Dallas writes, “Hey, I just saw this ad in on a local newspaper website. Glamour shots has apparently ‘changed.’ I guess they think there might be a market for people who will pay for nudie pics of themselves.”
We not sure the company that makes every customer look like a Suze Orman press photo is really the place to go for boudoir photography, but good luck. Be sure to ask for the “I’m having to hold my boobs in place” pose.
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I wonder if people passing by in the mall get to “window shop” the gals who are having their photos taken.
now just where is that store?
I think I need to see if they’re hiring…
@Dmitri Virnig: Don’t forget that the chicks who get Glamour Shots aren’t usually the best looking out there.
Anyways, let me know if they are hiring.
I’m caging up my boa constrictor and heading down there this very minute!
@HiPwr: I just let it dangle – I always run Commando for my boudoir shots.
Oh. Wait. That wasn’t a metaphor?
I think this is just one horny photographer.
@KyleOrton: They already take these kinds of photographs, if you ask.
I’ve heard tale of some very raunchy Glamour Shots sent in to get Photoshoped by a friend who runs an online retouching service.
One of their more popular poses for little girls involves a fur shawl and bare shoulders/simulated nudity ala Miley Cyrus (or however you spell that).
I will take the same photos for a fraction of the cost.
@sir_pantsalot: I will pay to take those photos!!
@suburbancowboy: I will pay you to watch you take those photos that you are paying to take.
@JohnQPublic:
Michael James: Did you find a job?
Victor Skakapopulis: Yeah, I got something at the striptease. I help the girls dress and undress.
Michael James: Nice job.
Victor Skakapopulis: Twenty francs a week.
Michael James: Not very much.
Victor Skakapopulis: It’s all I can afford.
– Woody Allen and Peter O’Toole, What’s New Pussycat
@diasdiem: Lol,that’s a good one. =)
@sir_pantsalot: Trust me…the people that want those photos taken won’t look like the lady in the ad.
OK ladies, if you’re going to have this type of photography done as a “treat” for the husband, I don’t know if you want some greasy mall photographer saying “Work it baby!” in a little mall cubicle with a curtain drawn, rolling around on the same sheets some other mall chick rolled on 20 minutes before. Then your negatives/proofs are stored in some national database that every $6 an hour employee has access to and can post online if they want?
Local photographers are a better bet – you can find a trustworthy photograher (I’d personally prefer female)who can show you her portfolio and will assure you that your proofs/negatives will be kept discreet. They will be much more creative, instead of the cheesy canned shots a mall shop will push for with laser backgrounds and fuzzy lighting from 1985.
@Julia789:
If you do do this, don’t forget to make sure the copyright to the photos is signed over to YOU (Which, sadly, is not “normal” nowadays, although it should be for personal photos where you are just hiring the photographer’s ability to take a nice picture). Especially for nude shots.
@shepd: Yes, it is hard to find photographers who do not want to keep exclusive rights to ALL their photos!
We have photographers do aerial and ground shots of buildings we sell, and they ALWAYS keep the rights because the new or future owners may want to buy the photos. They can keep selling the photos again and again.
For bedroom photography, however, one would HOPE they were not trying to re-sell them – Ha Ha!
@shepd: A local photographer in the town I grew up in got caught selling some of the photos he took as stock photography. Since he held the copyrights, it was technically within his rights to resell the photos. It sure didn’t help his business any, though, as most people don’t want some picture of their wedding showing up in an random florist ad somewhere.
@Julia789: Do you know how much those laser backdrops cost me? They look great next to the waterbed too!
@JustinAche: Do you have the disco ball and the fuzzy lighting filter? Don’t forget the shot of holding the rose over the shoulder!
@Julia789: First, I wouldn’t necessarily assume that the “mall” photographer is sleazy – your mileage may vary, check them out first.
Next, try to get over your hangups and assumptions that male photographers are generally sleazy and incapable of doing a professional job without becoming perverts.
This isn’t a doctor who will be touching you, so you don’t need to find a woman only. Visit their studio, find out about clients, and contact some of them. It’s a professional service, and your fantasy fears of creeps come straight from your mind. It will be very easy to determine a professional.
