I’ve started bringing a little video camera along to shoots. This is my method: shove it at people on set and tell them to film. It’s not the most professional arrangement, but so far everyone has managed to get something useable, and it’s fun. I know a boudoir shoot can be intimidating and a little scary, but hopefully a peek behind the scenes will help you realise that 1) we’re not that cool and 2) you can totally do this.
Here’s one from Lainara’s London boudoir shoot last month at the Courthouse Hotel in Shoreditch, with Sadaf on makeup, Natalia on hair, and yours truly behind the lens.
It’s been hectic, but really good too. We’ve had some great women to work with, a few fun ideas for new sets and props, and plenty of good laughs. Unfortunately, lots of shooting means lots of editing. You can currently find me buried under a mountain of retouching work, so please don’t invite me out anywhere fun. I cannot go, I am in retouching exile until further notice. Send snacks.
Anyway, I thought I’d share some behind the scenes snapshots from the last two weeks. These are straight from the camera so please don’t judge.
Springtime flowers for the win. Clearance roses are my new favourite photo prop.
I made this flower crown in about 15 min out of a wire coat hanger and some fishing line. It was brilliant, everyone wanted to wear it, and it photographed like a DREAM. Here’s a few shots of Gemma and I “working” with Chrissy.
We also DIYed a wedding dress out of some fabric and ribbon. It’s obviously no good for full length, but with a little extra pinning it worked great for bridal hair and makeup shots. We shot some great bridal themed lingerie with Chrissy too, can’t wait to show you those.
This idea needs a lot more work, but doesn’t Chrissy’s makeup look stunning?
A super hot sneak peek for Sarah;) Her shoot is turning out great, and I think she’ll probably be okay with sharing some of it publicly, so you might even get a look if you stay tuned!
This is lovely Anna, who came to shoot portraiture with me for a few days. Anna and I met on set at the TeamGlam photo shoot a few weeks ago. When we realised how much we had a lot in common and that we shared a lot of the same goals for our portfolios, we set up a few days of shared shooting. It’s always more fun to learn with a friend.
Curvy girls in the house! Gorgeous Katie, Jazmine, and Amy bravely came down to be our guinea pigs.
I have also fallen in love with using the hair dryer for creating faux breeze. It’s amazing, I can’t believe I haven’t been using it this whole time.
Makeup artist Hayley manning the wind machine for Eleanor’s set.
Another flower crown, and a comfy & cozy set from Katie’s shoot.
I’m also hoping to be able to release two new lingerie shoots soon – both are slated for publication in magazines so I have to keep them quiet for the time being. I’m told the images will be published “soon.” Your guess is as good as mine on what that sort of timeframe actually means lol! It’s always an honour to see work in print though, so Debbie, Sadaf, Olivia, Katie and I are happily practicing the virtue of patience.
One last thing, we have a really cool location arranged for tomorrow’s shoot. Follow me on Instagram for behind the scenes sneaks: @stormy_rebelandromance
I joined forces with TeamGlam recently for a day of bridal and wedding boudoir. It was great fun playing wedding dress up and prancing around a few million pound flat like we owned the place;) Final images and a full film to come soon! For now, check out this teaser film, which is the exceptional work of Alex at Black Frog.
I’m four days back in London, and I’ve got some great stuff cooking from the trip. In the meantime, here’s some behind the scenes sneaks and some general randomness from the trip.
Our Idaho boudoir set. I’m so happy we’ve finally made this idea come to life. I honestly forgot how incredible the late afternoon sun can be when it isn’t hidden by miserable clouds. It made for easy easy easy shooting.
Things are not always as they seem. After some last minute schedule changes, we ended up shooting in my client’s backyard and her neighbour’s pasture. That’s me perched atop a fence. Idaho style.
I hired my little sister as my assistant since I was so close to home. She schlepped all my bags, and then I gave her my camera set to auto and gave her about thirty seconds of guidance. She still managed to get some really great stuff! Love this shot she got of me photographing Miss. S and black beauty.
