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Tell us about your first nude shoot
I have been finding myself getting more and more requests to do nude shoots recently. To be honest i have normally been against the idea, but now I'm contemplating starting, but wanted to know how you guys first started? Jan 27 14 01:37 pm Link Why are you against the idea of doing nudes? If you have a reason for not wanting to do it, don't do it. If it's just not what you want creatively but you have no personal objections to it, get paid. My first shoot with a model, ever, was a nude shoot to get stock images for an art project I wanted to work on. I shoot nudes and implied nudes frequently these days though, when the model/client wants it. Jan 27 14 01:53 pm Link It's no that I object to it, I just find that it's not my usual line of work and I would not be able to use many of them in my portfolio as my current work is mainly family based! But it's still something i think I'd like to try, just to say I have done it and see where it goes from there. Jan 27 14 02:03 pm Link Not sure which gender you're referring to (I see you shoot a lot of males). I shoot models with nudity. But personally I don't think I'd like the experience of shooting males nude (or retouching the images), so I'm not sure I'd be willing to do it regardless of money (BTW: I don't consider fashion-shirtless males nudity). Jan 27 14 02:08 pm Link LetterDPhotography wrote: Then I'd take the jobs and then either: Jan 27 14 02:17 pm Link J O H N A L L A N wrote: It would be females for nudity, for the same reasons you stated! Jan 27 14 02:28 pm Link Viator-Defessus Photos wrote: Good advice, thanks Jan 27 14 02:34 pm Link LetterDPhotography wrote: I started out pre-Internet (early 90s) paying a small fee for about 2 years. Jan 27 14 02:42 pm Link My first technically did not start out as a nude shoot. Back in days of film in the late 1980's, I was shooting some pics of an exotic dancer friend who had been working to get herself into tip top shape and wanted some pics of herself in her dancer outfits. As she got comfortable, the clothes came off, and viola', we were doing full blown nudes. In retrospect, those pics sucked on all levels of technical achievement, but hey, she liked them. Jan 28 14 09:00 am Link LetterDPhotography wrote: They can ask all they want. I'm keeping my britches on. Jan 28 14 09:16 am Link LetterDPhotography wrote: Its a bitch isn't it! All these beautiful models and all they want to do is get nekikid for you. I'm feeling your pain dude. Jan 28 14 10:13 am Link You could say I started by accident, at least I didn't plan it. I was shooting a model in lingerie (her not me) and during the break for a coffee, I told her that I'd like to do a nude shoot (again the model, not me) at some stage. After one more change of lingerie, she stripped. She was planning to start her family in the near future and figured that her body will never be a near perfect again. We were both very pleased with the results, although now I wish I had known more about lighting at the time. Some poses would have looked much better with a change of lighting. She supplied the poses with very little input from me, it seems that she had planned her own nude shoot and had checked out poses that suited her. I think that if I had planned it I may never have gone through with it. What held me back was the fear that I wouldn't choose good poses and it could end up looking terrible or worse still, porn. Every time I do a nude shoot now I research the poses and plan in detail. Most models who do nude shoots don't need much direction, just tell them the concept and they usually get it close to 100% correct. You'll only need get little tweaks to the pose each time. They are much easier work with, even for clothed shoots. Jan 28 14 10:57 am Link I was 16, dating a really fun girl who was studying dance and I owned a camera. Didn't even think about it back them (early 80s). Would never fly now, of course. A friend of ours had access to a darkroom and she would develop and print the film at night. Fun times. Jan 28 14 11:32 am Link It was fairly early on in my shooting days. A friend wanted some "before" pics to see the effects of the new workout routine she was about to go on. I figured she'd do bra/panties or shorts. Imagine my surprise when she took it all off. After we got the few shots she wanted, she started posing. Since then, I've done a couple others, but not many. Jan 28 14 11:56 am Link Photo school (City College, San Diego) assignment for one of the fashion classes around 1986. I made the photo outside the instructor's office door. Low evening light with a foamcore bounce. 