Orchard; Sharp and Soft; Motion in Stillness

Orchard

Sharp and Soft

Motion in Stillness

In a world where we are taught mostly about the danger and the fear we should feel around our bodies, boudoir is a unique and largely out-of-bounds form of photography in that it aims to expose and capture the beauty of the body. Of course, all portraiture aims to translate the beauty of the subject from real life to still life. This is, in my opinion, the primary goal of a good photographer. However, boudoir does so on a different level entirely. Beauty is expansive: it is not limited to straight-toothed smiles and carefully arranged bodies. It is the folds of skin on your stomach, the freckles on your collarbone. It is in confrontation and in relaxation. For me, boudoir is a unique method of exploring and exposing these less acknowledged beauties, as well as capturing the gentle power of the human body which possesses them. Boudoir does not skimp on the details. It is the closest thing to poetry I have found in photography. There is a stigma around being confident in your own naked or near-naked body that boudoir ignores completely. It is truly a form of photography which I have come to love for the process as much as the result. At the beginning of a shoot, most people feel shy and uncertain. Undressing in front of a close friend can be overwhelming, let alone doing so in front of a camera held by someone who is often a near stranger. Photographing someone in such a vulnerable context provides me the opportunity to witness — and in some ways, to influence — a person finding themselves beautiful. It is sometimes slow, sometimes quiet, and other times it is raucous, surprising. It is always my favorite part. This process of simultaneous exposure and comfort creates a unique environment of connection — one that is hard to achieve in less personal forms of photography, and impossible to fake. Boudoir’s direct meaning is a “woman’s bedroom or private room” which, although more gender specific than the boudoir photos I take, is an accurate summary of boudoir’s meaning. It is personal, sexy, soft, and powerful: all things which art aims to explore in the face of a world which so often denies their importance. These images are selected from a series of boudoir shoots and feature several models, all photographed using a digital camera.