How To Take Sexy Photos Of Your Girlfriend

A Pro Photographer's Tips For Taking The Best Possible Photos Of Your Girlfriend

The idea has at least probably crossed your mind at least once. You have a girlfriend, wife, or someone who trusts you very closely, and that you know is beautiful. And naturally, you have a camera; so you think, why not do a sexy photoshoot with her at your model, whether in lingerie or fully nude? The trouble is getting the photos to turn out properly.

We reached out to Ana Jovmir, a Montreal-based professional photographer. The Romanian-born Jovmir has worked with various models, shot lingerie and burlesque performers, and also shoots sensual boudoir sessions with both singles and couples.

She's given us a comprehensive guide to how a beginner with a camera can get the most out of their first ever sexy photoshoot with their girlfriend, from helping put her at ease the fiddling with her camera settings. Check it out below.

Making Her Feel Comfortable

You already have an advantage here, says Jovmir. "It’s a very different dynamic than a photographer with a model. It’s easier because you already have a connection and that’s an advantage."

Prep:

Consider having a glass of wine beforehand

Give your girlfriend a massage. " That can have two benefits: it can get her to relax and put her in the mood, but the massage oil always give the skin a very nice glowing effect and give a nice radiance and skin. It can also add to the breasts, collarbone and thighs," says Jovmir.

"Make-up shows up less in pictures, so usually the rule of thumb is to apply extra make-up. If it looks like too much in real life, it'll probably look good in a picture."

During the photoshoot:

It's important for your girlfriend to feel in control. You're putting her in a vulnerable position. You can look at the pictures as you take them and discuss what you like about them and what you don't like.

Make sure as you're shooting you give her lots of compliments and make her feel confident about herself. When you see something you like tell her about it.

Put on music that she likes.

It can be a bit intimidating starting in lingerie or naked, so you don't need to move too fast in the photoshoot. "You can start with a dress, or a shirt that she can plays with or unbutton. As she gets more into it, and as you figure out your camera settings she can slowly get undressed."

"Also, you can take breaks. Even if it's working out great, you don't need to force it. You can take a break, relax, have a glass of wine, cuddle, you can even make love. You can really get that connection between you guys. Sex hair also looks really great! So you can use that to your advantage."

Posing

"There's a few tricks that are good for either professional models of amateurs," says Jovmir.

Don't face the camera straight on. " Pose more at 3/4s, it’s more slimming, it shows off curves, and it’s better for the face," says Jovmir.

Arch her back

Tuck her stomach in

Have her put her weight on one leg and bend the other one. "It gives you a kind of S-curve, and shows a bit more of your hips."

Lean towards the camera. " Usually people tend to lean away, but it’s better to bend a little bit at the waist towards the camera. Obviously anything towards the camera is going to look a little bit bigger. So if you lean away from the camera, it’s going to give you a big stomach and a small head."

If she's going topless, make her nipples hard. " Nipples always look nicer if they’re hard," says Jovmir. "You can think of different ways of doing that, but you can always just use an ice cube. It’s a trick I would use for my models."

"If you run out of ideas for poses, you can have her do a specific action, like dancing, or playing with her stockings and garters, rolling around the bed, or sensually running her hands up and down her body. That will get her moving a little bit more, and make her look more natural."

Lighting

Professional photographers usually use a professional (surprise surprise) lighting set-up, but Jovmir says it's not 100% necessary.

During the day



Set up near a window during the daytime. "Hopefully you'll have an overcast day or a window that’s in the shade so you don’t have harsh shadows, which you don't want. But if it is a sunny you can just put some sheer curtains or white blinds to soften the shadows a little bit."

Angle the model so that the light is hitting her sideways, why will emphasize her curves and give her some definition.

"If you want a nice and very bright and fresh ambience, you can do that by shooting in a room with a lot of white walls, that has white sheets or white furniture for props to bounce the light back onto the model. This is a good technique if your model doesn’t have perfect skin, because it masks imperfection. If you have a lot of white reflecting the light back onto the model, the skin pores and imperfections will be softened a lot."

Nighttime



You can an ordinary lamp for your lighting. " You don’t want a harsh light from a bare bulb, but a lamp with a lampshade or a veil over the lamp (make sure it doesn’t burn) which will soften the shadows," says Jovmir.

Move the light around, and try to have the light a bit above the model and a bit off to the sides so that it defines her curves. You can play around with the shadow-light ratio by either moving the light around or changing the angle you’re shooting around.

Nighttime shots can create good "artsy" style shots. "You can make really nice pictures by placing the light behind the model to create some rim light and will really accentuate her skin if she has really nice skin. You can get some great artsy photos if you go for a close-up, if you want to get a really nice photo of one of her body parts, like her breasts and see the skin this is a really nice lighting."

Camera Settings

"Aperture is the most important, because it determines your depth of field," says Jovmir.

"Aperture, also called the f-stop number, is the wideness of the opening of the lens. So when you have a big opening, you have more light coming in. It’s a bit counterintuitive, because when you have a wide opening, it’s actually a small F-Stop number. F or this kind of photography, you want a small f-number, so a big aperture. 2.8 would be a good place to start at. That way you always have more light that comes in. So you have more light to play around with."

ISO is also important to consider. ISO is your camera's sensitivity to light. The smaller the ISO, such as a number around 80, means you're going to get crisper images, so if you can use that, go for it. But larger ISO numbers means the camera will be more sensitive to light, so you'll get brighter images, but they'll be slightly grainier.

" My personal advice is that if you can go with a smaller ISO, go for it, but if you need to, go with a higher ISO like 800 because it’s more important to have a well-exposed image and a bit of graininess than a picture that’s too dark. And if you’re going to edit it afterwards, it’s better to have a lighter image to begin with."

If you only have a cellphone camera, make sure not to use the automatic settings, and play with the ISO and exposure settings to try to get the mood. Third-party applications like ProCamera 8 can help you control the settings.

Editing

If your camera lets you, shoot in raw image format, which takes up more space on your camera. " The difference in the information kept in a raw format versus a JPEG is night and day. It takes a lot more space on your SD card, but if your goal is to take the best pictures you can with what you have, you should shoot raw."

Professional photographers generally use programs like Adobe Lightroom and PhotoShop, but you can play with easier programs from beginners like Windows Photo Gallery, iPhoto, Picasa and PhotoScape. "I would try adjusting the c olours, the white balance, the contract, the lights, the shadows to see what you get," says Jovmir.

Shooting

"I wouldn't worry too much about "Am I shooting enough?" It's more important to think about whether you're trying too hard to control the shot too perfectly, or getting the perfect pose, or playing with the settings on your camera, your model is going to get tired and bored. Holding a pose for a minute, even for a professional model, is tiring."

"Have a steady pace when you shoot, and if you see that something's not working and you've tried it a few times with a few different tweaks, just move on. You don't want the model to get bored — you want her to have fun, especially if it's a couple activity."

You can see more of Ana Jovmir's work by following her on Facebook and on Tumblr.