Three Great Tips for Shooting Boudoir Photographs Using Natural Light

While a ton of strobes and modifiers might be ideal for creating striking shots, it’s often best to shoot boudoir imagery using natural light to make things flow and keep your model at ease. Experienced boudoir photographer Michael Sasser offers three great tips for using natural light to capture stunning images.

In this video, Sasser offers a few ideas for shooting models indoors that are particularly suited to those getting started in photography. As well as his tips for positioning yourself and your model in relation to your light sources, there are two other things that will make your life much easier. The first is the huge windows. Sasser mentions how the sheer curtains for the windows will help to soften the light, but keep in mind that he’s taking advantage of some nice, big windows and most likely, some Los Angeles sunshine.

The second is the 50mm f/1.4 lens attached to his Sony a9. Shooting wide open, this lens is pulling in a huge amount of light, allowing Sasser to shoot at relatively low ISO levels and also create a pleasing degree of separation between the subject and the setting. You don’t need to spend $1,400 on the Sony Planar T* FE 50mm f/1.4 ZA; a 50mm f/1.8 will be more than adequate for the job, though obviously, the autofocus speed and sharpness won't be on par. Either way, be sure to be careful with your focusing, as your depth of field is going to be very shallow.

If you have any other tips for shooting boudoir imagery using natural light, leave a comment below.

Andy Day's picture

Andy Day is a British photographer and writer living in France. He began photographing parkour in 2003 and has been doing weird things in the city and elsewhere ever since. He's addicted to climbing and owns a fairly useless dog. He has an MA in Sociology & Photography which often makes him ponder what all of this really means.

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1 Comment

I have seen a lot of tutorials on lighting. This includes lights at all situations. But, I must saw, your triangle approach really turned on my 3 way light bulb in my brain. Everything you did made sense for so many situations. WOW!! The epiphany of light. Many, Many thanks.