A Touch Of Fetish

Since the novel “50 Shades Of Grey” took the female world by storm (read: “made fetish widely socially acceptable”) female clients are more receptive to new suggestions and are quite keen to follow some rather delicate shoot settings/concepts that involves depiction of desire, lust, and seduction.

To add production value for yourself and/or an additional series for your client when doing a Boudoir shoot, leave the traditional Boudoir Style path and add a seducing segment, which I classify as Beyond Boudoir.

Fetish Photo Shoot: Spice Up Your Boudoir Work/Service

There is nothing wrong with experimenting and evolving/tweaking certain styles as long as it has been discussed with your model or your client is wanting to try.

All we are doing in this set is to manufacture the illusion of light fetish by using a lace mask, some loose lace fabric pieces and a specific lighting setup. By converting the images to B&W, we are supporting the mysterious, passionate mood even more.

Concept’s Buzzwords

As you might know by now, I build my visual concepts most of the time based upon a few specific buzzwords or “keywords” as I call those (more about my conception work here: “My ‘Keyword Tool’ Approach”.

For this shoot, my KWs are: Noir, Seduction, Lust, Fetish.

Narrative & Posing: Find Your Way

When it comes to the narrative, the series subsists on a combination of observation and interplay. We depict the scene but to make it sultrier, we connect with the subject. Direct and rather lustful glances are preferable, yes, even a must-have.

Yet depending on your model/client, your narrative and the results will be different. Some of your subjects will be uninhibited in being a bit heated towards the lens while you will find others for whom the “observation only” approach works better in front of the lens.

In any case, the limited lighting helps to emphasize or hide actions, expressions and – quite banally – body parts.

Lighting Setup

A simple flash with a very limited light beam is all it takes. The light quality is hard; shadow transitions are sharp/harsh. It is not an appealing, sensual light, it’s the opposite. This lighting design works best when converted to B&W.

The speedlight has a spot tube (snoot) attached and I wrap a DIY Black Foil around the tube to make the beam diameter even smaller and more precisely controllable.

Read more about structuring light and shadows here: “Structuring The Shape Of Light”.

Beautifying

We get away from a sensual, fresh Boudoir look and we are now exploring the genre of noir storytelling.

In order to support this mood I chose to have Nikola’s lips stronger. We use red color, which makes them much darker when translated to a B&W result.

Hair styling needs to feel “strong” too, so we simply brush the hair back into a ponytail, making the visible part appear slick and strict.

Hard light, strong beautifying, specific little styling pieces, B&W conversion… – et voila: “a touch of fetish” image series is born.