Why I Love Boudoir Photography
Firstly, what is boudoir photography? If you google it, you’ll get definitions like:
“Boudoir photography is a photographic style featuring intimate, sensual, romantic, and sometimes erotic images of its subjects in a photographic studio, bedroom or private dressing room environment, primarily intended for the private enjoyment of the subject and their romantic partners.”
What that definition fails to capture though is that boudoir is also a transformative, empowering, and confidence-building experience. It’s one that can offer a newfound sense of ownership over your body. To say that boudoir is ‘just about taking sexy photos’ would be the understatement of the century.
I find it hard sometimes to put into words why boudoir is so important to me. I’m not even the one who takes the photos most of the time, Jasper is! For me, boudoir is about self-acceptance, body positivity, and exploration of yourself as an individual. It’s about getting completely glammed up and feeling amazing, but it’s equally about laughing your butt off and watching Jasper and I demonstrate weird poses (that look gorgeous in photos, by the way :P). It’s about the transformation that occurs between the time you step through the doors for your shoot, and when you walk back out again several hours later. It’s about feeling beautiful… and it’s something that every single person deserves to experience.
We started shooting boudoir photography because both of us felt so passionately about being able to see beauty in everyone. Being able to show people what we see in them is such a privilege, and the most rewarding job we could ask for. So many people tell us that they couldn’t look “that beautiful” because they weigh ‘too much’, don’t have the ‘right’ body shape, have stretch marks, are too short or too tall… society programs us to feel inadequate, but it’s just not true. We love being able to show someone a photograph of themselves and have them say “Is that really me??”... showing someone that they CAN feel beautiful inside and out. Those reactions from clients had such a profound impact on the both of us, and since the very first time we did a shoot, we knew we’d found our passion.
We feel so lucky to be a mirror for our clients. Not the kind of mirror that leaves you feeling lesser-than, but one that sees past all the perceived imperfections and shows you what you’re really made of.
The Transformation
This is by far the best part of the entire experience for Jasper and I… seeing the transformation happen in people. When they arrive at the hotel initially, most of the time, people are visibly nervous! Shaky hands and voices, a slightly flushed face… we see it all the time. Once they sit down to begin having their hair and makeup done, the transformation begins. We see them start to feel excitement when talking about what look they might want. Their anxiousness becomes nervous energy, and they often say how keen they are to see how their makeup is going to look at the end. They start to shed the worries and fears that were strong in their mind only 30 minutes earlier.
Then the shoot begins! The first few poses are simple ones to get people warmed up - we always talk you through them, letting you know the best place to put your hands, where to turn your face, whether to close your eyes or look at the camera, etc. When people see the first photo on the back of the camera, their response is usually total bewilderment and a statement of “OH MY GOD, no way!”. As we continue, the laughter often starts. We’ll tell them to point their toes, squeeze their knees together, and do all sorts of things that feel a bit funny at the time - but we show them photos along the way, so they see why we suggest those things! They start to feel sexy… and they start feeling themselves in a way they often haven’t before. It’s so obvious that it’s starting to click for them.
By the end of the session, we often feel as though we’ve made a new friend. We’ve shared an experience that all of us will always remember… we’ve laughed, we’ve had fun, and we’ve shared stories about ourselves along the way. We’ve done something that fully embraces and celebrates who they are, in a beautiful and vulnerable way.
Once we have a reveal session and show them a slideshow of all their images, their jaws drop. They see themselves like they’ve never before… how we see them. How their partner or loved ones see them. When they walk out the door, they’re beaming and talking about how they can’t wait to tell their friends about the experience they had.
So many of our clients are incredibly excited to share their photos online as well, particularly in the VIP Facebook group we run! It’s an awesome, supportive community where you can hear about the experiences of other people who felt the exact same anxieties as you might right now. The group focuses on empowering one another and creating an inclusive, body-positive space. It’s always so amazing for our clients to share their photos in the group and get an amazing response from everyone there!
A Piece of My Story
Every single person has their own story… their own struggles with self acceptance, body image difficulties, and challenges feeling at home in their physical self. If anyone told me 5 years ago that I’d be co-running a boudoir photography business with my husband, it’s hard to articulate how disbelievingly I would have looked at them. Picture a speaking-a-totally-different-language type of situation.
I spent most of my life avoiding any and all photos being taken of me. If I had to be involved in a family or group photo, I cringed internally. I hated almost everything about my appearance, and those critical voices were so consuming that I spent close to 15 years struggling with various eating disorders. Irrespective of two hospital admissions and ongoing therapy, the view of myself as inadequate continued to be as pervasive as ever. I continued to avoid photos. I avoided wearing clothes that I wanted to wear. I started to avoid going out and spending time with friends and family, because I felt that how I looked would offend people somehow. I was too large, too unattractive, and just not good enough.
Viewing myself in that light for so long left me vulnerable to making poor choices elsewhere in my life. I found myself in damaging relationships that only served to solidify the negative beliefs I had about myself. After one of the hospital admissions, I entered a 3-year relationship that went on to become incredibly abusive. I felt as though I lost touch with myself - both my body, and my identity as a strong person. In many ways, I’d forgotten what it was like to feel confident. Empowered. At peace with (or at the very least, not at war with) myself.
Therapy helped me leave that relationship, and it was instrumental in slowly disentangling the many critical thoughts I had about myself. But it wasn’t until I met Jasper that things really began to shift. He was a photographer, which I thought was awesome when we first met! And one day early whilst we were dating, to my own complete surprise, I asked if he might be open to taking some sexy photos of me. It was the most insane thing I had ever suggested, and to this day, I still have no idea what made me want to do it. I think I was in a place of feeling utterly exhausted by hating the way I looked so much, and hiding myself away because of that shame. Tired of feeling so disconnected from myself, my sexuality, and a sense of agency and control over my own body.
(Yep, that’s me from the very first boudoir shoot I did! There were lots more to come :P)
There was no going back after the first photoshoot we did. To my surprise, I loved it. I felt awkward and shy and unbelievably nervous at first, but after a while, I found myself really enjoying it. It felt liberating to explore that side of myself, and to feel ‘sexy’ in a safe way. For me, boudoir photography became a way to celebrate my body and the person I truly was. It meant making an active decision NOT to hide away, but to challenge shame and self-hate. It helped me feel proud of my body… for what it has survived, and the way that it continues to carry me through life each and every single day. And it reminded me that I had control over my body, no one else. I can’t describe how healing that process felt.
I also started to consider what memories I wanted to have when I was 80 or 90 years old. Would I be glad that I believed the inner voice telling me I wasn’t good enough, or would I feel thankful that I made choices to challenge it? Despite how I felt about myself at the time, I knew that 90 year old me would think that the 25 year old version of myself was pretty hot! And I’m so glad I held onto that feeling… that I was already enough.
Boudoir is so, so important to me. It offers me the chance to help other people feel the same things that I felt, and to have the same transformative experience that impacted my entire life. Both Jasper and I take so much pride in being able to show others how to celebrate their bodies, and to remind them that they really are amazing exactly as they are.
Talia xx