My sister Autumn. You can call her “Horse Whisperer” for short.
RZRs, our transportation to shoot location number two in Swan Valley. I really dislike these things (imagine a 4 wheeler on steroids and you’re on the right track), but there’s no other way to the top of the mountain.
A few behind the scenes prep shots with makeup artist and hairstylist Tia (who is amazing) and Miss S.
Tia and Thena at the crack of dawn, on top of the world, freezing. Neither of them were in the mood to be photographed.
Bwah…look at my sister’s face! She soooo loving her new job right now.
I was lucky to spend a few days with my family before heading home. We made a day trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. If you’re not familiar with it, this is the place you go to get your cowboy on. Or, to buy a giant bronze otter. Or, the tackiest, most blingtastic belt you’ve ever seen.
Or, maybe you just need a very large bear chair in your life?
Also, food is different in this part of America. For one, the fish counter workers are more creative (props to you, lemon crab/octopus maker), and people apparently eat a lot more corn dogs than I ever realised, since they now get their own section in WinCo. Did you know you can actually buy a corn dog that is made of a sausage wrapped in a pancake with maple syrup already applied? I mean…I don’t even know what to say about that except the obvious, “MURICA!”
And, I ate some really dirty gas station food. It was terrible. I remember it being waaaay better.
Then there were the flights. The very long, no good, why is there only ONE customer service centre in the entire airport open, most-of-the-way-around-the-world-flights. I would like to thank everyone in middle America who looked at me like I was an alien for doing a teensy bit of yoga on the airport floor. I would also like to commend United for failing to get me to anywhere on time, “upgrading me” to a middle seat on my redeye home to London, and making me wait in the longest customer service line known to man. Honestly – just as I got to the front of this 55 minute line, United was kind enough to send me a text to say that my delayed flight had just been delayed a further three hours because of “no aircraft.”
I thought maybe I was on that “Boiling Point” show and that I was going to win a car or something if I didn’t lose my sh*% at the customer service lady, or maybe I’d stumbled into a non-celebrity version of “Punked.” Buuuut no. No car, no Ashton Kutcher popping up from behind the counter. Just a seat far worse than the one I booked originally.
Today…a little behind the scenes look at the studio.
We’re seriously making progress now. The bedroom, as you’ll see below, is basically done!
There’s still a lot to do for soft furnishings, but construction wise we’re mostly done – just some trim and plumbing in the the claw foot tub. After testing about seven hundred different colours on the walls (some very ambitious ones too) we ended up going for a neural cream, and it was definitely the right choice. The floors came up great, and the moulding turned out so nice in this room too, even better than the front room I think.
Proper antique side tables with plenty of character. I’m still looking for coordinating lamps, but I love these little guys.
The bedroom chandelier, by day and by night. This photo on the right is really misleading though, because it’s actually SO INCREDIBLY BRIGHT that you can probably see it from around the block. We’re going to get dimmer switches soon. Or sunglasses. One or the other is definitely necessary.
The bedroom fireplace, and antique fire screen. I of course spent 6 or 7 hours painting it a bright, glossy white, but then we decided the black was more elegant and fitting for the room, so I painted over it all. At least I can be grateful it wasn’t the other way around:)
My favourite chandelier of the bunch is this 100 year old French beauty in the hallway. As you can see, it’s a little beat up at the moment, but it’s going to be incredible with a little TLC.
Our one lightbulb wiring test. How great is that shadow?!
These old church pews will serve as a table and seating area in the hallway. They’ve lived the last ten years in some sort of preschool, and arrived covered in sparkle glue, magic marker, and chewed up gum, but they are a nice distressed white now (gum free).
Antique candlesticks, and details on the main room’s fireplace.
