Hiromi Saimon Photography

Hiromi Saimon is a Japanese photographer who specializes in boudoir-style photographs of female models with a thin, ‘waifish’ look. Much of his work adopts a dreamy, soft-focus effect which evokes a dream or fantasy. It’s a similar look to that of the paintings of the famous French painter Renoir.

Achieving a look in your photographs that is similar to Hiromi Saimon’s means first of all selecting an appropriate model. Photographing nude minors is of course unacceptable and may be a serious offence depending on where you live, but it’s perfectly possible to find adult models that aren’t as curvaceous as their counterparts of the same age.

Next, you’ll need to select your setting. While boudoir photography is typically shot in a bedroom (hence the name!), Hiromi Saimon also uses outdoor, natural settings for his photography. If you decide to opt for a natural setting, try to pick a location that is lush and green, evoking a fairy-tale or children’s picture book. A setting near a river or creek would be particularly good, as would a wheat field or an area with large, old trees.

Whether you’re shooting inside or outside, the look you’re trying to achieve is beauty and innocence rather than sexuality, so instruct your model not to ‘pose’. You also don’t want your model to wear any noticeable makeup or hair style (long, straight hair is best). You’ll probably want your model not to look directly at the lens – she could instead have her eyes closed or focus on something in the distance, behind the camera. If shooting outside, a few props such as a simple straw hat, basket or picnic blanket can be effective. If shooting inside, an accessory made of silk or fur will work well.

The final step in achieving a Hiromi Saimon effect is to post-process your shots in an image editing program such as Photoshop to give them a dreamy, soft-focus quality. This is largely a matter of taste, but the main tools you’ll want to work with are Gaussian and Radial Blur. If you shoot in RAW (and you should!), you can also adjust the White Balance in your shots so that they have a warm tone. Finally, you might want to increase the global color in your shots, but use Vibrance rather than Saturation, as Vibrance will make your image more colorful without affecting skin tones.