Jes Hayes is the founder and head photographer at Duluth Boudoir Photography, a sought-after studio specializing in capturing intimate and empowering images of women. And one of the best boudoir photographers today!
Her passion for boudoir photography stems from a desire to help women reclaim their confidence and love their bodies.
Through her work, Jes aims to promote body positivity and help women embrace their individuality.
We got a chance to ask her a few questions; let’s hear her answers!
She is incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about boudoir & nude photography, so I’m sure her responses will be insightful and informative. So without further ado, let’s dive in and see what she has to say.
Q1. How did you know you wanted to be a photographer? How did you go about starting?
Ans: I’ve always loved art, but I am extremely impatient. I thought photography would be a way to create art that didn’t take as long as drawing or painting something, which is true, but I forgot to take into account the time it would take to understand all of the technical aspects of photography. It was too late when I realized the time commitment and was obsessed with it.
I started back on film, not because it was cool, but because that was the only option. Back in 2000, digital cameras weren’t what they are today, and professional-grade cameras were way out of my budget.
I bought myself a book on photography and read it so much that it is currently in pieces in my office.
I devoured it for knowledge and photographed every tree, lake, and flower on which I could land my eyeballs.
While it is easy to photograph things that are already pretty, I strived to control every aspect of the image with my settings.
At this point in my life, I only wanted to photograph nature. I deal with a lot of anxiety, so the thought of having to direct and interact with humans sounded really overwhelming to me.
What I didn’t realize at that time was the patience that was needed to be a good nature photographer, a really good one anyways.
How I ended up working with humans was. Honestly, my friends and family hounded me to photograph them.
I had no idea what I was doing and didn’t want to do it at all, but I did it anyway. My husband and I were only dating then, and he purchased a really nice point-and-shoot digital camera.
I could still control all the settings but could not change the lenses. Since I had no money at this time in my life, it was the cheapest way for me to photograph people, and still learn.
I learned Photoshop 7.0 (yikes, that dates me, doesn’t it?) after I photographed my first wedding ceremony for $200.00. I don’t really want to talk about that phase in my life because I thought selective color was the greatest invention ever, but all that selective color practice did teach me what I needed to know about Photoshop to get things started.
Imposter syndrome kept me in this phase of my life for about three more years before I finally put my big girl pants on, filed the paperwork to become a legit business, and started charging consistently for my work. It was three more years of hard work before I could finally go full-time.
Q2. What are the qualities that make a successful and best boudoir photographer?
Ans: I think so many photographers run to boudoir photography for a cash grab. Launching boudoir mini sessions for Valentine’s Day without really understanding what they are doing and the harm they could cause is easy.
You really have to have your posing on point and be able to talk clients through their feelings that could surface during a session.
People are conditioned to hate themselves, point blank, period. From the second someone is born, the world has a way of highlighting perceived flaws in someone.
That is a lot to take mentally. As the best boudoir photographer, we must know and navigate this with them.
Those flaws only exist because someone we have never met decided it was bad, probably as a way to make money, and we are left to deal with that mentally and emotionally.
Regardless of the reason why they booked their session, it will be steeped in self-image issues almost every time.
These issues can be seen as attention-seeking by others and are usually met with comments like “Stop, you’re beautiful!” which is a nice way of dismissing someone’s feelings. It is a huge disservice to our clients to run sessions this way.
A best Boudoir photographer needs the knowledge to direct a client’s mindset, patience to understand the time that needs to be spent doing that, and empathy to listen to what our clients tell us.
Q3. How has your photography style changed since you started?
Ans: Well, this is a loaded question! When I started, I was actually a wedding and portrait photographer. I won a lot of awards for my wedding work, even.
The birth of my daughter triggered an auto-immune disease which ultimately led to me not being able to take them on anymore.
During this transition, I had already discovered and fell in love with photographing boudoir, so I wasn’t sad about the change.
I eventually transitioned out of photographing everything else except the boudoir.
During the wedding portion of my career, I always photographed things in a bright and airy style. However, I have always had a love for the dark and dramatic.