The main room’s chandelier. It came from America, but the crystal hanging instructions were quite clearly from a factory in China – one where attention to detail is in no way required to get a job – because it was a joke. The instructions referred to sets of crystals that either weren’t there at all, or were labeled with the wrong letters (N? R? basically the same thing right? just make a squiggle and ship it to the stupid Americans). My father in law spend all day helping us wire and hang it, and then took us from 6PM to 1:30AM to get it to this point. There’s still a whole box of crystals to be hung too!
Chairs for days:)
Yeah…this thing still isn’t done…
The rest of the floors and these stairs are our next project. Everything is going white, and I can’t wait to see how they turn out.
The bannister is staying like this though – rustic and distressed to match the chandelier.
This room will be my office when we’re finished. To the shock and horror of everyone that has seen it so far, we’re leaving that back wall unfinished. I like it. Can I also draw you attention to that stack of antique frames and mirrors? There’s so much goodness hiding in that pile, you just wait and see.
Gunna learn to sew sooner or later!
This is the bathtub for the bedroom. It’s this shocking teal colour now, but will soon be covered with…
…genuine copper leaf. Because we can, basically. And also because I have a Pinterest addiction.
She looks totally different than she did for our first shoot together about two years ago, and I feel like a vastly improved photographer since then, so I thought I’d have a (fun? for you maybe?) look back at our original images.
It’s given me such a weird feeling to go through these again. I’m relieved to find things I still like about this original set of images, although the pile of things I don’t like is obviously much larger. Funnily enough, I remember doing this shoot quite clearly, and I remember being really happy with the resulting images…
I’ve since raised my standards.
At the time, Emma was doing a lot of hair modelling and had a Fifth Element sort of thing going on. Since then, Emma’s traded her red hair and pale skin for a more natural ombre hairstyle and a beachy tan. I think this new look suits her a bit better, although I will always be impressed that she can pull off both looks so well.
I’ve tried to pair these images so the old and new examples are roughly similar. These backlit window images seem the most telling:
A little moodier.
An early vs. recent attempt at a great over the shoulder shot.
I don’t know what I was doing here. Why didn’t I fix the creepy claw hand? Why is she so red?
It took me way too long to realise that nobody looks good with their face directly on the bed.
The far left pose has certainly improved.
Trying to be cool with colour.
I know these are small, so I’ve also added a gallery that expands to full screen below. Y’know, so you can see them in all their horror/glory:)
Meh. It’s a good problem to have I guess.
I hope the next few years bring an even bigger jump up:) If you’re a photographer, it may also be of interest to you to know that my gear hasn’t changed. My post work is better, but my camera and lenses are still basically the same.
This is the lovely Miss M, who is a past client and friend. The original plan was for us to squeeze in a proper boudoir shoot while in New York, but we got so busy catching up and making plans that it slipped our minds until midnight.
No problem – I had a rooftop and an amazing view, and our roommate Christie (also a photographer) had this crazy lighting tool, an Ice Light, with her. As a side note, the Ice Light looks exactly like a light saber, and would be exceedingly popular with young boys and nerds alike.
We climbed to the roof, pushed open the door, and…it was raining cats and dogs. Serious rain. It was also very cold, and everyone was tired and jet lagged.
At this point, both girls were ready to throw in the towel. I just knew if we didn’t do the shoot that night it wasn’t going to happen, so I put on my most charming smile and begged. Luckily, they agreed to humour me for 2 minutes. If you make friends with a photographer, this sort of thing is bound to happen sooner or later. You’ve been warned.
Can you see the rain?! These girls are troopers.
With no time and minimal equipment, the only way I was going to be able to get the image I had in my head was to combine several frames in post production. This gets technical so I won’t bore you with details, but due to the circumstances I wasn’t able to get Miss M and the background both in focus in the same image. Instead, I used the image above as my cityscape background, and a separate image for the best pose and expression from Miss M. Later on, I combined the two images in Photoshop.
