Boudoir Photo Shoot Essentials

You have your boudoir photo shoot booked and the day is com­ing up around the cor­ner marked on your cal­en­dar.   There is noth­ing to worry about the day of the shoot.  It is a full day of liv­ing the glam­orous life filled with roy­alty treat­ment where you are the star.  Your hair, makeup and styling are pre­vi­ously planned and ready to be imple­mented upon arrival.  How­ever, what are you per­son­ally respon­si­ble for?  What are you sup­posed to wear to the shoot?  Should you bring acces­sories?  Should you be pre­pared with under wardrobe neces­si­ties?  Here is a basic out­line regard­ing what to bring to your boudoir glam­our pho­tog­ra­phy shoot.

Boudoir Photo Shoot

What to Wear to Your Boudoir Glam­our Photo Shoot

The best thing to wear is a but­ton down shirt ensur­ing your make-up and hair will not be mud­dled dur­ing wardrobe changes.  This helps for once the make-up and hair is com­pleted, you are able to switch out of your clothes eas­ily with­out mess­ing up the final look.  The pho­tog­ra­pher will be thank­ful and so will the pro­fes­sional makeup and hair styl­ist.

In addi­tion, wear loose cloth­ing to your shoot.  Do not wear any jeans that may leave mark­ings on your body from the lines in the denim.  Also, do not wear workout-training out­fits for they some­times leave mark­ings on your waist and/or your stom­ach from the elas­tic.  Wear some­thing that will not leave any skin marks, irri­ta­tions or traces upon your body.  Remem­ber, you want your skin to appear flaw­less.  Of course, it can be tweaked to achieve dur­ing post-production.  How­ever, you want to pro­vide your post-production design­ers with the advan­tage of work­ing with a nearly per­fect canvas.

What to Pack to Your Shoot

Bring invis­i­ble under­gar­ments to wear with the wardrobe styling cho­sen.  You do not want cer­tain areas to show that are not meant to be seen.  If it is a nude ses­sion, then do not apply spray-on tan­ner your­self.  Have a pro­fes­sional evenly dis­trib­ute it.  It will make your body appear seamless.

If you wish to bring spe­cific acces­sories, jew­elry, and/or cos­met­ics, then bag it.  If you are unsure about using it, bring it any­ways.  You can never be too prepared.

Do Not Wear Make-Up

If the boudoir glam­our shoot includes a pro­fes­sional make-up artist, then go with a clean face.  Do not put any cos­met­ics and/or tinted mois­tur­izer on.  If you do, it takes time away from your ses­sion due to the pro­fes­sional hav­ing to remove it all.  It is sug­gested to come with a clean slate for the make-up artist to rein­vent your desired look from scratch.

Boudoir Pho­tog­ra­phy

Bring Extra Shoes

Accord­ing to the achieved look, bring the appro­pri­ate shoes to com­plete it. In addi­tion, pack extra shoes.  You never know what may occur with shoes in regards to the heel.  Fur­ther­more, if the shoes hurt halfway through the ses­sion then have an alter­na­tive option avail­able with you.

Plan on Arriv­ing Early

Leave the house early the day of the boudoir photo shoot.  You do not want to arrive fran­tic and stressed from deal­ing with traf­fic for these emo­tions may carry over into your pic­tures.  You want your images to relay a pos­i­tive energy not a stren­u­ous facial and body expres­sion.  Your body should be relaxed and not tense.  Thus, depart in advance ensur­ing you arrive promptly or prior to sched­ule.  Leav­ing the house with plenty of time to spare will pre­vent that from occurring.

Enjoy the Photo Shoot

This is a day des­ig­nated just for you.  It is pro­duced to be catered for and to you.  Thus, enjoy it to the fullest.  It is the one time where you do not have to worry about your cell phone ring­ing, co-workers dri­ving you insane, the kids scream­ing, and a sig­nif­i­cant other con­stantly bad­ger­ing you to find his/her keys.

A boudoir photo shoot is about you.  Embrace the glam­our behind it and chan­nel your inner sen­sual diva mak­ing the pho­to­graph a com­plete success.

