SAN FRANCISCO — Pre-marital sex is taking on new meaning as brides-to-be are turning to boudoir photos to help keep their mates' eyeballs off of Internet porn.
According to a report in The Daily, boudoir photographers are seeing a burgeoning business as brides are giving pre-honeymoon photo books with their nudes as wedding gifts to new husbands.
Dallas, Texas-based photographer Lynn Michelle, whose Eye Candy website provides some cheesecake client shots, said women are creating the books because they’re afraid their fiancés are looking at online porn instead of them.
Michelle books between 60-80 shoots a year that starts at $1,000 with some props.
Besides blushing brides, her clients include MILFs “getting back in the game,” military wives, and middle-aged women showing off their new gym-trained bodies and tummy tucks.
One bride-to-be, Carrie Rose, who gave a book to fiancé that included soft semi-nude shots of her in lingerie said he was “speechless,” and “turned on” when he eyeballed the gift.
“My absolute favorite is the one where I’m in nothing but a pair of underwear and my hands are covering up my breasts,” Rose told The Daily. “It’s emotionally raw.”
Michelle's client list also included preachers’ wives who “bring in blindfolds and thinking they’re the dirtiest things ever.” “I had one women order two albums — one for her husband and one for her boyfriend.”
Some women use their boyfriends work shirts or sports jerseys as props.
But not all of the photos are soft. Boston photographer Kate McElwee said one woman wore her husband’s fishing waders and nothing else for the shoot.
Fort Lee, N.J., photographer Tony Yang said he doesn't want women to hold back during a shoot. He plays Britney Spears music and gives the girls a sip of wine to loosen them up some.
One of Yang’s client, Allie, a 29 year-old New Yorker said, “I knew that he could capture better photos if I was willing to let my guard down.”
And the books may have a hidden purpose as one woman who posed for a vintage-type shoot in Boca Raton, Fla. admitted.
“I recently had major surgery and the scar on my stomach used to make me self-conscious, but I try to own it now,” said Jennifer Wyatt, 26.
Yang’s client Allie said, “When I’m a grandma and I have no teeth, I can whip out these photos and remember that, at one time in my life, I was a sexy little vixen.”
But LasVegasStudios.com professional photographer John Copeland, who has been shooting boudoir photos as a sideline, cautions would-be lensmen who are looking to make a fast buck that although the business is growing, it requires a lot more than just having a camera and some willing clients.
Copeland has shot for nearly every major adult magazine and production company over his 30 year career including Penthouse and Playboy magazines. He told XBIZ that a photographer must have a “great make-up person and hair stylist” or the scene is set for disaster.
He noted that clients need to have someone with a trained eye look at a photographer’s samples before they book a shoot, noting that many sites feature over retouched photos and mix in other professional shots to make it look as though they’re part of the portfolio.
“There are a lot of hustlers out there. It’s not that simple for a porn photographer to make a living doing boudoir unless they really know what they’re doing,” Copeland said.
