Boudoir Photography How To

3 Ways to Capture Beautiful Dark & Moody Boudoir Photos (VIDEO)

Henry Anderson  |  Oct 7, 2021

When you're shooting boudoir photos, it's always good to add a little drama to your imagery. One way to do that is to give your boudoir shots some mood by turning down the lights.

In the below video tutorial, Los Angeles-based boudoir pro Michael Sasser shows you his three-step process for capturing dark and moody boudoir portraits.

"Have you ever wanted to create beautiful dark and moody boudoir portraits?" Sasser asks. "It actually only takes three simple steps, and you don't need any extra photography gear to be able to do it."

#1 A Single Light Source

"The very first thing you need is a light source coming from just one direction," Sasser explains. "So here we've got this big, beautiful window. The sun is coming in it. It doesn't have to be the sun coming into the space. You can have a north facing window, you can have a soft box, it can be the north star, it can be the moon. It doesn't really matter as long as it's one light source coming from one direction."

#2 A Darker Background

"The second thing you're going to need is a background that doesn't have a lot of light coming back. Basically, what you're trying to do is have the least amount of light coming back into the space. That's how you get the dark part of the picture is not having any light bounce back to your subject. Only have the light come from one side."

#3 Create a "Light" Triangle

"The big thing about creating dark and moody photos is you have to create a triangle between the window, your client and the light. These are the three properties, the three variables that you can change within the space."
 

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