It’s not the ideal way to work, but when you have literally two minutes and are also worried about giving your client hypothermia and flooding your very expensive camera, sometimes you just have to cut a few corners;)
Our final image:
Big thanks to Miss M and Christie – you girls are amazing! Christie, I’ll happily hold light for you in the rain if there’s ever a chance for me to return the favour:)
So! I’m back from NYC. It was a manic, exciting, fantastic four days.
It was surreal being back in America again, but I met so many wonderfully creative people this trip. There’s an energy in NYC that is like nothing else – it’s aggressive and defensive, but also exciting and welcoming in it’s own won’t-say-I-love-you-out-loud sort of way. You get the sense that everyone is an outsider, but that very fact is what makes people belong. That feeling, combined with the fact that basically everyone I met is trying to make something happen, build something, create something, or make an impact, is addictive.
I’m currently incommunicado while I get caught up on this mountain of culling, editing, and retouching work I’ve created for myself, but I wanted to share a few behind the scenes images with you this week. There were mostly shot with my iPhone so please don’t judge:)
I flew Kuwait Airways. That’s like a trip in and of itself. Everything was late, everyone got frisked, no one spoke English, and they play an Islamic prayer set to music and meditative images as the lights go off in preparation for takeoff. I’m sure this prayer is meant to be comforting, but as a non-Islamic white girl, I suddenly felt like…uh…do I NEED to by praying right now? Should I be worried this plane needs Divine Intervention to get off the ground?! This, as I notice half the plane is empty and the tray tables are falling apart. Eeesh. On the upside, we didn’t die, I had no one sitting next to me either flight, and the food and service was good.
They also give you printed menus. On the right, NYC greeted me with the most beautiful sunset at touchdown.
I managed to get to Brooklyn by myself, via the subway, with a huge suitcase. I’m not going to lie – NYC public transport is cheap, but it isn’t pretty. By the end of the journey, which featured an assortment of people who looked tired, angry, and/or were singing loudly to no one, I understood why people just take a cab everywhere. Anyway, I made it in the end, and was welcomed by this stunning view.
Our “home” for the trip. This space was a dream, full of eclectic details and gorgeous light.
As luck would have it, my homegirl Jada happened to be in the city at the same time. We got together for a shoot and a catch up, and it was so nice to see a friendly face and talk shop. Here’s Jada’s best Kim Kardashian impression.
One more cityscape.
A sneaky sneak of what Jada and I got up to on the roof;)
Introducing my UK dream team – Katherine on hair and Gemma on makeup. It was such a pleasure having these girls along. Here’s a few outtakes from our shoot with Lauren, who was an absolute bombshell.
Gemma was looking ever so chic…
….and Katherine wasn’t having it.
It was my pleasure to work with a gorgeous woman called Philomena too. A back of the camera preview of her on the left, and a random street shot on the right.
I have decided I would like to switch my gym membership so I can become a “Chinatown Dragon Fighter” club member.
Me, Michael (previous client & friend), and Christie (fellow photographer) in the Stanton Social for dinner. Obligatory selfies ensued, I don’t know why I’m making crazy eyes. Kate (fellow photographer) joined us later, but somehow managed to escape having it photographed.
Michael and I planned a day of sightseeing before I left. This photograph commemorates the time the cab driver dropped us off about a mile from where we asked him too. We had suitcases with us, it wasn’t fun.
I mean, when in Rome…you eat the pizza.
Lady Liberty:) I feel like a proper American now.
The boat tour is definitely the way to go if you want to see the sights in a relatively short amount of time. Michael and I were both fighting exhaustion by the final morning of the trip and we almost didn’t bother, but we were both really glad we did it in the end.
We even walked to Times Square (with bags). I think if you’ve ever been to Vegas, it’s a little underwhelming. I’d like to thank this random guy on the right for photobombing us though. Well played sir, well played.
And finally, me in a cab on the way to the airport, and then on the way home.
