Ellie Vayo's Guide to Boudoir Photography

CHAPTER ONE

Getting Started

Women of all ages, shapes,

and sizes want to look

and feel beautiful.

GETTING STARTED 7

Photography has always been my passion. Boudoir photography is one as-

pect of the art that has ignited all of my senses and continues to keep this

business exciting.

I have found over the years that women of all ages, shapes, and sizes

want to look and feel beautiful. Many things go into creating the master-

piece of the woman. The Hollywood actresses and models of today look

much different in the real world. Makeup artists, clothing designers, digi-

tal artists, and others help create the stunning finished product we see on

screen or in print. A woman who agrees to have a boudoir photography

session is your clay. You are the sculptor who will help shape and mold that

raw material into something beautiful, timeless, and artistic. The photog-

raphy techniques covered in this book will teach you how to create the

highest-quality portraiture possible in the industry today. The sales and

marketing techniques covered in this book will help you operate a suc-

cessful studio that allows you to make a living doing what you love.

In this book, I’ll discuss several enhancing skills:

• Makeup and wardrobe


• Posing and lighting


• Digital finishing and printing

Finding Clients.

The question most photographers ask is: how do I get women to want to

have a boudoir/glamour session?

Existing Clients.Over the years, I have used several different tech-

niques to book these sessions. The most cost-effective form of advertising

is to market to the people who are already in the studio. My studio pho-

tographs hundreds of high school senior girls. Their mothers are my tar-

get audience. Mom is watching her daughter’s session and she is getting

caught up in the excitement of the event. If I feel that a mom may be open

to tasteful boudoir portraiture, I’ll show her a slide show of previous

clients. This can be done while I finish her daughter’s session, during out-

fit changes, or after the session when her daughter is packing up her clothes