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i havent done them, but plan to for our one year (still so far away! haha i've only been married 2 months) but first anniversary is paper so why not right? i wanted to do them before the wedding but just didnt have time.
i think as women we are just too hard on ourselves. i am excited to do them, but at the same time i hope her photoshop skills are amazing because she will need them to make me look flawless.
im sure you will look fantastic in the finished product. i never like myself in pictures so i can only imagine seeing myself in revealing pictures...
chin up! i know you FI will love them even if you dont feel you look beautiful. which im sure you do !
You are right...we really are too hard on ourselves and we see things others don't. When I told the photographer that I looked too angry in some photos, he insisted it was sultry, haha. I have to keep reminding myself that FI loves how I look just as I am.
My other half is a photographer so yes, this happens to me a lot! Even with good direction (I'm not a natural model), I often don't like what I see at the end.
Beware of seeing pictures on small screens (camera screens or phones) - I reviewed our most recent set of pics on my phone a couple of days ago and was really down about them; now I've seen them on the computer, there are a few really nice gems hidden in there!
Also, remember that a photographer takes lots of photos to get one good shot. Typically my OH takes 50-60 pics of one look and will eventually process one or two of them. (It can be as few as 20, as many as 100, depending on what he's doing.)
Don't worry about it - I'm sure you've got some really nice shots!
RainStorm. xx
I am thinking of getting some, but I'm so scared! I am super hard on myself. Maybe if I lose 15 pounds and a lot of photoshopping is done it would be okay. . .
I sort of felt that way at first. I guess I was hoping that the inner sex bomb would come out but since I'm not one the photos showed me, which I'm grateful for now. Honestly I'd wait till your SO sees them. SO will be blown away and all that worry will go away. I almost didnt share mine becuase I wasnt sure about them but he loved them. Still talking about them. I think once you get that reaction you will feel differently
@techie: I know how you feel - I loved the quality of the pictures and I loved my hair/makeup, but I only found about 5 of the 200 pictures that I would even want to share...
I know what you mean! I loved my photographer, but I did a marathon day and so we didn't have all the time in the world. There was a hair and makeup artist there, and I don't think she really got what I wanted right. Because of that the pics turned out more sweet than sexy, and that was disappointing to me. The good thing about photos, though, is that you can always take more!
I have them scheduled in May or June, and I'm a little bit in a panic. I wish I was in better shape. Oh well!
@techie: I feel the exact same way!!! I thought I was the only one. I just did mine yesterday, and all the photos that the photographer showed me that she said she loved.. I HATE. Not the style or lighting or quality, ... i hate all of them mainly because I hate the way I look in photos. It was such an emotional bomb to come out of and realize that the sexy bombshell I thought I could be... well I can't. The self-esteem boost I was hoping for didn't happen - my photographer was excellent, but my body and face. lol. not so much!
I think maybe we put a little too much hope in the photos? Count on them to boost our esteem? We should both definitely wait until we give them to our future husbands and see their reaction? They are the ones that love us for who we are!!
I told myself in 10 years I'll do the same poses etc just to prove to myself how much they worked this time!
You know now that I think about it...
I did some boudoir shots for friends (I have a photography degree) and one of the best tricks I found was to crop the eyes and nose out...the entire top of the face...so that just the lips and below show... And shoot it really dark. That makes women like their own photos more. It's almost like we have to see it as another person, and not as ourselves?
@crislen: I guess we hope that inner sex kitten will just come out. Maybe we're just too hard on ourselves :( I see photos of other women and I think they look fantastic.
@tee22: That's my fear too. After I thought I looked too angry, I started being more goofy and smiling a lot. FI loves my smile though.
@RainStorm: Good point..the screen was only 1.5"...there's always Photoshop too :)
I'm glad I'm not alone here. I think it's wonderful when I see someone here feel so confident and happy when their session is over. I hope my happiness with the shoot is just delayed and the photos will be fine.
@MrsDulce: Interesting thought! It's almost as if, without your own face looking back at you, you can really SEE your bod, whereas when you can see the face you can't appreciate your photo objectively.
@MrsDulce: That could be a neat effect..I'll ask the photographer about that. We're getting together to assemble the little black book some time this week. :)
@techie: I hope you end up loving your shots. Come back and let us know! I'll find out by the end of the week if I'm brave enough to actually give it to my fiance. They might just end up in the bottom of a drawer somewhere!!
@MrsDulce: That is exactly what my photographer suggested for some of the shots... take out the eys and nose (or just they eyes)!
