Lessons
Day 1
1Introduction
07:36 2Let’s Get this Party Started Right!
20:35 3Redefining Boudoir: YOUR Brand & Style
29:59 4Working with Women
20:01 5Creating Relaxed Clients
17:49 6Posing and Anti-Posing
12:05 7Flattering All Body Types
21:13Providing an Amazing Experience
09:00 9Shoot: Simple Set, Natural Light
21:06 10Shoot: Students' Turn
10:09 11Shoot: Budget Hotel Room
20:43 12Sexy Styling
18:12 13Sets and Props
07:13 14Styling Q&A
19:09 15Shoot: Bedroom Set, Soccer Mom
30:52 16Shoot: Students' Turn
10:52 17Shoot: Bedroom Set, Model
18:26 18Shooting Q&A
06:52Day 2
19Reviewing Previous Images
05:11 20Shooting to Sell
16:21 21Lighting & Equipment
32:02 22Vintage Car Shoot
23:15 23Shoot: Grey Seamless with Samantha
14:11 24Shoot: Grey Seamless, Students' Turn
13:03 25Shoot 3: Grey Seamless with Sarah
21:20 26Shoot: Grey Seamless Student's Turn
08:27 27Prop Shoot
12:56 28Post-Production
21:32 29Lightroom
19:04 30Photoshop
24:16 31Shoot: Bar Set with Justine and Will
23:59 32Students' Turn (Carlos and Nicole)
07:35 33Shoot: Back to Christa
15:36 34Shoot: Students' Turn (Jen)
14:01 35AFTER DARK: Fine Art Nude
1:05:06Day 3
36After Dark Shoot Review
03:45 37Favorite Photoshop Actions
16:07 38Booking Your Ideal Client
36:11 39Boudoir Parties
06:46 40Shoot: Backstage with Margareta
28:50 41Marketing with Enthusiasm
31:25 42Price Lists (Q&A)
14:07 43Pricing Strategies
20:23 44Selling
14:17 45Website Critiques
16:08 46Shoot: Sister Kate
22:26 47Shoot: Chinese Fans with Katie
12:37 48Velvet Dress with Robin
16:51 49Shoot: Students' Turn (Jen)
21:59Lesson Info
Shoot: Students' Turn (Jen)
Can I actually have the bottles? Sure. Maybe you want to change the light to wait to no. Okay. And I'm actually gonna have you hop off the bar that's okay? Ah, since the light over here, um, can I actually bring the stolen? I'm gonna have you sit in the stole here with your knees facing this way and I'm gonna have you standing between his knees and weigh half like there is a glass of I'm gonna get tangled up here, okay? So I'm gonna bring this in. I'm gonna have you sit here with these facing that way, okay? And can I have you? Yeah. Okay. Can I have you put your arms like over a shoulder? And can I have you drop your left shoulder towards me? And can you look down towards hey, when can you get in a little bit closer to take a shot here I had my center dot and then everybody used making you turn your chair a little bit more towards, like, can I move the late this way? Just a little. It looked okay on camera looked fine because they're coming up it's a little hot, I guess on the shoulde...
r to five I'm gonna bump it up to eight, choosing to have another pocket with yes, perfect. I love the arch in the back should that can you flirt a little with the shorter her effect and can you look down towards towards the ground a little bit perfect perfect you looked for me I'm sorry you're gonna look down there you're just accessory in fact please okay have you stand up? I had seen it I'm gonna move the stool away have you guys facing each other and I want you to kind of press your hips into his hips okay get late to get really close perfect and can actually hand her the glass of wine with your with your your lefty and get my rights and my life's mixed up perfect can you handle hold it over and with your other hand can you kind of reach up and grab his hair and then with your shoulder can you kind of for perfect in your hand can you reach a point like polar and towards the waste can you get your body that help your body a little bit closer to each other okay it's awesome jen and can you looked great towards the light for me and then right towards me huh? Well disconnected will's like nowhere no come on there's all that you actually can you actually take your nose and kind of sniffers how do you see that look? Well was disconnected can you link and yeah like you get a pension where people are you know I mean can you have a late back just a little bit and losing the wine glass perfect. Perfect. Her hot sniffer will sniff okay, now this month perfect keep going or twenty of somebody else now do something else real quick. We've got about ten minutes. How about if I have you set up on the wire? You can put the wine down, drink pop up. I got it, I got it and I'm gonna have you standing sort of in front of her, um facing her. Yeah, so go ahead and stand right in front. Okay, can you put your hands over top of shoulders and kind of lean down a little bit perfect. And I want you to kind of look down towards the nape of his neck like that. Perfect. Perfect. Can you have to tell you I like you? You sniffer will e can't see you just for me and look towards me and laugh with them. Funny she's such a sport. Okay, awesome. I haul anything. Okay, all right, let's have you step back down. You guys can switch up, talk it wizards and have someone else coming in but I'm going to do it for a second I want your booty towards the light and facing well on dh stick but it's it's getting close yeah up top getting close yeah and you know what I'm just gonna give you a wager it back again because it's awesome okay perfect okay and lean into him and I think I want to see your face in front of hiss yep so switch it up perfect gorgeous and yeah look down on your booty oh shoot I forgot us on the eighty five may see perfect ah some look keep just keep looking down I'm just working my frame oh so right now I'm just kind of geeking out with my composition figuring out what elements do I want in what do I want to crop out how I create some space um I'm not too much worried about this left side of the frame I know the black isn't over there but that's something easily photoshopped herbal if I've got like five minutes less I'm not going to fix that and they just keep going um we see more of your that's beautiful and can you take I know your hand is holding your hair could we do something else that that hand um yeah that's nice