Your body isn’t that precious or unique, snowflake, you’ll be fine with a man too.
I need to get my 3 wolf moon T-Shirt cleaned and ready.
@mk3: As you should already know, a three wolf moon t-shirt never needs to be cleaned. In fact, wearing it will make women ask you to take their photos, even if they have to buy the camera.
I am such an idiot. Thanks for the reminder
Now people can fail to pay for boudoir shots of themselves!
I know all the guys are excited to sign up for jobs as Glamour Shots photographers. But I suspect the majority of mall shoppers who stop in for that service will NOT look as lovely as the ladies in the advertisements. I think the parade of women will look something more like the movie “Deuce Bigalow”
@Julia789: Deal Breaker!! Dream Killer!! The men will revolt against you. They can’t have REALITY of what real women look like ruin this very moment for them.
The bad economy turned glamour shots into Playboy… AT THE LOCAL MALL. HOT!!
@verucalise-T minus 15 days: We know we are just choosing to ignore that for right now.
I remember boys in Jr high who wanted to be a gyno doctor. I remember thinking that your day would not be filled with model types coming in for a routine checkup. The only time people go to the doctor is when there is a problem and I do not want to see that when there is a problem.
@sir_pantsalot: Awww the poor boys, dreams of being a GYN ruined!
A friend is married to a GYN. People ask her “Doesn’t it bother you?” She says “Are you KIDDING? Have you seen the women in his waiting room? 80% are elderly, obese, or there for unattractive medical conditions. Even if a real hottie came in, he’d still have the old lady with the hysterectomy on his mind!”
@Julia789:
Ugh, NOT the comment to read while you are eating lunch!!
@Julia789: My husband is a massage therapist, and people assume I must be jealous of his female clients as they seem to think he only works on conventionally attractive women (and that he must find them attractive, which is the third flaw in their thinking). Being wiser than they are, I know that no matter what any of his many kinds of clients looks like, they’re all just muscle groups to him!
@JulesNoctambule: “they’re all just muscle groups to him! “
Yeah that line works on my wife too. “She meant nothing to me baby, I swear I was just having sex with the muscle groups!”
@greenunicorns: So you’re also known to pause in the middle of sex to compliment the rise of your wife’s levator scap? Awesome.
@JulesNoctambule: Oh you lucky woman! You must get GREAT massages being married to him!
I just made an appointment with a fabulous guy, a “sports medicine” massage therapist who is going to beat the hell out of me for an hour this Saturday. I told him “I don’t want the fancy day spa where they give me lemon water and pet me for an hour. I’m not a cat.” No soft music and meditation for me – I just want someone to smash the knots out with their elbow!
People tend to think massages are “erotic” but the kind I go for is “therapeutic” and there is nothing sexy about it. It’s just nice to have my back feeling better!
@Julia789: People who think massage done in a business setting is meant to be ‘erotic’ are probably going to the places that will eventually be on tv for immigration and human rights violations. I can’t even begin to express my loathing for those sick, exploitative places and the scum who run them.
The spouse has training in sports massage, injury treatment and other purely therapeutic styles, though he works at a spa. They aren’t one of those ‘ladies who lunch’ kind of places, and most people who go to him do it for pain relief.
@verucalise-T minus 15 days:
LOL – OK I take it back. The women that go into mall shops for nudie photos will ALL look like Carmen Electra. And they will ALL invite the photographers to jump in the sheets with them after the photo shoot!
There. All the guys are smiling again.
@Julia789: Oh phew. We’ve avoided a riot. Decorum reigns again…
@Julia789: I suppose, their thinking is that they are prepared to wait out hordes of puke inducing 60 year olds, for the one hot lady that makes it all worth it. I suppose.
@MostlyHarmless: We do that anyways at the bars, so whats the difference?
@hi: Not the same thing. Unless you visualize them all naked. To which, I have to point out: No one is interested in your speech.
@Julia789: There. That’s more like it. Thanks for restoring my faith in … something.