I hope everyone updates on if they end up loving their shots once they're assembled! If you find out anything neat let us future-boudoir shoot-brides know :D
@techie: I am getting them done in two weeks and the photographer will have some major photoshopping to do. Yikes!
@MrsDulce: That is a really interesting point because my personal favorite photo is the one where my head is not in the photo (not as awkward as that sounds). FI's favorite was the one that was almost all face with just enough shoulder that I looked nude. Funny how we do that to ourselves.
The photographer wants me to come in tomorrow to view them. I just took them yesterday. That was fast! I'll let you guys know if they're not so bad after all. :)
Thanks all :)
@crislen: Oh no! At the end of the day, regardless of how we feel about them, the FI loves our bodies :) At least, I keep telling myself that... I hope you end up giving him the book!
@H216scrf: lol, I should email my photographer and see if she can take off 30 lbs :D
I'll post an update when I see the photos later this week!
I haven't read the other replies, but don't forget about editing!! Models are editted every day!! I'm sure they'll turn out great!!
I'd wait until they are edited to really make any judgements. Hopefully your photographer is also a good retouch artist and just not a photoshop action type person. Portrait images, especially glamour, need a lot of attention, from skin, to slimming problem areas. I spend at least 30 minutes per photo on the skin (smoothing, dodging, burning,etc), eyes, teeth, blemishes, and fixing/slimming any problem areas. I don't offer a huge amount of images which turns people off at first, but this is where I really stress quality over quantity.
My guarantee states that if you are not beyond thrilled with your images, if you don't look the best you ever have, if you don't physically cry when you see them, you don't pay a thing.
Comments like the OP stated are a photographers nightmare. We want to capture you in the best light you have ever seen yourself and find life every snap of the shutter. Be honest with your photographer, try to really study the images and pinpoint what you don't like. It may be fixable.
@USER876: I don't blame the photographer at all, and he's been really great before, during, and after the session, so I will trust him that it will all come together. I blame the underlying self-esteem issues I had going in. The body I have now is not the body I had a year ago, so acceptance hasn't hit yet. I know the retouching will help, but sometimes it's just hard to let go of the nitpicky things we don't like to see anywhere, from a mirror to a photo. :) We women are just really hard on ourselves.
I had a chance to review the photos today, blown up on a 23" monitor. Cropping really is magic...thank you for the suggestion! It made a couple photos even more mysterious without overworking any troublespots. Overall, I'm ok with the results now. It was hard to see my trouble areas blown up but they are a part of me, and FI loves me as I am. I'm kind of excited to make the little black book now.
Im glad you like them now! I was gonna warn you that edited photos are completely different that SOOC ones. Plus the liquify tool is magic! ;)
I had some taken of me by a photographer friend of mine the other week to surprise my FI for his birthday in June. I have the photos on my computer and I have been editing them slowly whenever he is not home, but thats only one night a week really when hes at school.
Cant wait to hear how your book is coming along, are you doing it yourself or is the photographer?
What do you ladies wear for these things? What's it like being practically naked in front of a photographer?
@Keltaena: Wear what you're comfortable in. Most of the time it's a corset, thong, thigh highs and heels. Any sexy lingerie...even little "boy" short panties with a tank top can look sexy. I would suggest a female photographer if you don't want to be photographed by a guy. Women are a little easier to open up to and you're less likely to be embarrassed. I recently shot a boudior session marathon for about 12 ladies, and the outcome was great. One of my clients (looks gorgeous already) but had an "issue" with her stomach. I retouched the small lines, not rolls, on her photos with her stomach showing. She was really happy with the outcome. I just wanted her to feel confident, and beautiful. She didn't mind showing her FI the pics after that :)
@USER876: Hmm, this is an interesting point, but for me, I would rather have photos that were only gently Photoshopped. I'm okay with your normal fine-art type edits, retouching anything unsightly like a pimple, or touching up redness, what have you, but the heavy-handed editing is just not how I'd want to see myself.
To me, there's a difference between posing someone a certain way so they look smaller in one place and more voluptuous in another, and actually using Photoshop to trim them up. It reminds me of what they do to celebrities on magazine covers, and it's just not what I hope to get out of the photography I pay for. But, there are as many photography styles as there are clients and photographers, and I see the merit in both.
That being said, I do have all my photos back, and my only issue with them was my hair and makeup. They were both on the sparkly-pink princessy side, and it's hard to feel sexy in that. If I could do it again, I would have just gotten my hair done at my stylists' and taken the hit in price, because I think it would have been worth the extra.
