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Boudoir Photography Is For Men Too

For a long time, boudoir photography has been thought of as something for women only. I saw it in my own business at the beginning. One day, I started searching the web for male boudoir photography, and I found lots of celebrities and six pack abs. There were a few “dad bods” but no other real photographic representation for male boudoir. So unless you were famous or heavily muscled, the only other option was photography of men for comedic purposes.

To me, boudoir photography shows every BODY deserves to have beautiful, artful photos of themselves. Boudoir portraits that show their personality, style, and sensuality (if they choose). Basically, their je ne sais quoi (pronounced zhuhnuhse kwa), which means an indefinable, elusive quality, especially a pleasing one. I can’t fully describe in words everything that boudoir photography is or can be, so I’ll let my photography tell the story in the slideshow below.

Slideshow of male boudoir photos set to an upbeat instrumental song with a driving beat. Words appear on the screen describing each section of images. The sections are: Suit & Tie, Casual, Relaxed, Mysterious, Shirtless, Details, Daring, and Headshots. The video ends with the mellBella Photography website www.mellBella.com, photography by Mell Bell, and the mellBella logo.

My goal is to use boudoir photography to help each person of any gender to…
Feel more comfortable and confident in their body,
See themselves as extraordinary, beautiful, and worthy of love, AND
Have a unique, unforgettable experience with the photos to prove it!

A little backstory…

In the 2010s, I would get a few calls a year from men looking for male boudoir photography. But they were only looking for someone to take their photos as a joke. The main request was to do the “George Constanza.” Just look up “The Timeless Art of Seduction” which is in Season 8 Episode 5 “The Package” of the Seinfeld TV series. Basically, Kramer convinces George to create “enticing photos,” and they do a mock boudoir photo shoot. The final photo is printed large and is shown as an embarrassing joke.

Moving on to around 2016, when male boudoir photos or as some say “Dudoir” (dudeoir rhymes with boudoir) started to become more noticeable. But a large majority of these dudoir photos were done as a joke or simply to go viral on the web. There is nothing wrong with taking silly photos in boudoir photography, but I wanted to approach it differently.

A mutual friend referred my first official male boudoir client to me. From our first phone call, I told him that I had never done male boudoir photography before, but I was ready to try. I wanted my client to feel comfortable and confident at his photo shoot. Before the shoot. I did some research, spoke with photography peers, and made a plan ,which included a practice shoot with my husband. It went really well, and he even wanted to come back and do ANOTHER boudoir session. The rest is history. Yes, Boudoir Photography is for men too! Boudoir is for ALL gender identities.