I just want to make sure I say a massive thank you to everyone I met in New York. Each one of you were dynamic and interesting and gracious, and it’s an absolute pleasure to be in the company of such good people. It was an honour to work with you and photograph you. I also owe a big thank you to my tireless team, who flew across the ocean and battled a strange city, exhaustion, and sickness to work their magic far from home.
That said, I have SO MANY IMAGES to show you from shoots I did while I was away. I’ve got Jada, a curvy blonde bombshell; Perci, a beautiful vegan brunette in a $1200 AP jacket; Lauren, a redhead covered in tattoos; and Philomena, the most beautifully dark skinned woman with a shaved head and dangerous curves. Plus, several amazing and unique clients who might just let us have a peek at their images too:)
Just you wait and see!
xx
Stormy
P.S. I’m going back. If you missed this trip but want in on the next one, drop me a line!
International Boudoir Photography: a Destination Photography Session in Paris
So, I was recently in Paris for work….if you can call doing a destination photography session with beautiful people (Natasha & Derek) in the most romantic city in the world “work” that is:) Although it was a very quick trip, it was such a great experience and I thought I’d share a few travel pictures with you here, ahead of showing you all the gorgeous proper images of N&D of course.
It was my first trip to Paris. Despite lots of warnings about the attitude of “The French,” I’m happy to report that only one waitress was excessively rude to me. Everyone else was fine, nice even! Seeing as I speak exactly two French words (Bonjour and Boudoir), it was a pleasant surprise. I did spend quite a lot of time in a panic that someone would try to talk to me, but it’s still a city after all, and people mostly keep to themselves. I’ve spoken to a few friends about this since returning, and we’ve all agreed that if you can survive the complete and total unfriendliness that is living in London, Paris is no worse.
One of the first images I took in Paris. This was just outside our hotel. Basically, the whole city looks like this – the WHOLE city. You have to see it to believe it.
The Louvre, the Seine, and that time my husband said his famous last words, “It’s only about a ten minute walk.”
Such a perfect street.
La Tour Eiffel.
I call this “The Belly of the Beast.” The Eiffel Tower is way, way bigger than you expect it to be. Precisely the opposite of Big Ben.
The Lock Bridge….
…so glad I did my nails. Unfortunately, orange doesn’t seem that romantic on second thought. Oh well.
This guy was amazing.
There must be a thousand great locations to plan a destination photography session, but I’m glad this one was in Paris.
This is the Bato Bus. The Bato Bus is my friend, especially after walking the whole day prior to our shoot. This is the time where I almost fell of the back of the boat.
Awww. Big dress. Romance. Paris. Photography. All things I like:)
My husband took these. I think he’s trying to put me out of a job.
Luckily, as long as he keeps getting distracted by pigeons, I think I’ll be okay:)
So that’s it! A little roundup of my first destination photography session in Paris. Stay tuned for finished images of Natasha and Derek, you won’t want to miss them.
I love the idea of doing more destination photography sessions like this, so if it’s something you’re interested in please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Boudoir, anniversary, engagement, birthday, just because – I’m not picky! All excuses are good excuses in my book, and flights in Europe are pretty cheap at the moment – let’s plan something amazing:)
xx
Stormy
Ready to start planning your very own Destination Photography Session with me?
I’d love to chat with you about all the details of how a London Boudoir Photography session with me works, or how we can arrange to hold your session in any major city worldwide. We’ll go over what you can expect, how to prepare, and talk about the beautiful imagery we can create for you. Destination Photography Sessions are so much fun, and they make the perfect surprise gift for a partner, or even better – as a mini holiday and a big confidence boost for yourself. Please feel free to get in touch, you can reach me (Stormy) at 07799 390468, or just drop me an email here. We’ll plan a Destination Photography Session that will thrill you:)
The rest of the floors and these stairs are our next project. Everything is going white, and I can’t wait to see how they turn out.
…genuine copper leaf. Because we can, basically. And also because I have a Pinterest addiction.
