One of my favorite parts about shooting glamour and boudoir sessions are the ‘before and afters.’ I love seeing how people react when they flip through one of my before and after albums in the studio, and I love hearing clients tell friends about how they should check out my website to see the makeovers. The thing I don’t love hearing is that many people assume that my work is VERY photoshopped because the transformation is, so, well, transformative. The truth is that most of the magic that happens at my studio is created in the makeup chair and right in front of my lens.

Let me explain. For starters, almost none of my clients walk around looking like their ‘before’ shot. Who goes to the office on a Tuesday with no makeup, wearing sweat pants with their hair pulled back in a ponytail? No one. Second, who has their hair and makeup professionally done before work on a Thursday? No one. Well, unless you’re a Kardashian. BUT that’s how my clients arrive and leave my studio, and that’s how they’re photographed, and that’s what you see in my before and afters.

Before I begin every session, the stylist and I talk with my client about how she wants to look. We go over makeup and hair options, and even look through photographs she might have brought so we have a clear vision of how she wants to look. During the shoot, I work with my clients to create a body line that photographs beautifully. The posing feels awkward and is usually pretty uncomfortable, but it looks amazing from my camera angle. I work throughout every shoot to find the most flattering angle and poses so that I DON’T have to do crazy photoshop edits. I fully edit all of my glamour and boudoir portraits – always smoothing the skin, enhancing the eyes and I remove any unsightly pooches that are caused by the elastic in clothing. The combination of gorgeous styling and my posing expertise creates beautiful images straight out of camera.

Here’s an example from a recent shoot. The before shot is on the left. The image in the middle is straight out of camera and has no editing applied. Lastly, the image on the right is the fully edited portrait.

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Here’s another example. Smoothed skin, waist slightly narrowed and eyes enhanced. Gorgeous, right? And edited very slightly.

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