Once I decided to lean into that style, I was really in love because I finally found what I loved, and it wasn’t because I was trying to be like everyone else.
I love being able to direct a viewer’s eye with the light I am using, so I started experimenting more. would find light that wasn’t “technically correct” and create in it.
Also, I have stopped listening to all the lighting experts around, saying that I had to do things one way and that way didn’t work for me.
I didn’t like using Flash because I wanted to see what was being created in real-time. I started using lamps from Target, flashlights, and putting lights behind or in front of things to see what they would do.
It didn’t stop there. I started attaching things to my camera to photograph through. I am now where I find something I like, photograph that way for a while, and modify it when I get bored.
Q4. How much do you think the nude and boudoir genres in photography differ from other genres?
Ans: Other than the obvious difference in clothing… Boudoir can be an extremely healing form of photography, even if the initial reason for the session does not include that.
If you think about other genres of photography, it exists purely for documentation or to show others. Wedding photos, family photos, newborn/maternity photos… it is all to post on social media or document a moment in time. That really isn’t the main focus of the boudoir.
It used to be used as a wedding or Valentine’s Day gift, and there has been a significant shift from that in the past decade.
People are using it to heal from trauma. I have seen a wide variety of healing come from boudoir sessions.
Clients will realize their worth and leave a home situation that no longer suits them, or they have struggled their entire life with societal beauty standards. And their therapist recommended a session to help with the healing.
I use boudoir photography to help my clients in their healing journey. When they enter the studio, I tell them it is a safe space for them to exist unapologetically.
I let them vent about their feelings. Also, I ask questions to direct them to find out why they feel that way about themselves.
I try to plant seeds to let them know no matter how they feel about themselves. They are worthy of being in my studio and deserve beautiful images of themselves.
They deserve to feel like those “people in the magazines”. But they are not obligated to look anyway because, in the end, none of that matters. You are not required to look a certain way to be worthy, to love or be loved, to be kind, to help others, to do your best, to exist, and be happy.
Q5. Except for Nude and boudoir photography, which genre do you enjoy the most, and do you still wish to explore?
Ans: I have always loved fashion photography. Growing up, I was actually made fun of quite a bit because I always decorated my notebooks and folders with fashion ads.
I had a love for Calvin Klein ads so kids would call me homophobic slurs because I had a photo of Kate Moss in a black bra and underwear on my notebook.
It didn’t matter that I also had men on my stuff. I just really liked the photos and thought they were beautiful, and I wanted to surround myself with them.
To this day, I will have collections of fashion photos that I love. They are just on my phone.
Q6. Is there anything you wish clients would ask?
Ans: So hear me out. I am an over-communicator, almost to a fault. My website, my emails, everything is designed and written not to have a need to ask questions after reading it.
It is one of the ways I build trust with clients and potential clients. Nothing makes me happier when I hear my clients talking about all their questions but didn’t need to ask because I anticipated it and already answered it for them.
However, if someone is reading through our information and they still have questions, those are the ones that I want them to ask.
I never want anyone to be nervous because of the information they do not have. I check in often to see if they have any questions or needs.
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Q.7 Mention three necessities for a boudoir or nude shoot session that the best boudoir photographer should not miss.
Ans: You absolutely have to have trust with your clients. Your website, your correspondence, and everything should be done in a way to showcase that your clients are safe with you. If you can’t do that, as a photographer, this might not be the genre for you.
Closely related to trust, but you need empathy. Our clients come to us afraid for a lot of reasons. They don’t know how to pose or find good lingerie, or they have been practicing their “bedroom eyes” to no avail, they haven’t lost the weight they were hoping to, work or home life has been stressful, and so on and so on and so on. Sometimes they aren’t going to open up about it either.
Getting in there and pulling those negative energies away is part of our job. I always tell my clients that they will be ok if they can get in the studio door. I fully believe in working well with my clients to put them at ease. So by the time they leave, they say things like, “That was so much fun!” or, my personal favorite, “I already want to do it again.”