Why am I suddenly picturing George Costanza sprawled across a day bed?
@Hank Scorpio: +1 you win the internets today.
@Hank Scorpio: I would havE thought you’d have gone for the Homer in the bedroom with Vasteline over the camera lens scene.
@Homerjay here for OxyClean!: Sorry, Homerjay, I really have no control over what the first thing that pops into my head is!
@Hank Scorpio: Pfft. Stupid brain.
@Homerjay here for OxyClean!: With the cowboy hat on!
@Julia789:
Ask and you shall receive.
@DayWeSpilledThePaint_GitEmSteveDave:
LOL! Well, I suppose that is KIND OF close to Homer Simpson in the cowboy hat posing for seductive photos (one of the funniest episodes!) But I’ll take it – much better looking!
@DayWeSpilledThePaint_GitEmSteveDave: Dear God, man, DO NOT recreate either of those scenes and post it here…
@Hank Scorpio: The key word is “tasteful.”
My wife has started doing some graphical touch-up work for a friend who does wedding photos. What surprised her is that it appears that boudoir shots are now popular poses for prebridals. So it stands to reason that the photography chains are getting in on the act too.
@CaptainKidd:
They are. There was one case I remember where the bride was wearing see-through panties while getting dressed and the pics ended up on the internets.
Maybe she was insuring her husband would have some fap material after they had three kids and gravity had taken its toll.
@CaptainKidd: It makes sense that women would want nude photos taken before the wedding. For most of them, it’s the thinnest they’ll ever be.
@CaptainKidd: I had to look up this thing on wikipedia… and it has this to say about Boudoir:
[...]it has become very fashionable to create a set of sensual images for ladies of all ages, shapes, and sizes in the “boudoir style”. This often takes the shape of partly clothed images or images in lingerie, and has become more than just a passing fad for brides to surprise their future husbands. ‘
So, about to be married girls like to take naughty pics of theirs for their husbands…
… why?
I mean, these days, dont most of them do the “fourth base screenings” before marriage already?
I’m now applying for a position as a Glamour Shots photographer. I only hope that I can get hired before they discontinue this program
I’m waiting for the 16 year old girlfriend to take shots for her boyfriend. I wonder who Chris Hansen will have to talk to.
Can I get those in wallet sized and also a few laminated please?
But seriously, I see a new game where you see exactly HOW far the Glamour Shots people will go along.
@DayWeSpilledThePaint_GitEmSteveDave: You “see” a new game… or just “hope”?
@verucalise-T minus 15 days: can’t anybody have fun anymore?
@You know what ole’ Jack Burton always says: She drinks Dn’D coffee. She’s a little off, but it’s why we love her.
@You know what ole’ Jack Burton always says: Hey, I never said I was against either
I need amusement as well.
And as for you, GESD- your day will come. Oh yes….
@DayWeSpilledThePaint_GitEmSteveDave: I’m heading down there with my dog, peanut butter, and a spatula.
Just in case you’re wondering, my dog’s name isn’t peanut butter!!
@You know what ole’ Jack Burton always says: Hey, it’s not cheating if it’s YOUR dog.
And remember to NOT put these on your credit card!
@RandomHookup: or the kid behind the counter will ask you to prove that is is really you.
Um… why am I suddenly hearing that girl in Napoleon Dynamite… “Just imagine you’re weightless… You’re in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by tiny little sea horses… I think that’s gonna come out really nice.”
At least it looks like Glamour Shots is finally abandoning the soft-focus, feather boas and 80s makeup.
I don’t think that anyone wants to see the women who go to Glamour Shots to get nudie pics done… All the women that you are envisioning are going to go to REAL professional photographers. On a similar note, I took a couple of classes in college that involved nude classmates. ATTRACTIVE nude classmates!
@temporaryerror: A friend took a similar course here. The art instructors use hired models, and they start out with obese and/or old models first to weed out people taking it for voyeuristic purposes rather than any real interest in art.
Nothing like a naked overweight, 75 year old great-grandmother (who was super nice nice by the way) to suddenly decimate half the male enrollment in the class.
