professional, need to make sure they’re striving for a 5 on that scale.

Doing this will not only improve your posing, but will also increase the raw emotion that is associated with that pose in a more visceral way.

**3. Find Poses That Resonate With Who You Are As An Artist and Sexual Being**

Boudoir can be a paint-by-the-numbers type of business where you just use other people’s ideas for everything, or it can be an expression of who you are as an artist and sexual being.

Now I understand that we all model ourselves to some degree after other people who are doing what we’d like to be doing as a starting point and as a way to learn, but at some point you’ll want to veer off and start following your own path.

Those who don’t are really just shooting boudoir as a business to make money… and that’s fine if that’s what you want to do.

However, since photography is a creative art form, most people drawn to it want to express themselves artistically and put their own stamp on their work.

Finding poses that resonate with who you are as an artist and sexual person is one way to start expressing that creative side of yourself.

It’s fine to have posing guides that you can learn from and use but don’t feel “guilty” if you don’t follow the exact pose that a certain guide advises, or an exact flow-posing sequence to the letter.

There is no one right way to do something that’s creative.

Besides, if we all just played follow-the-leader then they’d be no innovation or creative evolution.

I discovered this aspect about posing through trial and error. There are a few rather standard poses that just don’t appeal to me… so I don’t shoot them.

Granted, if a woman came to me requesting a specific pose I don’t like, of course I’ll shoot it for her, but that’s the exception.

There are some poses I’ve seen on social media that I really like and I’ll use them or a variation of them in my own shoots. I think we’ve all done that… and there’s nothing wrong with that.

But remember, art is an expression of who you are, or at least a suggestion of who you are.

So if you’re not putting your own sensibilities into your photography it’s probably going to start feeling like a job you don’t want to show up for anymore.

So, make sure you put a piece of yourself into every aspect of your photography and posing, otherwise it’s just a job with a camera.

4. Save Time For Improvisation

“There is great potential in the unknown.”

As much as I like to plan which poses I’m going to shoot for each client, I also always try to save time for some improvisation.

Planning is good because you need to make sure you’re going to get shots you know will work and that the client will like as well.

However, it doesn’t allow much room for the “fortunate accident”.

Improvised poses.

When two people get together, photographer and subject, it’s a unique equation that may never be formulated again. It’s two people’s energies coming together and combining to produce something unique altogether.

Take advantage of that, throw off the limiting confines of your pre-planned agenda and let fly what will transpire.

I’ve gotten some of my most creative and interesting images by doing this.

Now, sometimes this will produce magic and sometimes it will produce a lump of clay. It doesn’t work all the time because some people are not free in that way, for whatever reason.

I had one subject that was very free but started striking the oddest poses I’ve ever seen. I didn’t know what she was doing but I let her go at it and she had a great time.

You never know what you’re gonna’ get, however…

You’ll know right away if you should continue down this path or if you should quickly abort.

If you tell a client that you now just want them to make up some poses and do something spontaneous and they freeze and look at you like a deer stuck in the headlights, give them some time to try and get there but if it’s not going anywhere, it’s time to pull the rip cord and eject.

But when it’s clicking, take advantage of the gift that’s being given to you and capture as much as you can.

The results can be surprisingly imaginative.

5. Look Outside the Boudoir Genre For Inspiration

A great way to get a whole new perspective on things with regard to boudoir posing is to look outside the genre.

Two areas I like to check out for fresh ideas are the world of fashion and dance.

Does this image inspire any poses?

What if she was sitting on a bed bent over?

Whenever I shoot a dancer they’re always so aware of their extremities (feet, hands, fingers, arms, legs, etc) and they always move differently and pose differently.

I’ve found they’re also the best improvisors when it comes to spontaneously striking poses.

Do these images inspire any poses for an intimate couples shoot?

I also like to check out fashion magazines because the posing can trigger ideas I can adapt to boudoir.

You could also go to Google Images, type in swim suit poses and scroll through the photos.

A good exercise is to go through several magazines or Google Image searches and force yourself to come up with a couple of new poses inspired by what you find.

This will get your imagination working.

Or, you could alter one of your existing poses by mixing it with something you found as well.

In fact, I just went to Pixabay (a free stock image site), typed in “swimsuit model” and found a slew of ideas.