Because of the boudoir genre and depending on how we photograph it, photographers really need to make sure that they know their stuff when it comes to laws, especially when posting online. So many things can happen, and we owe our clients to know what can and cannot be done in certain situations.
Q8. Tell us something about the blogs on your website. How do you develop the ideas and flow of the entire content?
Ans: I won’t lie here; my blog is my weak point. I recently blogged for the first time in years, and I used AI to help me write it.
The majority of our blog content is written by our clients. We have a questionnaire that we send out after their session. Once they fill it out, it goes into a blog.
One of my goals is to get back into blogging because I know how important it is.
Learn to capture artistic nudes in nature with this comprehensive guide by expert Cam Attree.
Q9. Elaborate on your mission/ artistic statement “Our mission is you… our style is you. Plain and simple”.
Ans: Our mission statement came from a point of frustration I had with other boudoir photographers. Photographers would describe their style, but instead of describing their work, they would bash other photographers. I actually saw another photographer promise their followers that they don’t do “trashy” photos.
Who decides that? Who decides what that is? What if someone wanted a session that the photographer deemed trashy? We don’t kink shame.
Remember earlier when I said my studio is a safe space for my clients to exist just how they are? I mean it!
My photography style is dark, dramatic, sensual, and sometimes mind-bending. It has nothing to do with shaming anyone to get ahead, and I will always stand by that.
Q10. “Boudoir or nude photography shoots boost a model’s confidence.” Do you believe in this statement? Please explain why or why not?
Ans: Of course! In the world that we live in. There is more pressure than ever to look a certain way, and we are taught what we “should” look like from a very young age.
So much time is spent trying to look a certain way to get approval from as many people as possible.
Boudoir is a great tool to use to exist in photos the way that models do and be able to see the beauty in yourself.
Q11. Tell us about the most memorable shoot you’ve had to date.
Ans: This is a really tough question. I have photographed close to 1,000 boudoir sessions over the past several years.
Also, I have seen clients cry when they walk into the studio because they finally made it. I have had clients tell me they almost canceled from the parking lot because they didn’t think they could get to walk in the door.
A lot of times, it becomes memorable for me once I see them after the shoot. They have realized their worth. If someone comes to me and is all in during their session, I know they will be in for a really cool journey once they leave.
I had a client several years ago who came in looking to start healing from an SA. She picked more modest outfits from our closet and was pretty quiet overall for the session.
As the session progressed, she did start to open up more and share parts of her with us. She told us that no one knew she was there and that no one would see the photos.
My heart broke for her. I was beyond shocked when a year or two after her first session, she booked another one… and another one.
I have photographed her several times now, and she is one of our regular models that I can call on to try new things out or if I am doing an ad campaign. It has been amazing to watch her grow and see her worthiness.
Get all the inspiration you need to shoot awesome low-key bodyscapes in this insider guide.
Q12. Mention a learning experience in terms of a boudoir or nude photoshoot you’ve had in all these years of experience.
Ans: I don’t know if I can think of anything specific that has been a learning experience. I am open to learning something every day. Also, I am exactly where I am today because I learn from every client in the studio. Always observant of what I am doing and where I feel like I need to grow and improve. I am constantly working on something.
I think it comes from me realizing that there is always a bigger reason why someone has booked a session. They may have told me they are doing it for a wedding gift, which is great. But I am there to help them work on body image trauma because we all have it.
I always listen to what they’re saying, and sometimes clients will not communicate with their words. It’s facial expressions, or if they are constantly adjusting certain areas of clothing of their body, anything that I can pick up on to help someone work past it is a win for me.
Looking for new creative ideas for your next nude photoshoot theme? Check out this list of nude photographers to get inspired.
Jes Hayes is truly one of the best boudoir photographers today. Her passion for her craft and her dedication to helping women overcome body image trauma shines through in every shoot she does.
Her ability to put her clients at ease, direct their mindset, and create a safe space for them is truly remarkable.
If you’re interested in booking a boudoir session with Jes and experiencing the transformative power of her photography. Visit her website, and click here. You won’t regret it.