@CaptainKidd: I actually find that some people with more flesh are more interesting to draw. Though a good drawing class should start out with models with less flesh- its a little harder to see the anatomical basics. Then again, I go to art school and three semesters of figure drawing were mandatory.
@antisan: Yes, exactly. The people with more interesting body shapes and wrinkles were much easier to draw. I always thought the good-looking girls were more difficult because you’re so focused on trying to make them look just as attractive on paper.
@CaptainKidd: I took those classes, I was pissed when they started bringing the “hot” chicks because the overweight old people were more expressive and fun to draw.
@CaptainKidd: Highly unlikely. I’ve attended many a life drawing class at many institutions and community classes as well, and it’s hard enough to get models to come in on a reliable basis. No filtering is necessary or ever done.
I”ve had classes with very attractive models on day 1, or not, it’s random.
Plus the instructors really don’t CARE if you have an immature attitude toward nudity. As long as they are getting paid, and there are some good students to work with, the few goofballs really don’t make any difference.
Interesting fantasy you have there, though…
@temporaryerror: As a former boudoir photographer’s model, I can attest to the fact that I never had any “nudie” pictures taken. Sexy? Yes. Nude? No.
I trust an underpaid mall employee to take naked pictures of me, and not spread them all over the internet. Sure.
@robotrousers: But you’ll be famous!
@morlo: I’d rather not be famous in the way Paris Hilton is famous.
@dadelus: Why not? Valtrex took care of it… oh wait.
I happen to be a boudoir photographer and would highly encourage women wanting boudoir photos of themselves go to someone who specializes in this. Going to a mall minimizes what is supposed to be a fun, yet intimate experience.
I do wonder if they’ve considered a name change…I’ve never thought of nudie pics to equal glamor. I’m not saying I dislike them, I just don’t associate them with being glamorous.
Speaking as someone who worked at Glamour Shots for about 3 months, these types of photos are not a “new” offering. The rule was no nipples, no girly-bits showing. And the ladies that come in for them do not look like the one in the photo. Let’s just say 2 years later, I still remember most of them quite vividly. For example, the woman who’d just had gastric bypass surgery and dropped 120 lbs but hadn’t yet had the excess skin removed & got pics for her husband. Very touching, but not something like those images above.
Oh, and the drapes they use? There’s no washing machine in the store. AT ALL. You think about that one for a moment.
this is gross…
hire a real photographer…PLEASE
think about it..what talented photographer would work for $10/hr at a shithole studio.
than again, the people that use glamour shots are goium and poor people.
Maybe “We’ve Changed!” is referring to their drapery…. finally…?
Glamour Shots: Because you got in trouble when you tried to go nudie in your high school yearbook photo.
[IMG][i10.photobucket.com]]
@MarvinMar: BBcode doesn’t work here, man. HTML or nothing.
porn
@MarvinMar: And leave off the closing bracket.
As a kid I always called Glamor Shots “Hooker Shots” when we would pass by it in the mall. My sister would become furious because it was her dream to have her senior pictures taken there. My father ended that dream very quickly.
@nwaasob: Ughghgh – the makeup they’d plaster on people getting those photos! Gaudy thick pancaked on makeup! The big blow-dried hair… gross.
And don’t you just love when there is a female suspect, murder victim, or missing person on the 6 O’clock News and some relative has given the newscasters a cheesy Glamour Shots photo to put on the news?
Now just one more reason to dread opening Christmas newsletters. Somebody somewhere is going to choose the wallet-sized packages, “tastefully done”.
DAMMIT. I knew I forgot something from the grocery store. F’n MILK. Thanks Consumerist.
The funniest thing about this post is that the word “glamour” means exactly this type of shot. Most folks associate glamour photography with the word “glamorous” or with “glam” magazine, or a variety of other definitions that are somewhat different from the photography definition of “glamour. Sorry to burst your bubble, but “glamour” photography refers to a very specific type of photography: one that emphasizes the allure of the model using sensual or suggestive imagery, with attire ranging from suggestive or sexy clothing, costumes, swimwear, lingerie, partial or full nudity. Think of your average Calvin Klein billboard, or the cover of Maxim Magazine. That’s glamour, and that’s the tame side of it. I’m a photographer, and many of the models I work with have a preconceived idea, though completely inaccurate, of what glamour is. I always make sure I spell out exactly what glamour actually means, to avoid an uncomfortable situation.