Move Over Jen­nifer Nicole Lee

Below is a guest post for Man­darich Mod­els Blog by fit­ness model Ali­cia Leombruni:

Alica Leom­bruni — Fit­ness Model

I started com­pet­ing thir­teen year ago when I was 24 yrs. old as a fit­ness model & fit­ness com­peti­tor. Before I got into the indus­try I use to go watch all of the fit­ness mod­el­ing shows to see what this craze was all about and after watch­ing I knew that this was the indus­try for me. Com­pet­ing in shows takes more then any­one can really imag­ine until one has expe­ri­enced it them­selves, it is not just get­ting up on stage pranc­ing around in some lit­tle bikini as some peo­ple may think. The biggest thing about com­pet­ing is you have to be self­ish as this is a sport all about you which means, mak­ing your food, doing all your work­outs & not going out with your friends at night to eat when your train­ing. Those are only a few of the sac­ri­fices you will give as there are more.

I’ve learned dis­ci­pline, ded­i­ca­tion, self con­trol, sac­ri­fice & mostly how to manip­u­late my body to get it look the way I want. When I com­peted in my first show I really had no idea what I was doing nor the sac­ri­fice I was about to be mak­ing in my life. It was long ses­sions in the gym for cardio/weights as well as a com­plete calo­rie restricted diet of only cer­tain foods. So I real­ized if I wanted to be on stage I had no choice but to give it my all & do what it took. My first show I needed to start out with a 12 week diet just so I could take it slow & lose the body fat the right way instead of crash diet­ing it off which is always no good. I learned to become a real good cook because I was con­stantly in the kitchen mak­ing my food since I needed to eat a meal every cou­ple hours. I would wake up every am at 4am and go train then come home pre­pare my meals for the day, go to the office & then on occa­sion go back to the gym for my sec­ond ses­sion if needed.

Fit­ness Model Ali­cia Leombruni

That became my life as a fit­ness com­peti­tor, always cook­ing, diet­ing & trav­el­ing all over the coun­try com­pet­ing in shows on the week­ends. When I look back the biggest sac­ri­fice was the years I gave up in my life not being a nor­mal human being because I was so con­sumed in com­pet­ing I iso­lated myself from the daily world. Don’t get me wrong I loved every minute of it but now years later look­ing back I see the big sac­ri­fices that I made.  As I con­tin­ued com­pet­ing the diet­ing would very for how long I needed to start out before a show to be ready, and that is why main­tain­ing is so impor­tant in com­pet­ing. Too many peo­ple say they have these on/off sea­sons well guess what no that is untrue. When­ever you hear some­one say they have an on/off sea­son unless they are an endorsed ath­lete mak­ing bank then in my opin­ion it is sim­ply an excuse for them to get fat. I do not see any other rea­son for these com­peti­tors to gain so much weight and not look them­selves once the shows are over.

I learned many years later after being in the sport how to main­tain my weight all year round so that when I wanted to com­pete, fit­ness model, go on a cast­ing call or what­ever job it may be, I wasn’t that far off & didn’t need to kill myself diet­ing to get where I needed to be.  Once I mas­tered that part the rest was so much eas­ier because I didn’t have to diet as long nor do all the car­dio. Like I said the biggest mis­take fit­ness com­peti­tors make is let­ting them­selves gain to much weight after a show. Then when show time rolls around again they have to take 3–5 months if not more to get it off and that to me is ridicu­lous. My motto has become “On sea­son all sea­son, there is NO off season”.

Fit­ness Model Ali­cia Leombruni

After com­pet­ing in my first show I got involved in fit­ness mod­el­ing. It only made sense that when I trained so hard to look so good that I should only show off my hard work thru my pic­tures. As with com­pet­ing its fairly sim­i­lar to doing a photo shoot because yes you have to diet to be lean, need to be tan & always have an amaz­ing hair & makeup artist. Hair & makeup for a shoot is highly impor­tant because it really does affect how your pic­tures turn out after wards. photo shoots are basi­cally like an invest­ment, if you put your time and money in to buy sexy gor­geous out­fits, get your hair and makeup done, make sure your body is on point then your pic’s will show all your images.

