For a long while now I have been wanting to do a boudoir photo shoot but never got around to it. So new year means new horizons and new opportunities, so why not try it? I had a great tip to use a hotel room on a ‘day use’ purpose rather than an overnight stay.

I selected a hotel in London for a decent price and booked a room from 10-6. I had already discussed the shoot with Bambi Bang Bang a few weeks before so we were all set. On entering the room I was surprised as it was a little smaller than I had hoped, there were tea and coffee making facilities but they were not going to be great as props in a shoot like this.

I had bought my Sony A7III along with my 85mm f1.8 lens as well as the Canon 24-105mm f4 and 50mm f1.8. Both the Canon lenses were mounted on the Sigma MC-11 Adapter.

Bambi and I had a look around the room along with the bathroom and decided the bed would be a good start. It was at this point I mentioned the ‘rotisserie chicken’ method we would be employing. I explained I would first like Bambi to lie down on her front for a few pictures then roll on to her side and finally onto her back. (rollover like a rotisserie chicken…)

The above shot was one of the first we took. I had my Rotolight Neo 2 on the left side throwing soft light on to Bambi and the golden light above her is the just the light above the beds.

This shot is the continuation of the rotisserie chicken, same light setup as above. This is halfway chicken…

All the above shots were taken with the 85mm f1.8, because of the focal length of the lens it meant I had to be a distance away from the subject. At times it could have been better opening the door to the room and shooting from the corridor instead of being pressed up under the fire safety notification. If I had brought my Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 then I would have to have been back in reception to get a shot! ( which was down four floors…)

After this, we moved to the bathroom and a change of outfit. I was pleased to see we had a lot of natural light in there so switched to the 50mm f1.8 so I didn't have to be in the next room.

Making full use of the natural light while it lasted we moved to the shower to play with the plastic shower curtain, I brightened and bloomed both the above images to enhance the brighter light. ( and also to hide the wrinkles and folds in the shower curtain…)

I asked Bambi to lie down in the bath for the above shot, we did briefly discuss doing one of those half water submerged shots but we were losing light rapidly. We had lunch in the handy restaurant where there was actually rotisserie chicken on the menu! As the Gallus gallus domesticus had featured quite a bit I continued the theme by having a Chicken Burger while Bambi ordered Chicken with wilted spinach. No idea why the spinach had wilted… perhaps it had been out in the sun too long or hadn’t been as successful as other spinach…

After lunch, we had a brief rest and looked through the mornings work on my laptop. For the last hour, it was back to the bed for this excellent sequence of shots to round off the day.

Considering this was my first boudoir shoot I think the shots came out very well! But… just as an outtake, I wanted a shot of Bambi looking into the mirror in the bathroom. It was going well until I noticed the way the mirror had been cleaned looked like a certain caped crusader had been there before us… what do you think?

Thanks very much too fantastic Bambi Bang Bang for helping me with this little project!

You can see more of Bambi on her Instagram @bambibangbanguk and also do check out her brilliant artwork at @doeeyedoodles !