That said, there are a couple of things to bear in mind:
First, yes, original poster, there IS a market for folks who want “nudie pics of themselves”. Both men and women do this all the time, for many reasons: a fun surprise for their spouse or significant other, shots for a modeling portfolio if they’re a model (contrary to popular belief, most decently-paying modeling work is in glamour photography, not commercial or product photography), or sometimes just because they want to do something sexy or mischeivous. While I wouldn’t advocate sending anyone to a mall for this kind of work, there’s no need to be snarky about this type of photography. It’s VERY commonplace, these days.
Second, almost anything you get done in a mall is going to be pretty tame, and likely boring. Nudity isn’t required for an exciting or interesting shot, but creativity, time and imagination are. Unfortunately, those don’t tend to be is great supply in mall photography shops. Find a local photographer who specializes in this kind of thing. They’re more likely to invest themselves in the project. Besides, a nipple isn’t exactly risqué these days. Look at many of the top names in fine art nude photography. Think they’re going to shy away from something just because someone thinks it’s “too naughty”?
Third, a photographer worth his salt probably isn’t going to sign over all the rights to the photos he takes just because you want them. You’re not just paying for him to push a button. If you were, you’d do it yourself. You’re also paying for a high level of expertise, a solid understanding of light, and above all else, creative ingenuity. When a photographer gives up the rights to his or her images, he’s also giving up the rights to all of the thought that went into it.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I dislike the whole “come back to me when you want prints at ridiculous rates” ideology that is so prevalent with many photographers today. I generally deliver digital files to my clients, and they can go print them whenever they want, wherever they want, without restriction. However, I do reserve the rights for commercial use or publication for images that I take. If my models want to be able to use their images commercially (for example, in an advertisement, on a web site, etc.), that costs more, because now I can’t do that, nor can I sell those rights to another. You see, the bulk of a photographer’s income isn’t from doing individual shoots; it’s from the reselling of rights to images, including stock photography, magazines, advertisers, and so on. This doesn’t just apply to glamour photography. It’s with ALL photography. If you want to take all of those rights (and therefore, income) away from the photographer, expect to pay a premium. However, it IS reasonable to ask for digital copies of the images, so you can choose to do the printing yourself.
@Ezra Ekman: That’s a well-crafted and informative post…relegated to obscurity on the second page.
@Con Seannery: Thanks. Most of my posts tend to end up on the second page. (Or worse, sometimes.) I never post in time. *chuckle*
@Ezra Ekman: true that.
@Ezra Ekman:
Thanks for clarifying. I always wondered about the rights thing.
cn hz dtgl cmr cn tk pcz plz?
Haha, I agree with lots of the comments here. Need some nude shots taken? Interview a local photographer and find you want that can do the kind of things you want. I’m available! *shameless self promotion* [www.alishahime.com]
I think the real news is that Glamour Shots is still in business. I thought they went under a decade ago.
How about the fact that the ad is offering $200 off?
How freakin’ expensive are these so-called Glamor Shots, anyway?!
Note the fine print: “This offer is for adult sessions only and cannot be used for kid’s (sic) under 12 years old”
Now I’m just grossed out.
If you want a pro, go to a pro!
[www.dennyscottphoto.com]
Uh. How about a NSFW warning on that picture? Come on, Consumerist, I thought you knew better than that.
(My personal definition of NSFW is this: Imagine the crankiest, oldest, most dried-up nun in the world is standing behind you, ruler raised over your exposed knuckles. If viewing the picture results in bruised knuckles, it’s NSFW. Some workplaces (wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, fathers, mothers) are REALLY psycho about this sort of thing. I’d hate to see someone fired/grounded/broken up with/divorced over reading the Consumerist.)