I have a question I think is way more interesting than asking somebody what their favorite body part is. If I asked your partner, your best friend, or someone who knows you incredibly well what they think your hottest quality is, what would they say?
And then, without letting their answer influence yours, what would you say about yourself?
I’m willing to bet those answers do not always line up.
That is the part I find wild, because we all get so used to seeing ourselves from our own point of view that it can be hard to understand what somebody else notices first. You see the same face in the mirror every morning. You know exactly which side you prefer in photos. You know which parts of your body you think about more than others, and chances are you have a running list in your head of things you would change if you could.
Meanwhile, somebody else might be looking at you and noticing something completely different. They might love the way you smile when you are trying not to laugh, the way your shoulders look in a certain shirt, the curve of your back, your hands, your tattoos, your confidence, or the way your entire face changes when you are talking about something you actually care about.
Sometimes the thing somebody else finds insanely attractive about you barely even registers to you because you have spent so much time looking at yourself through a completely different lens. That is where this gets interesting to me as a photographer.
What would you want me to focus on?
When someone comes into my studio, I want to know what they already feel good about.
There is so much conversation around boudoir that focuses on insecurity and learning to love the parts of yourself you struggle with, and yes, that can absolutely be part of the experience. But I also think we skip over something important when that becomes the only conversation.
What about the things you already know you love? If you know your legs are incredible, I want to know that. If your tattoos are a huge part of how you see yourself, tell me. If you love your chest, your smile, your hair, your back, or the way your body looks from a certain angle, that matters too.
You do not have to walk into a session pretending you are unsure about everything just because that is the version of boudoir people expect to hear about. Sometimes you already know exactly what you want highlighted. And honestly, I love that.
What would you want me to focus on?
If you booked a session with me and I asked you to pick one thing I absolutely needed to pay attention to while photographing you…
What would your answer be? That question sounds simple until you actually have to answer it.
You may already know exactly what you want me to focus on, but the question can also catch you off guard and make you realize you have never really thought about yourself that way before. Your answer can shift depending on the day, what you are wearing, or how you are feeling in your body, and all of that helps me understand how you see yourself before we ever start shooting.
Photography is not just about putting someone into a pose that technically works and moving on. I am paying attention to what photographs beautifully on you specifically, how you move, which expressions feel natural, and what parts of the images start to feel the most like you.
The more I understand what matters to you, the more intentional I can be with your session.
That does not mean I am only going to photograph the one thing you told me you like. It means I know where you are starting from, and that gives us room to create images that already feel familiar while also showing you things you may not have noticed before.
The thing you love most might surprise you.
One of the things I enjoy most about photographing people is seeing which images they end up connecting with.
One of the things I enjoy most about photographing people is seeing which images they end up connecting with. Sometimes the favorite is exactly what they expected. They came in knowing what they loved about themselves, we photographed the hell out of it, and the final image feels exactly like what they had pictured in their head. Other times, the image they cannot stop looking at has almost nothing to do with what they thought they wanted.
It might be a pose they were unsure about, an expression they did not realize I caught, or a part of their body they had never thought of as particularly special before. That shift matters. There is something powerful about seeing a photo and realizing that a part of yourself you have overlooked your entire life is actually fucking gorgeous. It does not mean you were wrong before. It just means you had never seen it that way.
That is one of the reasons I do not want people coming into a session feeling like they have to already know exactly what looks best on them. You are not supposed to know how to pose yourself, what angles work, or which tiny details are going to photograph beautifully. That is my job.
Now ask somebody else in your life.
And this absolutely is not a couples-only question.
If you have a partner, ask what they think your hottest quality is before sharing your own answer. I’d keep it completely open-ended too, because giving them options can accidentally steer them toward what you already expect to hear. Their answer could line up perfectly with yours, or they may point out something you have never really considered one of your standout qualities.
If you’re single, you can ask a best friend or someone who knows you well, but you can also leave everybody else out of it and think about the difference between what people tend to notice about you and what you genuinely love about yourself.
That gap is intriguing… especially when you start thinking about what you would actually want featured in photos of yourself.
How this changes a boudoir session.
This is also why I never want one boudoir session to feel like a copy of the one before it.
Two people can wear similar outfits and shoot in the same set, but the final images should still feel completely different because the person in front of the camera is different.
I pay attention to how you carry yourself, what you naturally respond to, what you already love about yourself, and where your nerves tend to show up. All of that changes how I photograph you and helps shape the session into something that actually feels personal instead of generic.
The goal is not just to make you look hot. I want the gallery to feel like your version of hot, whatever that looks like when you see yourself in the finished images. That is why this question gives me such a good starting point before we even begin.
So now I want your answer
If you walked into my studio tomorrow, what would you want me paying the most attention to while I photographed you?
Now think about what someone who knows you really well would say your hottest quality is. I’m curious whether their answer would match yours or point out something you have never really seen the same way.
That difference is part of what makes photographing people so interesting to me, because sometimes the thing you end up loving most in your gallery is not the thing you expected to notice first.
If this has you thinking about what you’d want me to focus on in your own session, come tell me. You can reach out here to start planning your boudoir session, and I want to know your answer before we even get you in front of the camera.