35mm Tri-X at ISO 320. Got an "A." Don Jan 28 14 01:25 pm Link LetterDPhotography wrote: I like to try everything. But nudes...I didn't want them to just be T&A shots or even "Playboy" style. I wanted them to somehow be...more. So since I had no idea what that even meant to me, I didn't do them. Jan 28 14 01:50 pm Link I was nervous, she was nervous things were not going too well. Then I put my pants back on and things got better. I don't even remember my first nude shoot. I just treat it like any other shoot. The rules are the same, composition, expose, lighting, interest, expression. Jan 28 14 02:18 pm Link I was going to do a topless shoot with Mina Mori in the woods next to some rocks. And she asked if I was ready after loading my cameras. "All good to go!" then she takes off all of her clothes and left me standing there like  So I did what anyone else would have done- starting taking photos. Jan 28 14 02:30 pm Link I actually just recently had my first implied experience and I loved it! It was the models first time doing implied too. I think we were both a tad nervous but when we started shooting all of the nerves went away. Just another shoot. Got some really good photos out of it and we plan to shoot together again soon! I love the artistic aspect of implied nudity. Jan 28 14 02:33 pm Link It was just one of those things that happened without much planning at the very start of my career. I was approached by an attractive young woman who had in mind a 1950s style shoot lying on a blanket out in the sun. She would not take no for an answer, so I figured I might as well go along with it despite my inexperience. The poses were pretty demure by today's standards - lying belly down with a big sun hat as the main prop. The relationship developed into a series of photoshoots, including old stand-bys, like bubble baths. I still have some of those photos, including a group shot with me, my brother, and two sisters all in the bath together. It was my mother's favourite. Jan 28 14 05:10 pm Link I was nervous before meeting the model but once I started talking to her everything went smoothly. I was smart enough to hire a pro model that had done a lot of nude shoots already and she was very casual and comfortable with being nude and we actually talked a lot during the shoot and got some amazing photos. Here's an example of one: https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/pic/19318058 Jan 28 14 06:22 pm Link Christopher Hartman wrote: +1 Jan 28 14 06:32 pm Link My first nude shoot was at a Circus and this really ugly female clown, talked me out of my pants, all for a piece of candy. I've never felt so used. That candy was pretty awesome though. Mo Jan 29 14 12:36 am Link Robert Mossack wrote: That's how I feel about my first nudes from 2007. I wince when I look at them them now, but the model still has them up in her portfolio. I've offered to re-shoot them a dozen times and she still hasn't taken me up on it. I understand why she's sentimental about them (I am too, in a way) but sentimentality has no place in a professional portfolio. We're both capable of better work now. Jan 29 14 02:46 am Link Drew Smith Photography wrote: I'll vouch for that. I've got a lot more than what's in my portfolio. Jan 29 14 05:19 pm Link My first was a sort of shoot-out put together by a photographer friend of mine for several of us fellow large format photographers. We had cameras from 4 x 5 all the way up to 16 x 20 and most of us had not shot nudes before. I actually have my very first nude model image on my page her (tall vertical shot) that really turned out pretty good. After that, I went straight to paying very experienced models so I could learn from them - best thing I ever did. Jan 29 14 05:35 pm Link My first was the worst! A friend referred a friend of his to me who wanted to shoot nudes for her boyfriend for Valentine's Day. We shot for 4 hours. She smoked pot and drank coffee the whole time which maybe contributed to her freaking out thinking her boyfriend might actually be upset that another man saw her naked. She threw a tearful hissy fit and threatened to scream if I didn't give her the rolls of film. I did just so I wouldn't go to jail and left pissed and unpaid. Jan 29 14 05:56 pm Link I actually started out as a model for art classes while I was still in high school. Several others also modeled for the same art teacher, and we would get together to practice new and different poses. One of them suggested that it would be nice if we could photograph our poses so we could see what they looked like, and being the only one who had access to a camera I got elected to be the official photographer. After that some friends of these models and students in the art classes also wanted to have nude photos done, and it grew from there. Jan 29 14 06:07 pm Link My first ever nude shoot was with my girlfriend back in about 1989. I'm not sure if that really counts though in the context of this thread. My first nude shoot with a model I wasn't dating was in 2008. I managed to blag a TF shoot with a very experienced art and fashion model Kayt Webster-Brown via MM and we shot a mix of clothed fashion, implied nudes and topless fashion. I was a little nervous but luckily had the help of my partner (the same lady I'd first shot nudes with nearly 20 years before) doing the styling and it all went very well. We got some nice pics, one of which is still in the model's portfolio here to this day. https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/pic/6978305 I subsequently went on to shoot around 10 times with Kayt and now count her as a good personal friend. Just my $0.02 etc. etc. Jan 29 14 06:15 pm Link I joined a studio in NYC years ago that provided models who would pose nude and started shooting them. Jan 29 14 07:51 pm Link -fpc- wrote: With that port? All you have to do is say, "Hey, I'd like to experiment with some nudes if you'd like to be my guinea pig." Jan 29 14 09:10 pm Link LetterDPhotography wrote: In college (1977), dating a model. I'd shot almost entirely sports in HS or college (either as a stringer for a range of