Intimate, soulful, and spiritual

Featuring classy, sensual, and intimate images, boudoir photography is usually intended for the private enjoyment of the person or their partner.
Henriette Lamprecht
Henriette Lamprecht – She would like women from all walks of life to accept their bodies regardless of size, skin tone, or physical abilities.

As a photographer with a passion for boudoir photography, Nadia Meding wants all women to celebrate their uniqueness.

“Women tend to compare themselves to present-day social beauty standards, which I believe focuses more on body shaming than honouring their individual authenticity.”

A form of intimate professional photography focussed on flattering the curves and beauty of the client’s body - "boudoir" is the French term for a woman’s private dressing room and inspired the intimacy of this genre of photography.

“Sensual and sexual are somewhat synonymous. I would rather describe the experience as soulful and spiritual. As the process of photography proceeds, you will notice an unexpected yet instant change in the subject’s whole demeanour as they become more relaxed and comfortable in front of the camera,” says Nadia.

Seeing women open up and relax, gaining confidence during a shoot “is the absolute best!”

She describes boudoir photography as an experience mainly done in a bedroom setup. Featuring classy, sensual, and intimate images, it is usually intended for the private enjoyment of the person or their partner. It is usually done to celebrate a personal achievement – female empowerment through a promotion, overcoming hardship, or purely celebrating yourself as an individual.

Nadia currently follows Kelly Schneider on Instagram, who specializes in fine art photography, but also has a collection of boudoir photos.

“His style of photography is sensual, yet sophisticated and dreamy at the same time.’

According to her, most people believe this type of photography is only suitable for women, but a new trend is rising where couples come together for boudoir photo sessions, known as couples boudoir.

Nadia admits women are “most definitely” reluctant to pose for such photos.

“I’ve had plenty of women tell me they would love to do a boudoir shoot, but they're simply too shy or lack the confidence to do it. There may be a handful of women who are comfortable, but the majority tend to shy away from this type of photography.”

Their reluctance, she feels, could be blamed on the amount of body shaming circulating on social media platforms and the social constraints we’ve adopted to deem certain bodies beautiful and others not.

The happily married mother of two boys was always interested in photography.

As a little girl of about eight years old, Nadia's parents bought her a small, pink 110 film Barbie camera.

“I remember being ecstatic and immediately started snapping pictures of our cats. Unfortunately, the camera did not last long since I overused it, but soon I was blessed again with my first digital camera, a Canon PowerShot. It was a small camera, but I captured plenty of good pictures and many memories.”

In 2010 Nadia was accepted as a Journalism and Communication Technology student at the former Polytechnic of Namibia, now known as the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), where one of the modules offered was Introduction to Photography. Together with that module, she attended a photography course at the Franco Namibian Culture Centre (FNCC), which was facilitated by Djunior Svane. Through this, she was able to master the basics of how to professionally operate a camera and work with the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. The rest of the elements felt elementary since she quickly grasped the concept.

During the day she is a full-time employee with her duties including, but not limited to, taking pictures, writing and language editing. She treasures the time spent with her immediate family and close friends, while she and her husband usually take photographs together.

Admitting she can “definitely be more creative”, Nadia explains a single pose can create multiple images when photographing from different angles.

“I’m always on the lookout for something new to try, and I conduct plenty of research before a session to cater to the specific individual and in order to accentuate their particular uniqueness.”

She strives to better her craft daily.

“My ultimate goal would be for people to look at my work one day and be able to distinguish the authenticity in it and say: ‘That is most definitely Nadia Meding’s work’.” - [email protected], Facebook – Snap Media.



*PHOTOGRAPHY

*SELF-ACCEPTANCE

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Namibian Sun 2024-04-20

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