Shooting glamour nudes is not rocket science - it's just a matter of lighting, composition, and post-processing. In this walkthrough I'll lead you through some of the setup, thinking, and workflow that I use for creating a photograph. My hope is that by sharing some of how I do it, you may find some ideas that help or inspire you!What's most important to remember about the photographic arts is that there is only one rule: there are no rules. When you approach making an image, you are the only person who is final judge of what works for you. One of the most frustrating things, to me, when I was studying photography, was all the dogmatic "rules of thumb" that many photo instructors tried to treat as if they had been handed down on stone tablets from on high. If I were to guess, I'd say that 90% of the useful stuff I've learned, I learned by ignoring the rules and asking myself 2 questions:
If it worked, why did it work? If it worked when it wasn't supposed to was it a lucky accident, or were the rules wrong?
If it didn't work, why didn't it work? If it didn't work when it was supposed to did I do something wrong, or do the rules not apply to me?
Lesson One: The best way to get a great photograph is to first shoot a thousand bad ones.
In the course of this walkthrough I will (with some embarrassment) show you what I mean.
Setting the stage
If you're trying to create a specific effect in advance, you need to understand your stage setting and lighting beforehand. In this example, I was constrained by 2 factors: 1) the place I had available to shoot and 2) the model I was shooting. You need to be realistic and make sure that your location and your model have a "look" that's going to work together. My general approach is that I go abstract (or "fine art") if I don't see something that jumps right out at me. In this case, the model, Jessica, is a curvaceous 18-year-old and it was freezing cold (-5 degrees F) on the day of the shoot which meant outdoors was not an option. My location for shooting was limited to an old house under renovation, with plank and stud walls, wooden floors, and lots of dust. So I decided to go with a fairly simple theme: a nude girl - setting her curvy figure against strongly straight and vertical elements of the old building.
Lesson Two: It doesn't take a tremendous amount of thought to come up with a good "theme" and concept for a glamour photo but even a little bit of forethought will be repaid a thousandfold.
When I first started shooting the nude and glamour I think I was just so thrilled that I had found a girl who'd pose nude for me that I turned my brain off and started cranking film without thinking for even a second about what I was trying to accomplish. I learned that it's OK to just take a few seconds and think before you start shooting. Usually, I just spend a few minutes chatting with the model and enjoying the view. I usually make a point of asking the model if she's more comfortable being told exactly what to do, or whether she's more comfortable being given a lighted space in which to work, and some ideas, and just moving through a couple of poses. I've had some models that move beautifully and pretty much all you have to do is stand back and shoot. Others (usually less experienced) need to be told pretty much exactly what you want. I've found that poses look much more natural if they are part of an interrupted flowing movement, which is why I am a big fan of using studio strobes. Often I'll let the model move, then when I see something that looks really interesting I'll interrupt them and fine-tune the pose, then shoot it again.
Stage layout and lighting
Lighting is very much a matter of taste! There are no rules. I know one photographer who does gorgeous work using nothing fancier than a single 100-watt lightbulb in a socket with a wire hanging off the bottom. My taste runs to smooth exposure ranges and a soft "glow" - which means either using natural light reflected off of a large surface (like a white wall) or studio strobes in soft boxes. I shoot on location fairly often with just a single portable mono-light and small softbox, so I've also let myself get fond of very directional light. It's my opinion that glamour works well with directional lighting rather than very flat lighting, but that's because I think the lighting can show off a woman's curves better if it's directional. Lighting is totally a matter of taste.
One book that was incredibly helpful to me is a book on cinematographic lighting by Ross Lowell entitled "Matters of Light and Depth" - it's well-written, thought provoking, and applies well to still photography as well as cinematic lighting.