If you skimp out and don’t tan & pay for a pro­fes­sional hair and makeup artist then you will have poor qual­ity pic­tures & you won’t be happy with the results as I have expe­ri­enced that many times in the past. I also think one of the other most impor­tant things in fit­ness mod­el­ing is the pho­tog­ra­pher you are work­ing with. Research your pho­tog­ra­pher & if you don’t feel com­fort­able do not shoot with that per­son or bring an escort with you. Also watch what you sign some of these pho­tog­ra­phers have mod­els sign­ing all kinds of crazy stuff and the mod­els are not really even read­ing what they are sign­ing. I’ve been fit­ness mod­el­ing for many years & still to this day do it! I love being in front of the cam­era shoot­ing amaz­ing images & always com­ing up with new shoot ideas. It allows my port­fo­lio to be ver­sa­tile giv­ing peo­ple the oppor­tu­nity to see many dif­fer­ent sides to me & who I am as a person.

Fit­ness Model

When I pre­pare for a photo shoot now because I have learned how to main­tain my weight, I may just take the week prior to do a no to low carb diet the week of depend­ing on how I look. I also eat very clean & work­out daily. Then the day before I get spray tanned and usu­ally do a lit­tle shop­ping as I like to always have new out­fits for the shoot. I don’t like shoot­ing in out­fits I have already shot in at a dif­fer­ent shoot. Besides it makes it fun know­ing you have new cool sexy out­fits to be shot in..:) There is a lot of sac­ri­fice in com­pet­ing and in fit­ness mod­el­ing, there’s no magic pill to take off weight and be ready. It’s all up to you & how bad you want it as with any­thing you do in life! I have sac­ri­ficed many years of my life in this sport & wouldn’t change it for any­thing. I have met so many won­der­ful peo­ple & worked with some of the most amaz­ing photographers.

Women Fit­ness Models

So if your con­sid­er­ing being a fit­ness com­peti­tor or dip­ping your foot in fit­ness mod­el­ing make sure you are will­ing to give 100% of your­self or it’s not worth doing. It’s a sac­ri­fice of end­less work­outs, clean diet­ing, buy­ing clothes, hair & makeup, pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­phers, but in the end the results are all worth it. I’ve had the plea­sure of work­ing with one of the most amaz­ing pho­tog­ra­phers in the val­ley Tony & Char Man­darich & they exude pro­fes­sion­al­ism in all their work. If you check out my fit­ness mod­el­ing web­site at http://alicialeombruni.com you will see their amaz­ing pho­tos everywhere.

You get out of life what you put in to it-so do the work & reap all the great results. Com­pet­ing & fit­ness mod­el­ing is a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence & if you are will­ing to sac­ri­fice a lit­tle you will be sur­prised with the changes you can make to you body & have that body you’ve always wanted, I did!  Good luck to all of you who decide to ven­ture into this indus­try of competing/fit­ness mod­el­ing. It’s changed my life for the bet­ter & I find the older I get the bet­ter I look because I have learned the dis­ci­pline & sac­ri­fices it has taken me to get to where I am today..:)

Female Fit­ness Models

Female Fit­ness Models

Thank you Ali­cia for your guest post!
Char & Tony Man­darich ;~)

You can­not walk by a fash­ion win­dow dis­play this spring with­out notic­ing the black and white prints and black and white color schemes for sum­mer styles.

Sum­mer clothes are wind­ing the clock back to the glam­our images of the past where the mix and match of black and white were syn­ony­mous with the words, chic, ele­gant, and cool.  You see it in today’s clothes, bathing suits, shoes, hats, edi­to­r­ial spreads, and fash­ion pho­tog­ra­phy images from all over the world.  Black and white is the num­ber one must have sum­mer trend of 2010, and you do not have to look far to find some­thing that rep­re­sents you.

A glimpse of the black and white trend was shown in 2009, but the look was more edgy, punk rock and in your face.

Black and White Fash­ion in 2009

Now the trend is mod­ern, clean, and a bit rem­i­nis­cent of Audrey Hep­burn era.

Black and White Fash­ion Sum­mer Trends 2010

If you would like a high fash­ion pho­tog­ra­phy shoot with empha­sis on black and white fash­ion, con­tact a fash­ion pho­tog­ra­pher today.