My head pounded as I felt my blood pressure surge. “I thought about this
for awhile,” she said, “and I compete with a lot of magazines.. .”
“Wow, Athena, you really look good naked,” I said in a hesitating, choppy
sentence. I was flushed, flustered, and thankful Kelli was with me—but it
was the right thing to say. “I’ve told [my husband] that I look as good as any
of those girls,” she said, “but I don’t want to look sleazy.”
The session went well. Not sure how to handle the session and being
pretty flustered, I remembered a 200-level art class I took in college where
we sketched, drew, and painted nude models. I posed her how I remembered
our instructor posing our models—classical figure studies, she called them.
Athena looked great. She was a beautiful woman, clothed or not. Later
we switched to a background that better complemented her skin tones andBeing naked or very scantily clad can make
anyone feel vulnerable—all the more so when
a camera is present. By providing positive
feedback and assuring your subject that she
looks beautiful (not sleazy), you can help set
her mind at ease.