I’ve been interested in nude bodies and sex for as long as I can remember. In elementary school I got in trouble by my teacher for putting a heart shaped bed, sex swing, and a stripper pole in my ‘draw your dream room’ assignment. I have absolutely no idea where this proclivity came from, and I don’t care. All I know is that when people discuss things like kinks in a shameful or dismissive manner I’m always the one piping up to defend it. I don’t think golden showers are disgusting, I totally understand the desire to engage in age play, and, honestly, feet can be pretty damn sexy. None of these are my own personal kinks (they are personal, duh) but my point is that I have an open mind. I don’t think sex or what turns you on is or should be shameful. (And a lot of times it doesn’t even involve sex.) To be seen and have your needs met by someone on the deepest, most vulnerable level is very powerful (even if that someone is you, alone, with your favorite toys watching your favorite things, playing like the beautiful adult that you are.)
And since I am a boudoir photographer who already meets people in a vulnerable space it’s just a natural progression for me personally to take it a step further and start taking erotica clients. I have been in countless rooms photographing people whose yearning to push it a bit further, a bit raunchier, a bit more untethered is so plainly written on their whole being that the room is practically vibrating with pent up desire. Not desire for ME, but desire to have their raw sexuality captured. They just want MORE. And yet they can’t or won’t ask for those photos because of, you guessed it, shame. (And also because it’s really hard to ask for something that’s not on the menu!)
I mulled this over in my noggin for a long time. I knew that if I were to dip my toe into this genre I wanted to do it on the same level as all of my other photography. The same depth of pre-planning and finesse, the attention to detail and post processing. And in the genre of erotica there has to be a LOT of pre-discussion and boundaries set by both parties, even more so than boudoir. There needs to be mutual respect on both ends. I absolutely must feel safe, the client most definitely must feel safe, and everyone needs to be on the same damn bus at all times, knowing the full route, with no unplanned stops along the way. The point of an erotic photoshoot isn’t to get your proverbial rocks off, the point is to capture you getting your rocks off in images. And there truly is a difference. Honestly, it’s much less sexy than you would imagine, and much more about acting. Think of it like you’re the star making your own personal erotic film. We might have to stop and do things again or get different angles. The ‘scenes’ might not be in order. There will probably (definitely) be snack breaks.
In other words, these aren’t just some cheap, dirty snaps taken during a sex act. This is a whole production. This is high class erotica.
So that leads me to my shoot with Thom. I reached out to him to test my skills because he’s in the sex industry and is already familiar and comfortable with this genre. He is also a fucking rad human and loves nature and travel so there’s that. We worked together on a game plan, communicating both ahead of time and throughout the shoot, and I think the results are wonderful. We both wanted to make sure that we captured a mix of social media-friendly and explicit images. Part 1 is mostly the former. Part 2 (coming soon) is much more the latter.
SO without further ado, here are some of my favorites (so many favorites!) from the first half of our session. (Also, like I said before, this might look like it’s the first half of a story but in all reality it was the beginning of the shoot and the end of the shoot.) Enjoy!
Obviously this is most definitely Not Safe For (most) Workplaces.
