How I photograph body neutral clients as a body positive photographer

Hey, friends! Today I’d love to share a few thoughts with you on what it’s like photographing clients who practice body neutrality -- especially as someone who identifies as a body positive photographer. If you are someone who is cultivating a body neutrality practice, what might it look like to bring this into a boudoir session?

Body positivity vs. body neutrality: what’s the difference? 

As a photographer, I identify as pretty "body positive.” In my experience, I think of body positivity as a movement that says that every body is beautiful. It focuses on taking space to celebrate each and every person’s body, exactly as they are! 

I think this concept is super present in my work and in the way I approach boudoir. I head into every session that I photograph ready to support and encourage my clients as they take joy in seeing their bodies as art. We focus on celebrating who my client is, inside and out, throughout their entire boudoir session day. 

For a lot of people, body positivity feels liberating. There are so many beauty standards that our culture carries, especially for people who identify as marginalized -- women, BIPOC folks, people who are trans, people who have larger bodies, people who are older, and so on. I think body positivity can be an incredibly freeing space for people to take joy in feeling truly beautiful exactly as they are. 

So then: what is body neutrality? While I’m not an expert, I perceive body neutrality as a progressive, socially-conscious movement focused on setting down the need to even think about how one’s body looks as either a positive or a negative. People who practice body neutrality often believe in experiencing joy and celebration in the fact that their bodies exist, and work to separate that celebration from what their bodies look like. Bodies are accepted as bodies without being judged as good or bad; they’re simply seen as neutral. 

It might sound like a contradiction to bring body neutrality into a boudoir studio -- after all, boudoir photographs are inherently visual and focused on documenting what a client’s body looks like. However, I do have clients who are embracing body neutrality as a practice or as a part of their values and still find tons of meaning in doing boudoir sessions. These clients often tell me that they want to capture a season of their life in a really special way or that they feel excited to spend a day celebrating who they are. 

I love when clients tell me what their beliefs and practices are about their bodies so that I can integrate them into their boudoir sessions! When I’m doing a boudoir session with a client who shares that they practice body neutrality, here are a few suggestions I like to offer. 

Choose outfits based on how you feel in them, rather than how based on how you look in them. 

In choosing what to wear for a boudoir session, rather than choosing an outfit for a session based on how you look in it, you can pick outfits based on how it feels to wear that outfit on your body! Maybe this means choosing something that feels soft on your skin, or something that fits comfortably; maybe it means choosing something that makes your body feel really strong or really cozy. 

You can also choose an outfit based on something that you love to do. For example, you could choose to wear a swimsuit that you love wearing while reading on the beach, or your favorite crop top and jeans that you love wearing to the farmer’s market with friends. If these are outfits that you wear when doing activities that make you feel good, that energy will totally show up in your boudoir portraits! 

Skip professional hair and makeup. 

For clients who identify as practicing body neutrality, I encourage skipping professional hair and makeup styling and going for an all-natural look instead! I think this pairs especially well with outdoor boudoir sessions, as outdoor sessions are more focused on the sense of place that we’re photographing in and the meaning that the location holds for the client. 

Choose poses that reflect how you feel about yourself.

During every boudoir session, I guide my clients through poses that express their personal style and celebrate their favorite things about themself. For clients practicing body neutrality, I like to encourage poses that feel really true to their personality, or celebrate things about their spirit/soul, rather than focus on or remove focus from certain body features. 

If a client is in a really joyful season of life, I might suggest a lot of postures that feel lighthearted and full of laughter  whereas if a client has just come through a challenging season of life and is celebrating their resiliency, I might suggest more grounded or more confident poses. We’ll use poses that feel really comfortable in your body and feel super authentic to the emotions you’ve been experiencing and want to honor!