#traveltuesday is on hiatus but will be back next week. That’s because its #nationallingerieday. We’re celebrating it today with another appearance by the dynamic and downright sexy Scarlet Ana.
Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Brevity is the soul of lingerie.” ―
National Lingerie Day is celebrated on April 25 and celebrates beautiful and alluring underwear that aims to be a visual treat. The day celebrates the best of decorative garments that allow you to feel sexy for yourself and your partners!
‘Lingerie’ is a French word that means underwear. By using the French word, the intention is to suggest that this underwear is sophisticated and sexy. Lingerie refers to underwear that is not just functional but also beautiful and sexy. It’s designed to be visually attractive and frame the bodies that wear it. Lingerie can be made from fabrics like silk, satin, lace, chiffon, charmeuse, or lycra. These fabrics ensure that the lingerie is not only light in weight, sheer, and stretchy but comfortable to wear.
During the late 19th century, Lady Duff-Gordon began to design lingerie that was less bulky and more shape-defining than corsets. Underwear was then designed to fit closer to the body, be lighter, and be more breathable and wearable.
Once the First World War broke out, women had to join the workforce. The requirements for underwear became more about practicality. During the 20th century, the designs evolved and became more visually appealing. By the 21’st century, designers began to look at lingerie as fashionable. Modern fabrics and production methods made modern lingerie designs feasible and accessible to more people. It was affordable to buy beautiful lingerie and people now had access to a greater variety of materials and designs.
Why Lingerie?
- It is an act of self-love. Lingerie does not always have to be bought to impress your partner. Buying lingerie for yourself can also boost your confidence.
- It is fun to shop for. Buying new lingerie is enough to make anyone feel good! National Lingerie Day is a great day to go shopping for new lingerie.
- It increases confidence. Lingerie makes us feel beautiful and confident. We love any excuse to wear lingerie and carry that confidence with us throughout the day.
How I Made this Portrait: One of my guiding principles in photographing models is that I want to make them comfortable during the shoot. Some models project a sexy vibe and this shows in the what they choose to wear and the poses they come up with, while others have their own style.
I recently was fortunate to photograph Scarlet Ana for both the Corset Monday series and the upcoming #seethrough series that I previewed here. But we also made some more traditional glamour photographs during that session that were infused with the wonderful combination of Scarlet’s style, class and posing skills and my (whatever you want to call it) ability to capture those moments of supreme glamour and sexiness.
The lighting setup for her portrait consisted of two Paul C Buff DigiBee DB800’s monolights and one Alien Bee B800 monolight. One DigiBee DB800 was placed at camera right and was fairly close to Scarlet. It had a 37x27x12-inch Plume Ltd. Wafer soft box attached. An Alien Bee B800 with an 16 x 30-inch Westcott Apollo Strip soft box mounted was located at camera left. Another DigiBee DB800 with a Paul C Buff 18-OMNI Reflector attached, softened by a triple-layer Diffusion Sock, was located at camera left and placed neat the back corner of my home studio. They were synced with a set of Pocket Wizard PlusX flash triggers.
The camera used was a Panasonic Lumix GH4 with a Lumix G Vario 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 lens (at 23mm) with an exposure of 1/125 sec at f/11 and ISO 200. The background was a hand painted Carbonite muslin from Silverlake Photo Acessories. This is a full-frame (18 x 13.5 mm) image of the RAW file that was captured by the camera. The RAW file was very lightly retouched, color balanced tweaked with PictoColor iCorrect Portrait and layered with the Glamour Glow filter from Color Efex to produce what you see here.
*If you’re interested in participating in a private glamour photography workshop that will be held in my in-home studio, click the CONTACT tab and let’s talk.
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My book Joe Farace’s Glamour Photography is full of tips, tools and techniques for glamour and boudoir photography with new copies available from Amazon for $23.36, as I write this. Used copies start at around twenty-three bucks and the Kindle version is only $19.99 for those who prefer a digital format.