media outlets or for the college paper (again, mostly sports but also some events and portraits/editorial for articles). My girlfriend was working with a professional photographer for her portfolio. He kept telling her she had to have some nudes for her portfolio. She was convinced he was just trying to get in her pants (to use her words). She asked me to shoot her nude and in lingerie. I did. She praised my work. I thought the results sucked and she was just flattering my ego. we broke up 6 months later. But me being an anal retentive stubborn ass, kept shooting classmates as TF because I was determined to get better at this. I had a ton of (mostly female) classmates who were willing to pose in those days (late 70s, early 80s) either b/c I'd also shoot stuff they wanted or b/c they were excited by this. Jan 30 14 05:13 am Link Mine was when I was one month old. Even though I was totally nude, you cannot see anything though, they laid me down on my stomach. Jan 30 14 08:25 am Link My first photo shoot was a nude shoot. I wanted to work with a model that had nude photo shoot experience, and I hit the jackpot to work with a Playboy model. The experience was fun and very professional. From then on, every photo shoot I did that was dealing with nude went very well. Jan 30 14 09:04 am Link LetterDPhotography wrote: I started in a galaxy far, far away, California. Years ago will attending junior college I decided to shoot a playboy styled nude for my photo class. I did have enough common sense to shoot off campus but needless to say I caused new policies to be written. Jan 31 14 12:35 am Link My first was last September. I haven't been shooting people for long and was invited to a friends photography get together. He had invited many of his photographer and model personal friends. Without much warning some of the models started taking their cloths off. It was an eye opening experience and will go back this year (annual thing) Here is the only posted shot from it although it doesn't expose anything https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/pic/33887473 I did my most recent one last Sunday which was unplanned, I was just assisting a friend and he suggested go ahead and start shooting.. https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/pic/35127587 Feb 04 14 08:44 am Link I haven't done a nude shoot yet but I have done implied with a few models. This is about as close as I got (top two are unretouched, bottom is only slightly)...  Feb 04 14 09:54 am Link LetterDPhotography wrote: Just sorta happened. First was female; she wanted to pose and I wanted to give it a try. After the first 30 seconds (Wow, she's naked!!), it was just another shoot. I actually forgot that she was naked after about 1/2 hour into the shoot. Just poses and doing the normal stuff during a shoot. Feb 04 14 10:11 am Link My first shoot involving nudes was when I was 19 years old. Back then the internet existed but it wasn't nearly as popular as it is today and sites like MM weren't around. I put out an ad in the paper in San Francisco looking for people to pose for portraits or fashion and I believe I offered like $20 in pay. I got a response from a woman who was a burlesque dancer and had a ton of costumes. So I went to her place to shoot and about an hour in she told me she was completely comfortable just doing nudes (the costume changes got tiresome). Being only 19 I said SURE! and we spent the next several hours just working with window light in her kitchen. Afterward I actually felt a lot of shame about it and didn't want to tell any of my friends what I had just photographed. It was all very artistic but my brain wasn't mature enough to seperate art from porn because up to that point I never really had to. I remember sitting on those rolls of film for months because I was scared to hang the negatives up to dry in my school darkroom. Eventually I simply got over it and realized there is nothing scary or controversial about what I do. If someone wants to judge me for it they are welcome to, but it's not my problem. Feb 04 14 11:23 am Link My first model was only partial nude. She was what one would consider Goth I guess but she didn't look the part when we shot. As soon as she changed and walked out my mind went blank. She was so tall, all legs and damn good looking for a goth chick. Her boyfriend was there and after shooting for awhile I began to loosen up. Toward the end the 2nd model I had lined up showed up and was getting ready. Goth chick then went bat shit crazy on her Bf and started screaming at him. I didn't know what the hell to do lol It was going so well and then went to shit. The following model we did topless as well and although I felt more comfortable, she seemed really friendly as she leaned over my shoulder looking at the shots I had just loaded on my laptop. The first FULL nude shot went really well. At this point I honestly didn't even any attention to the fact she was naked. But when we were trying to get the lighting right on one shot, she was kind of bent over with her butt in the air. She held the pose the entire time I was trying to get the light adjusted on her backside. Felt a little awkward at that point because here she is butt naked with her goods staring me in the face. Needless to say we didn't get that shot. I could not bring myself to look where I was aiming the light lol Feb 04 14 11:49 am Link |