could barely get it one more and then can you take it and put it on your right hip that that hand no the other one awesome yeah, your fingers a little more powerful than this one was like that yeah great actually put it on his neck okay yeah, I love it oh yeah you own him we've reversed roles here uh lean in a little bit tighter with your everybody yeah exactly beautiful and then will kind of let your right hand go slide down yeah keep going keep going keep gone I love your smirk does dean and to the thigh to the thigh will tow the fat move into the ugo alright, awesome you're awesome you're awesome thank you very much so do we have any more questions and then we might have michelle shoot a little bit to get about ten minutes seven minutes actually there's a question um sorry guys on this show right now um do you have her hit towards you to emphasize booty yeah, yeah always trying to emphasize booty so shifting weight is huge I noticed that you shoot more vertical is that for album reason or good question style or what? Um two reasons one in when I want to shoot more editorially uh most magazines and, you know, um except vertical use more vertical uh, so I started going I my first love with cinema so I was shooting a lot horizontal and then I overcompensated and made myself shoot, you know, like I'm telling people who don't move on to make yourself move on well, I made myself to shoot all vertically and now I'm kind of shooting more vertically it is easier for me um an album but um honestly it has been driven by this set in while I was on the soccer set a soccer mom set the bedrooms that um that mirror was vertical and then I had chopped cheese on the right and left to me so shooting mostly vertical I was trying to make my ship up shoot a couple horizontal and ironically our set up there with the um textured wall on the chair again I'm going to shoot vertically because ah horizontally it breaks the frame but I was okay with it one or two times when it worked so today when I'm shooting the nude model but uh I'm gonna try we have this nice expanse of space so I'm gonna be shooting more harrah's until here um I keep I'm limited by the by the black backdrop so I can only go so far I did do landscape of the body horizontally usually d'oh then I turned it vertical and actually popped even more like the shape of her hip when framed vertically and like those red now don't know if you saw that shot I was hot um so that's a good question uh I prefer vertical or horizontal for sure okay guys way do you have more questions? Ok, ok, so a question from uh bree j photography what do you ask your clients to do before before shooting, for example, drink lots of water for skin complexion were there any other prep? Yeah um lotion your skin that's always a good one for oil is nice um yeah try not to wear a tight fitting straps you know uh what else to tell you um get a good night's sleep try tio and that's really cool. Yeah, uh tom shopper and about fifty other people in the chat room her dying to know what your hand strap is you can talk about that he's a time sure. This is a nine dollars strap and it's neo cream so it really takes a lot of the weight and it is here is the brand is like a no name brand. They probably won't love that I said that it's op tech it's nine bucks you can order it online it's super freaking awesome. Thank you. And then a question from lovely lens photography uh, when you're shooting a couple do you go over with them? What is appropriate or not approve? Of course I'm there to tell me they need to give me permission and I try not to put them on the spot in front of each other. I was just introduced to them both, so I kind of had to say, is this okay? Can he touch her? But how far is too far? Yeah absolutely should ask them they're a real couple, I imagine you might want to say where your comfort zone is it's like I like things to get steamy but I don't want to get to really see that's a real big gray area and that's kind of why I don't shoot couples boudoir because I like to things to be very authentic and all the sudden it comes it comes about becomes about the connection between two people and less about the woman enjoying yourself still, when I was shooting this I tried to get the feeling of this is all about the woman is empowering to the woman now I mean so anyhow yes alright three minutes uh let's just how about we take a some questions of michelle can shoot right after we wrapped? I don't want to gyp you, but we do have to end in three minutes and I'm sure we have a couple more questions. Yeah, phoenix is wondering what your focal point as s on your camera set on. Do you have it on matrix dot spot? No, um I'm sorry I'm on spot right now. Yeah, thanks. Floren co jock try to pronounce that says does anyone told krista that she looks amazing? Way sweet thank you, but you do our folks in the audience final questions for the day final questions today I just want to say well, quick that my questions beginning was how to shoot in a small space. And this is like a perfect example of how to shoot a small space because it's the background so small and there's only really that littles spots so yeah, awesome, yeah, that's, great. And, you know, the first that we started with that chair on that that was like such a small platform for him, uh, form and the bed, too. In fact, tonight is the first time we'll really get a little bit more breathing room. So, uh, tomorrow, we're shooting also in small spaces again. So you guys have any wrap up questions? Well, they are getting some of the some of the questions that we had before. Maybe tomorrow, um, you could talk through again the actions that we were talking about earlier, right? Yep, sorry. With technical difficulties, we will start off the day tomorrow with doing it. Kind of. I'll show you some best of selects from today. I'll actually demo couple actions that I used on because it'll be appropriate at that time.
