Boudoir Photography Mentoring
Whew, it’s only January, and what a year it’s been already! Winter is convention season for photographers – It’s when we brush up on our skills, discover new trends, and learn the best ways to run our businesses.
Jeff and I have been mentoring and speaking at conventions for years now, and this year I was invited to speak at ImagingUSA on boudoir photography! ImagingUSA is hosted by Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and is one of the largest conventions in the country. Since it often attracts 10,000-15,000 photographers from all over the world, it’s no surprise that the coronavirus pandemic was going to throw a wrench into the works. PPA made the announcement months ago that this year’s convention would be 100% virtual, and asked all of the educators to dig in and help make the event a success.
From In-Person to Virtual
It would be relatively simple to translate a lecture-style presentation to a virtual format — the whole world over has gotten quite adept at Zoom. But my class was supposed to be a live demonstration for boudoir posing — complete with a live model AND with me shooting live. It was going to take a bit more work to bring a demonstration to life! It would be important for the attendees to see the model up close, to see what I was shooting, to see me when I was speaking, and to also see the overall scene so they could gauge my lighting setup, angle, and distance to the model. Jeff spent countless hours researching the best way to film all of these angles and combine them into one seamless stream that could be dovetailed into ImagingUSA’s platform.
Ultimately, we had 4 cameras going at all times: 1 focused on me, 1 on the model, 1 on the whole scene, and then the camera that I was shooting with. Jeff purchased and learned how to use a switcher that would allow him to switch which camera the attendees were seeing. While these photos only show you small slices of the room at any given time, it was quite the production! There is NO way we would have been able to do this alone.Â
To help us man all the cameras, gear, computers, and production, we were blessed with four out-of-town friends who came to help: Kisho Franklin of Next 38 Photography and Margo Roberts of Ava Rose Boudoir, both from the Atlanta area, and Michael and Jennifer Miller of March 81 Photography in Michigan. Our studio mate, Scot Hall of Scot Hall Photography, also pitched in for both days. Jeff ran the switcher and produced the show, the 3 guys each manned a live camera, Margo was my assistant on set, and Jen fielded questions and administered our brand new boudoir photography mentoring group on Facebook, which we launched live during the class.
But wait, there’s more!
In addition to the main class, Jeff and I each taught a bonus class in one of our sponsor’s trade show booths. Intuition Backgrounds hosted Jeff for a class on headshots, and me for a class on boudoir bodyscapes. For Jeff’s class, I got to man the controls and produce the show.
But what about the actual boudoir photos? Let’s see those!
Now that you’ve seen all the background to the shoot, let’s look at the actual photos taken during the class! Model Panda Omo absolutely killed it for 3 hours straight! Tyler Kent Salon provided hair and makeup styling for both Panda and me. Here’s my top 10 favorites (of manyyyy) taken during class:
Interested in Boudoir Photography Mentoring?
Check out our boudoir photography mentoring website here, or join our Facebook group!
Interested in your own boudoir session?
Visit our website here for details and fill out the contact form at the bottom!
