A successful boudoir photography business is probably the dream of a lot of photographers right now. There are classes and seminars on YouTube on how to shoot and grow a profitable boudoir photography business as either a sideline or as the main part of your business. If that’s your dream, then you should go for it.
But I, and excuse me while my nose goes up into the air, could never do that kind of photography. Call me a big-city snob but my own aesthetic compass would never allow me to light and shoot and grease my lens with vaseline (just kidding there) to photograph some pink chubby housewives in Sears lingerie just to earn a dollar.
Because you KNOW that’s what it’s going to come down to. Eventually and at some point. For a buck, you’re going to be powdering and blowing smoke up the rear end of some fabulously good humored lady who, and there’s not a damned thing wrong with this, wants some sexy slightly naughty images of her soft 50 year old body to try to kick start her fast asleep husband’s heart one last time.
I have another idea. One you’ve NEVER heard before, but I bet you’re going to like it.
Take the high road. If you DO live in or near a city, then you also live near educated and classy women many of whom spend hours in the gym honing their bodies into fat-burning machines that they are very very proud of.
And because they have different tastes than the ladies seeking boudoir photographers, and they don’t shop at Sears, they also might be likely to have an appreciation for the aesthetics of classic form and figure studies.
Maybe they might like nothing more than to have their own stunning hard bodies recorded for the ages via the visual medium of photography.
And, yeah, maybe it’s something that exists only somewhere in the back of their high-brow minds, waiting for someone like you to come along and offer your services.
Do I need to say more?
I think probably that most of you who are perpetually looking to maximize your income stream are probably way ahead of me at this point. I’m sure also that the wheels are turning now for some of you who, like me, just don’t want to go there as it applies to standard ‘boudoir’ photography.
My suggestion. Pick up some classic nude sculpture or drawing books, visit a museum or library, and start getting a repertoire established in your mind in terms of poses, angles, lighting, etc.
So get your noses up in the air and hang a shingle as a fine-art photographer specializing in classic nudes of physically fit women.
Do I have your attention now?
You say you want an example?
Below is a woman in her 40s. Click on it for a larger version. Please don’t ask me about lighting set ups. I supply the ideas. You have to bring something to the table. And you don’t want to waste anyone’s time or money not knowing what you’re doing.
This picture exists because of what’s inside MY head as much as it does because of what’s in front of the lens. Could the image be more perfect? Could I have cloned out the lines left from the imprint of her clothing? Diffused the light more? Of course I could have. But I chose not to. My aesthetic says no to these things.
That is why, if you get this income stream up and running, I’m going to be needing my cut! 