Class Materials
bonus material with purchase
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
This is meant to be a HELPFUL review for those that are wondering if they should purchase this workshop. About 75% of what I took away from this workshop was posing, composition for boudoir and the importance of eye lines and capturing movement. I had two boudoir sessions a week after this workshop and my images significantly improved. I was able to coach my clients through poses better, direct them on where to look for better eye lines, I was more aware of their posture and how to fix it, I think I sounded more professional and felt more confidant with getting awesome poses, stand out expressions and adding movement to my images. I put a fan on my client the way Christa does.. and she is right! The instant I put the fan on my client, her expression changed and you could tell she was really "feeling it". She told me she felt like a real supermodel right after I turned on the fan. If you are looking for inspiration on how to coach women and pose for boudoir then Christa is the girl for you. I think the most worthwhile thing I learned watching this is something that will help me in the years to come... with my brand, my website, my workflow and my business goals. I learned how to "keep it simple" which is Christa's tag line. For example Christa brings a roll of gray background paper and uses gaffer tape to hang it from the wall of the hotel (instead of bringing a 12ft background stand). I know this seems simple but this will change my life! I hate dragging equipment back and forth. There are some negative reviews on here about Christa's technical skills, but I think these people may have missed the whole point. If you provide an awesome product and an awesome experience for your client, they will buy it. And guess what.. your client will never know if you used your camera in auto or manual and they won't care if you used one light instead of two. As someone who has been in business for 3 years doing boudoir exclusively I learned a lot. I see a lot of value in learning from someone who doesn't spend a lot of money on fancy equipment, yet charges her clients over $3,000 for sessions. I'm a huge fan of her keep it simple philosophy and I'm glad Christa is willing to be honest about her workflow and how she best utilizes her time. Your not going to agree with or use everything Christa talks about, you take the parts that you like and are most helpful to you and work them into building a stronger business.
a Creativelive Student
AWESOME DEAL on Christa's course. I just sent an email to my husband to tell him thanks for "gifting" me this course. I told him just the ONE CLASS about pricing was worth the full $129 price of the course. And there are over 50 classes?! That is a crazy stupid good deal. You can learn something good from every class you take, every book you read, and just apply the stuff that works for you. There are a lot of people out there who seem to just enjoy giving crappy reviews, and to me it's almost like bullying. How someone could not find $129 worth of value in this course is beyond me. In my opinion this course is worth over a thousand bucks, because it can help you make SO much more money. I hate when I see people whining about things that are not 100 percent perfect, and they get annoyed if the person isn't catering to their exact needs. It's like the Yelper generation, with a disturbing sense of entitlement. I would love to see those people try teaching a class about boudoir and see if they could do any better. It also seems like, the more popular a person gets, the more other people feel the need to tear them down. I'm grateful that Christa even offered this course at ALL. Thanks Christa for all you do to help those of us who really need to know this stuff. You rock.
a Creativelive Student
I never thought I would shoot boudoir. I am a shy and private person. I started entertaining the idea when I first saw Christa's work and saw how beautiful and tasteful it can be. I love her lighting and all that she uses from historic painters and sculptors. I watched all three days live and learned a ton. I have a lot of lighting education, but it was nice to freshen up my skills. I loved the posing tips and the three typical situations she uses for one shoot. I loved learning about how she shoots in hotels and also using things like an outdoor situation. I have now shot my first boudoir session and it was a total hit. I am thrilled to show my client her images. This was fantastic! Thank you, Christa!
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