Boudoir Photography How To

Boudoir photography is rapidly gaining popularity among men and women shooters, as well as with their eager subjects. That’s why we occasionally post tutorials on lighting, posing composition, camera settings and more

Most of the lessons we share involve an accomplished photographer with an attractive model to demonstrate the methods involved. Today’s episode is a bit different, as the instructor uses herself as the subject to illustrate one easy concept for creating enticing images with depth.

Yuliya Panchenco is a noted pro specializing in boudoir and nude imagery, with the most complete boudoir education platform on the web. While many of her lessons are quite comprehensive, the five tips she provides today take less than two minutes to explain.

The video below is all about accentuating a model by judiciously using depth of field. With the simple advice Panchenko provides you’ll achieve better results by making a subject stand out from a background and accentuating her best features. You’ll also learn an illumination trick that will make a big difference.

Panchenko begins by demonstrating how using colors and contrast in the background really helps. As she says, “stay away from white boring walls.” She also explains how moving the subject toward the camera, (further from the background) will create more separation to guide a viewer’s eyes exactly where you want them to go.

You’ll also see how a couple household lamps will add attractive illumination and depth to your photos. And on a related topic, Panchenko explains how placing lights behind and off to one side of the model further separates her from the background.

The final tip involves exposure settings, and Panchenko illustrates how a fast lens set to the widest aperture available will blur the background for more pleasing results. If doing this creates an overexposed image, a simple neutral density filter will quickly solve the problem.

There’s a whole catalogue of boudoir tips on Panchenko’s popular website, so be sure to take a look. You can also find more quick tutorials on Panchenko’s YouTube channel.