I wouldn't worry until you get the pictures back or see them on a CD. Maybe the lighting needs adjusted or something, I'm sure they will look great :)
@tee22: I do edit them lightly and very natural, but it is time consuming to do it right. I don't alter the way people look, but just slightly conform problem areas and skin issues into something more polished and natural. Most customers don't even realize I do this, they just see a natural looking image of themself that looks great. The facebook comments also confirm this, I am not looking to transform people into something they are not, and as you said, most people don't want this anyway unless it was for a different purpose.
So now, no issues or problem areas are sticking out that they were maybe unaware of. In my opinion, this is better than the person seeing the image, seeing something sticking out that is unflattering, and writing a post like this on a message forum about how bad the pictures came out because they are not happy with how they look.
My job as a photographer is to find life, and make images come alive using the tools I have...... posing expertise, lighting, props, environmental aspecs, and post processing, and that is exactly what I do.
And by the way, the younger generation (HS Seniors) DO want images like this, they want to be the airbrushed supermodel to brag to their friends and you would be surpised how risque the outfits get, even with mom there.
I had my shoot almost 3 weeks ago and just saw my raw, unedited photos on Friday. I was extremely discouraged and thought it was a waste of my money. As I looked through more of them, I did find some I liked (there were over 400 to look through, anywhere from 6-10 of the same pose).
TODAY my photog posted 10 of the edited ones (she's slowly working through them) and WOW, it's a complete difference and I love them. She didn't do major editing, but just the lighting, cropping and fading of backgrounds - it really does make such a huge difference. Now I'm excitedly waiting for her to post some more.
Don't get discouraged - wait until you see the final product and then decide. I know for me, it's just a plain 'ol shock seeing yourself in those types of photos...you need time for it to soak in.
I have not done a shoot like this.. I am planning one as a one year anniversary gift.. Keep the spark alive lol ;) But honeslty he is going to look at these pics and see the most beautiful woman. WE judge ourselves to hard. Dont be so dissapointed :)
Just wait till they're all done...Then select the ones you really like (my experience with b-pics, e-pics and wedding pics is that this is less than 10% of the total images) and ask these to be touched up. Forget the other ones even exist! Once you see the final product, I'm sure you're going to love them (and yourself).
I am requesting some cleanup, but I don't want to make changes so drastic that they're no longer me. FI would notice immediately...he knows my body pretty well. ;)
I'm not assembling the book myself. :) The photographer makes beautiful little books. They're somewhat pricey but the quality is amazing.
All the ladies here make good points but I just wanted to say something I do that helps put things in perspective for me.
Sometimes when I'm looking through a magazine like People or Us Weekly or whatever, they will have pics of celebrities in dresses or a candid bikini shot or something. I think "They look so amazing" and feel all bad about myself. Then I put my finger over their face and ask myself "what would I think if this was a picture of me"? And I play a trick on my brain and pretend the pic is of me. All of the sudden the picture changes and I get microfocused...like suddenly I dont like the picture because I imagine it's me and I'd think "my" boobs looked saggy or "my" thighs were too big etc etc. My whole point here is, we can be so over-critical of ourselves, and it's sad.
So maybe we don't all look like a Victoria's Secret model in pictures, but who cares? Does that mean we're not pretty? The beauty standards these days are too perfect and too insane. But that is a whole other topic...
so I got my touched up photos yesterday and my photographer was super excited about how they turned out.
But honestly, when I took the disc home and looked... I started to cry. Out of the 50 shots she gave me, I liked maybe 5 of them. In the rest all I see is my size and my ugly face and the double chin and the huge stomach. I'm embarrassed by them because I'm embarrassed by my body. The pictures themselves are wonderful. HOWEVER, I know that is my internal issue. I know my fiance will love having them (if he doesn't gag looking at them first) and that in the end it was a good thing for me to do.
I will definitely say... cropping is amazing!!! She did some close up shots and they were great. Those I loved. Taking out the eyes and my huge stomach and focusing on the chest made those shots!
@crislen We're our worst critics. :( The way I deal with it is that I tell myself that I'm way too nitpicky and see things no one else does. I'm sure he'll love them. And you're right, cropping is magic!
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Hi bees,
I opted to do a boudoir photo shoot this past weekend, mostly as a gift for FI, but also in hopes of boosting my self esteem. I got a peek at the pictures on the photographer's camera and I was really bummed out. The quality is stellar, don't get me wrong. I just thought this was supposed to help, not make me feel worse. ::sigh:: Has anyone felt this way?