boudoir image privacy | who sees my photos?

One of the most important aspects of making an intimate portrait experience positive, meaningful, and life-changing is ensuring that you feel powerful and in control during every step of the process. And here at Render Boudoir, I am taking every step I can think of to help you feel that way - including the way we handle your images after the session is complete.

As you can probably guess, I REALLY want to share your images. I am passionate about creating honest imagery that showcases all kinds of people and bodies and sharing those images is 1. how I can show what I can do and 2. how I can help our world community expand its ideas about beauty! I’m especially interested in putting images into the world that showcase women who break the mold of “conventional beauty” — shattering those ideas that our value is tied to our waist size, our age, the tone of our skin, or the physical abilities of our bodies.

But please don’t let that passion and excitement on my end make you feel that your boudoir images are automatic social media content — far from it! Some people find modesty empowering and some find nudity empowering during their portrait sessions — and the same is true after the shoot. Some will find that sharing their images publicly is thrilling and freeing while others find it uncomfortable or complicated. There are many things that can play into this like what you do for work, who you are connected with on social media and their views, as well as your own values. And I am absolutely not here to tell you what’s best for you. You are in control and so only you can do that.

There are a handful of different ways that a photographer can handle image permission, or what is legally referred to as a model release. In some genres of photography, a model release may be a standard part of your photography agreement, but boudoir photographers often handle this differently because we understand the vulnerable nature of your images. One common way to handle image privacy is for your photographer to have you select TYPES of images that can be shared. You might say “anything that doesn’t show my face is okay” or “anything that doesn’t show my booty or my nipples is okay,” etc.

Personally, I do not prefer this method because even guidelines that seems clear-cut don’t always turn out that way. If you are wearing a lacy mesh bra, does that count as a nipple showing? How much of your booty showing counts? What if your lips and chin are in the image, does that count as your face? What if your body is totally covered but your facial expression is really sensual? I don’t like making these calls, so the method I choose is a little more detail-oriented, but gives you the most say-so in how each and every image is handled.

When we meet for your ordering session (usually one to two weeks after your session), you’ll fill out a boudoir image permission form that gives you four options for each and every image that I present from your session. You’ll fill this in privately while I display the images in small batches. Here’s what the form looks like…

There are four options for each image. 1. Private - this is exactly what it sounds like, this image is stored on a hard drive but goes nowhere. 2. Group - this gives permission for the image to be shared on my private boudoir VIP group which is reserved for female, trans female, and non-binary folks only. Content and interactions in this group are visible only to members and does not show up on Facebook timelines. From here, the permissions build on one another. 3. Share - this level gives permission for the image to be used in the private group, on my website, and in printed marketing materials like business cards and sample albums. 4. Social - allows this image to be posted on social media including Facebook and Instagram.

There’s one more part of the form that will allow for special requests — like holding off on publication until a certain day or a request for your name or initials to not be used in connection with your images. And on a separate form (a questionnaire that comes before your session), I ask if you prefer to be tagged in images that are approved social media and I ask some other questions about hashtags and other descriptors that you would feel comfortable using in connection with your images. Just like I want you to have control over your images, I also like for you to have a say in the language connected to the images.

I usually do the privacy and permission form with you while your favorite images are exporting from my editing software and before we start album design, so it really doesn’t make our meeting time any longer than it would normally be. Is it a little more time consuming than checking a box or two? Of course, you’ll be checking as many boxes as you have badass images, so it does take a bit longer! But I think that the level of confidence and lack of surprises that come along with that extra effort is absolutely worth it. This whole experience is about what YOU want, and fitting your image permission/privacy to your comfort level is paramount.

After your ordering appointment is done, your images are retouched, and your product order is in place, I’ll reach out one more time to invite you to write reviews and fill out a client survey. These are all excellent opportunities to share your experience and I love every chance I have to let a person be heard, whether or not they chooses to be seen <3.

For more information on what consent looks like, please visit: www.helpingsurvivors.org/what-consent-looks-like/