Yesterday I attended the photographing women for profit superclass with Bjorn Thomasson at the SWPP 2010 convention.
My initial reaction was that it was not really what I was expecting but on reflection it did cover many marketing ideas mixed in with a wealth practical information. As you can imagine the superclass was very intensive with four hours tuition tailored to ten attendees.
Bjorn is a world renown International portrait photographer and trainer spending half his time training in many countries across the world and the other half photographing his clients.
This may end up being a bit of a brain dump as I have many pages of notes and not had chance to thing about how implement them.
A class full of guys
The first thing that struck me was the audience as there was only one woman. And I was expecting to be the only guy!
Bjorn discussed the merits of male verses female photographer after the very serious question of being accused of improper conduct was bought up. Many female boudoir photographers use their gender as their unique selling point. Bjorn told us a story about one successful lady boudoir photographer who told him that he had a big advantage being a male photographer.
Why is being a male photographer an advantage?
Your initial thoughts may be that you’d feel more comfortable with a woman but the reality is the images can lack a certain sparkle. The sparkle that makes the difference between a nice picture and an outstanding one. That is because it’s not easy to flirt with someone of the same sex so you won’t have the ideal expression or sparkle in your eyes.
This confirmed my own thoughts and personal experiences photographing men. If you think about some of the world’s greatest photographers of women, they’re nearly always guys. Photographers such as, David Bailey, Edward Weston, Bob Carlos-Clarke and Helmut Newton.
Confidence booster
Bjorn discussed the huge benefits of the boudoir experience emotionally.
It cannot be underestimated how much this can help your confidence boost or give you a pick-me-up. Exploring the therapeutic benefits should be the subject of future articles.
Your experience
Boudoir photography goes way beyond the purchase of the final product. It is about the whole experience where every effort is made to make you feel fantastic about yourself.
This all starts with your initial contact to receiving your pictures and beyond. We already do many of the things he suggested such as offering you a glass of wine with your make-over and playing music. But Bjorn gave a few new ideas and how things can be improved further. More coming soon.
The studio
It was great to hear Bjorn re-affirm that a high street studio is not necessary.
His personal studio is a home studio and is actually smaller than ours. He also works a lot on location or at venues such as hotels.
He also gave great tips for scouting out locations and knowing where to go depending upon time of day and weather conditions. Another home work project for me 
Pricing
Well what can I say, I don’t charge anywhere near enough. Whilst that is true, establishing one self in the market needs to come first. It’s the classic chicken and egg scenario; charge too much and you loose clients on a budget but charge too little and risk loosing clients that attach a higher value to everything they purchase.
As much as we’d love to do this for FREE, the reality is we need to pay bills and put food on the table the same as the next person.
Bjorn works his packages to start at £150, commission only, which is something I will consider now.
Coincidentally I had a call from the UK Portrait Group a couple of days ago who wanted to verify boudoir portrait prices with me as they’re adding a new category for their creative partners. Watch out for some important announcements soon!
Removing weight
Bjorn also discussed advanced techniques of removing weight by removing light. If you’ve seen some of my more recent work you may have noticed an increasing use of shade introducing more contrast. I’ve already been moving in this direction but more from an artistic stand point rather than weight removal.
The angle and direction of light plays a huge part emphasizing your best qualities while de-emphasizing other parts. He also talked the importance of angling your face and camera view points to capture the best possible images in camera.
Blending all these elements together is all about capturing your true inner beauty, which is my ultimate goal.
Fantasy is the new reality
Have you noticed that nearly all films made today include elements of digital enhancements to create fantasy worlds?
Bjorn has been experimenting with creating composite images from changing skies on location shoots to complete fantasy worlds.
No longer do clients need to go on location to appear as if they’re on location, such as in the woods.
This can all be done in the studio!
I’ve seen these techniques before but hadn’t considered it in this context before. Apparently his clients are loving this imagery and he believes it will become very popular.
In conclusion
As you can see, we covered a huge amount of material and I’ve only just skimmed the surface.
There is a lot of scope for future articles covering these and other topics individually. As you can see there are a huge number of questions arising from this. And I’d love to hear your opinions on any of these topics or anything else that comes to mind.
Do you see how boudoir photography can boost your confidence and give you a pick-me-up?
Are you only thinking about your end pictures or about the whole experience?
What would you like to be part of your experience?
Would you love to star in your own fantasy world?
Please discuss in the comments below.
Pat
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