Some of my most memorable clients

So far, I have been so blessed to have met some incredible women. My experience as a boudoir photographer has become the most soul awakening, self healing, girl tribe leading, powerful experiences of my life. And it just keeps getting better. Keep in mind, not every client who walks through my door, has stories like this. I have many clients who come to my studio, who absolutely exude confidence, and radiate beauty in a way that I wish every woman alive did. But I wanted to share with you a couple stories about some clients who will stay with me forever, and who have deepened my love and commitment to empowering women in their own journeys to self love, self acceptance, and self celebration.

A little backstory on me:

As a woman, I think to some degree, a lot of us grow up with very similar stories. Feelings of inadequacy, insecurities, self doubt, and sometimes victims of mean girls. For me, I grew up incredibly poor. I moved about once a year my entire life and was always the new girl. I was awkwardly tall very early, incredibly skinny, and a very, very late bloomer. Despite my best efforts, I always felt like I never belonged. It made my teenage years challenging, and I faced the harsh criticism of other girls a lot. And so, in my reality, the stereotypes of the mean girl mentality was so true. I was also raised by a mother who, almost daily, shared with me her own body issues and self criticism. It’s something that unfortunately, was engrained into a lot of us very early on. To the younger generations reading this post, it wasn’t always a “body positive”, “bullying is not ok” narrative that it is today. I am beyond words happy, that my daughter doesn’t have to grow up in that environment. And I will always raise her to love herself first. I think, coming from this background, I identify SO much with women, in that I understand their desire to feel beautiful, or confident, or powerful. I do not see women as a threat, I celebrate their individual beauty. I am here for the celebration of what it means to be a woman, and love that I get to work in an industry that supports helping women step away from anything that makes them feel not good enough. I see them for who they are, and I hear their desires of wanting to walk away from my studio feeling better than when they walk in.

With that being said:

Miss P.

The first client that ever brought me to tears was Miss P. … She was 76 years old and an absolute firecracker. She was married for 51 years, and her husband had passed away a few years prior to her visiting me. She thought she would live out the rest of her days alone and sad. Very unexpectedly, she met a man and they started dating and she fell in love again. I swear she giggled throughout the entire story. She told me that she was having sex again like a teenager, and felt so alive. This new love, this new excitement, reignited her life. She came to me, wanting to do a book for him for their 1 year anniversary. Miss P rocked every single second of her session, with the most confidence I have ever witnessed. She shared with me some life advice that will sit with me as long as I live. She said, “ the trouble with women is that we are killing ourselves in comparison. And I don’t necessarily mean comparing ourselves to others. When we are young, we just want to be older, to wear makeup, and heels, and become a woman. Then once we become a woman, we spend our entire lives wishing we were younger. When we had less wrinkles, less fat, no stretch marks, etc. If we could just stop comparing ourselves to different versions of ourselves and learn to love ourselves in whatever moment we are in, imagine how much happier we would be. Your life is now. It’s okay to be happy with yourself and all your “imperfections” that someday you will wish you had.” —— go ahead and read that again if you want. Tell me that isn’t sage life wisdom right there. I will forever be grateful to have met her, and to have helped her celebrate finding love again, and to have heard what she had said.

Miss V.

This woman was by far one of the kindest, sweetest souls I have met. And her story and her journey is one I will never forget. When she came to me for an inquiry, her story hit me in the chest like a freight train. She was a beautiful, petite, intelligent nurse, who was happily married with a couple of beautiful children. Just 6 weeks prior to coming into my studio- something that in her own words, she said she would NEVER have done, if it wasn’t for her near death experience. She had a cyst rupture and almost bled out while at work at the hospital. She was standing at the nurses station, when her friend ran over to her to tell her she was bleeding. She didn’t even notice she was standing in a pool of her own blood and that she was hemorrhaging. Doctors and nurses rushed her into a room and told her to undress. She said she was so embarrassed for anyone to see her naked that even though she was bleeding to death, she kicked everyone out so that she could change into a gown….. she had a few cysts on the outside of her body, that she was incredibly self conscious about. She had surgery to remove them multiple times, but they always grew back. And so they became something that invaded her life, and stole her confidence. It was the experience of that day in the hospital that had her come knock on my door, surgery incision scars still fresh, and finally take a step to see herself through my lens, and start the road to self love… to be perfectly honest, she was so beautiful, and her session was easy. I showed her multiple times throughout the session, the back of my camera, and watched her tear up to see herself this way. I watched as her confidence grew and grew as she realized how tiny her “imperfections” really were…. When she came back to pick up her album, she cried, and hugged me, and told me that she let her husband see her naked with the lights on for the first time in years…… When she left, I cried my eyes out. I was so moved, and so happy for her. She deserved to feel that way. She deserved to feel beautiful- because she was. I was so proud to have been able to give her that.

I’ll leave this post for now, because I could go on and on. It is truly my calling, and I have found my passion in life, to be able to give these experiences to my clients. Let me tell you- there hasn’t been ONE single client who walked through my door, that didn’t have insecurities. NOT ONE. EVERY woman has something. EVERY woman has a trauma, or an insecurity, or something that they don’t like about themselves. And that’s okay. As long as you don’t let that insecurity take over your life and prevent you from living it. There is a quote that resonates with me about boudoir and it’s this: “boudoir is so much more than pretty photos, it’s about how you FEEL looking back on them.” I hope to keep giving experiences like these to more and more women. Because whether you are a size 0 or not, whether you don’t like your nose, or you lost your self confidence somewhere along the way, or maybe you already love yourself and just wanna rock out and own your beauty…. boudoir is a powerful experience, and EVERY woman deserves to invest in themselves and feel beautiful in their own skin.