Shooting Elissa Poppy - latex lingerie photography in London

Most of the work I do as a lingerie photographer in London sits in a particular register. Jersey, lace, soft fabrication. The lighting choices, the casting, the mood on set, all of it is shaped by the material. So when Elissa Poppy came through, the brief was a genuine creative challenge.

Latex is not jersey. It does not behave the same way, it does not photograph the same way, and it does not feel the same way on set. The reflective surface changes everything about how you approach exposure. Soft, layered lighting that works beautifully on lace becomes flat and uninteresting on latex. The material wants contrast. It wants a direct source, something that finds the surface and shows you what it is doing.

So the decision was simple: bare bulb, clean flash exposure, minimal setup. Let the material speak. The more complex the lighting rig, the more you start fighting the garment rather than working with it. That is a principle that applies across most shoots, but with latex it is non-negotiable.

The shoot produced a set of stills and some video work cut to music I had been holding onto for the right project. Elissa Poppy then invited us to collaborate on the post. The morning after it went live, there was a comment on the post from Paris Hilton. It also emerged that she had placed a significant order with the brand as a result of the content.

That is the clearest measure of content working. Not the aesthetic, not the lighting choice, not the editing. The outcome. Getting in and out of latex garments requires time, preparation, and patience on set. There is a specific environment and a specific aroma that comes with it that is genuinely unlike anything else in lingerie photography. None of that is a problem, but it does require a photographer who has done the groundwork and knows what to expect. Walking onto a latex shoot without that understanding will cost you time and confidence.

The Elissa Poppy shoot was a reminder that leaning into unfamiliar material, rather than defaulting to a familiar approach, is where the most interesting work tends to happen.