Lingerie at the Beach — Testing Mood with Light

After a couple of traditional bikini shoots and one studio lingerie session, I started wondering what it would be like to shoot lingerie at the beach—or if it would just come off as contrived, over-the-top, and unnecessary.

Have you ever seen those old ads for Maidenform? The tagline was, “The Maidenform woman… you never know where she’ll show…” or something like that. It’s a woman in lingerie—in the middle of Times Square, a courtroom, or some random setting. I don’t think those ads aged particularly well, but the idea stuck with me. It was still an intriguing take on photographing lingerie outside its expected context.

quick change

This shoot wasn’t about shock value or pushing limits. It was more about juxtaposing something soft and intimate against a raw and wide-open backdrop. Now, I can justify anything when I want to photograph something, but I started by going to the model first. I asked for her take, gave her full control over whether we pursued the idea, and wanted to be sure it felt right for her.

To make it technically work, I brought along my Profoto A2 and used it as a fill light to shape the shadows, especially when the sun created harsh angles across her face and body.

Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking when I came up with this. I just knew I needed an idea. Since we’d just done a lingerie shoot indoors, I thought—why not take it outside?

It was one of those “let’s just try it” kind of things that felt natural in the moment. And while I won’t say these were my most outstanding images, they made for an interesting study. Sometimes, you follow a hunch, and the process teaches you more than the final shot ever could.