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Lights, camera, homemade porn

Summer vacation is coming up and many of you will be returning home for the next four months. For those of you who found a sweetie while at university, this means having to endure a temporary long distance relationship (LDR).

LDRs can be pretty hard on the sex life, but one way to keep the fires of love burning is to maintain regular contact. Not just the "I miss you more, no I miss you more" phone calls, I’m talking about more intimate contact: the phone sex, cyber sex, web-cam strip teases, and of course, the e-mailed nude photos. In fact, you could start making your own special porn collection right now and create an impressive photo album to help remind you both about why you’re putting yourselves through a temporary LDR. Even if you aren’t facing an upcoming LDR, making your own porn can be a really fun way to spend some time together—with a hot souvenir!

Whether you are taking digital photos or filming your porn, you’ll want to make sure that your subject(s) look(s) their best. I recommend using soft lighting, but not too dim or the quality will be grainy. The pros actually keep their cameras a little out of focus because it reduces the fine detail captured and makes their subjects look better — soft lighting can have a similar effect. You can soften up the lighting in a naturally lit room by putting thin white paper or a white shower curtain over the window and setting up a piece of white Styrofoam opposite the window as a reflector. 
Another good tip is to keep your "problem areas" covered. If you hate your thighs, wear a skirt; if you hate your calves, keep them out of the shot; if you hate your ass, film it in flattering ways or not at all. You can make your ass look nicer on camera by bending over and sticking it out — that makes the muscles look tighter and irons out dimples. Guys, you can make yourselves look longer by giving your pubes a trim and shaving back any of the hair on your shaft.

They are your photos, so if you love how your penis looks from the side, film it from the side; if you’re proud of your breasts, make them a feature. Remember, just because you’re trying to take sexy pictures, it doesn’t mean you have to be fully naked, only show off the parts of your body that you like the best!

Now, think about what you want to do in the pictures/film. Do you want to be taking your clothes off frame by frame? Do you want to be masturbating? Do you want to be having sex with your partner or another consenting adult? Decide what you want to show and how you want to show it. If you are feeling really professional, you might even want to draw up a storyboard.
It’s also important to consider why you are filming or taking pictures of this. Are you photographing your partner for your private collection? Photographing yourself for a partner who is far away? Or is it for your amateur porn site that you created to help pay for textbooks? You’ll want to set up shots that will be pleasing to your target audience; if it’s photos for your partner, ask them to tell you what they’d like to see or have them direct the shoot.
Next, pick your venue. Public places might not be a good idea because you risk being found and fined for public nudity; it might be hard to explain to the staff at Dana Porter why you were naked in the stacks with your strap-on.

I recommend sticking to private places: your bedroom, your office, your lab. Places where you are not going to be interrupted mid-shoot and where you can feel free to do whatever you want.

If you don’t have a tripod I recommend choosing a venue that has shelves or other surfaces to put the camera on while you shoot. Set the camera on the surface and check the display.

Make a note of what parts of the room are in the frame so that you can stay in the shot. The beauty of digital technology is that you can even take a test picture of yourself to help pick the right place to stand/sit/kneel/lay so that you and/or your subject look best.
 Try out some poses for the camera, try things you’ve seen in porn and keep checking your pictures to make sure you like what you’re seeing. But, above all, have fun with it! You’re now a super sexy amateur porn star!!

Tips:

If you are using a flash, don’t put the camera below whatever you are shooting unless you are shooting a close-up. If the flash is below the subject of the shot, the whole upper half of your amateur porn star will be cast into very non-sexy shadow.

Instead of saying "cheese" try saying “prune” to get a sexy pout going.

Need a "cum" shot? Try using egg whites as a substitute for the real thing. It’s easier to control exactly where it goes and you can get ridiculous portions if you want.