Fine Art Nude Photography: Olivia’s Plus Size Boudoir Photo Shoot in London
I’m so excited to share these with you girls.
Below is my most recent shoot with the fantastically curvy and evocative Olivia, and makeup artist/genius Debbie Purkiss. The three of us have been dying to shoot together again, since our first plus size boudoir photo shoot turned out so well. If you missed that first shoot, you really ought to go have a look at it. It’s one of my all time favourites, a magical combination of beauty, power, gorgeous location, and everything clicking into place at precisely the right moment. How “annoyingly arty” do I sound right now? Just go look and I’ll shut up about it.
London Boudoir Photography: Olivia’s Plus Size Boudoir Photo Shoot (the first one)
Anyhow, the three of us are busy and have a million things going on, so we’ve been struggling to plan a second shoot. Then one random Tuesday Olivia text (texted? is there an official past tense for the verb text yet?) about a potential publication opportunity with a fast approaching deadline. It was just the push we needed, and we managed to get a shoot date, location, and theme set up by the following week.
These images may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I love the way the way they turned out. I’ve been wanting to challenge myself with fine art nude photography for a while. I’m pretty picky – I don’t like nudity just for nudity’s sake. It’s got to be tasteful and intentional without being too in-your-face, which can be a tricky balance to strike. Because Olivia is a plus size model, that raised the stakes even more.
It’s not my wish to offend anyone in the industry or to be in anyway negative about what real bodies look like, but I just don’t see a lot of photography of plus size women that I consider flattering. It seems increasingly popular to photograph curvy women eating giant bowls of pasta (what, exactly, are these people trying to say? That eating carbs is all a plus size woman is good for? or that having hips means you’re an unhealthy glutton? or are they attempting to make us believe this was an original idea that hasn’t already been done a million times?).
I’m also not a fan of images of plus size women, or any women frankly, that emphasise their RAW! REAL! CELLULITE! What is that about? Does anyone actually want to be photographed that way? I don’t find it flattering, I find it blatantly objectifying.
I’m in two minds about these images being featured in the latest issue of VolUp2 Magazine. I love the images we created, and I’m proud that we’re waving the banner high for women of all sizes to see themselves as beautiful and worthy. I love that we managed to combine fine art nude photography and a plus size boudoir photo shoot into one collection of images, and that we were all thrilled with the results. That said, it’s obvious that the magazine and I have very different ideas of how a woman’s beauty is best portrayed and celebrated. We’re just not a good match, VolUp2 and I. Oh well, live and learn I guess.
Anyway, enough talk. Here’s Olivia…nekkid.
A classic fine art nude photography pose.
There are loads more from this shoot. I’m hoping we can get a few of those published too, so we’ll be keeping them under wraps for a while.
Hopefully, more coming soon:) Thanks to Olivia and Debbie for being amazing, as usual.
xx
Stormy