Jul 13

Jul 13 This Mom's Boudoir Photo Shoot

'“I’ll Never Be Beautiful Again”

Skip ahead to 2:15 in the video if you’d like to see Mrs. S’s reaction to seeing her images for the very first time.

Most women when they come do a session with me aren't sure if they will want to share the images form their session or not. Mrs S was very different from the very beginning. She wanted all her images shared, and the reason behind why she was doing this for herself spotlighted.

It’s common to compare yourself to what you looked like before being a mom and tell yourself that the time to do a boudoir photo shoot has past. This simply isn't true of course, but unfortunately it’s precisely the thought process that keeps many mom’s feeling not great about their self image.

Mrs. S had a theory that there are a lot of women just like her who were having similar struggles with the way they perceive themselves.

She’d seen a lot of women in my other posts talk about their struggles with this and she definitely wanted this experience for herself! The part she didn’t see on my website was what specifically mom’s go though in dealing with their self image after having children. She asked if she could be the example in said post if I chose to write it. I said absolutely!

To be clear, Mrs. S is not a special example of someone who has more courage then you do. She was very nervous to do her session and worried about the stretch marks around her tummy. She worried about her skin and her battles with melanoma. Her memories of what her body looked like before she had a child lingered in her mind.

Mrs. S expressed to me that is was very important to her that other mom's see her images and know that they can be sexy too. She not only wanted to change her own mindset, but help give other women the courage to change theirs as well.

At her reveal, Mrs. S told me:

"After you have a kid you get into this mindset that I'll never be beautiful again."

I know from my personal conversations with the moms I've photographed over the years about how common these thoughts of inadequacy are. I also know it’s one of the main tactics mother’s use to talk themselves out of a photo shoot like this for themselves.

Mrs. S wisely recognized her negative mindset and decided to do something about it. She could have given in to her thoughts of inadequacy and let them dictate her life and how she views herself, but she didn't.

Mrs. S did her photo shoot despite her insecurities because she didn’t want to perpetuate the narrative in her head that she wasn’t beautiful anymore. She wanted to prove to herself that she IS beautiful! I respect the hell out of her for that.

The bottom line is, I can talk all day about helping women change the way they see themselves, but only YOU can make the decision to actually do something about it. The myth that most believe is that you will one day find the confidence to do a session, and that’s when you’ll book your photo shoot. The truth is that most of my clients do their sessions DESPITE their insecurities.

The confidence boost typically happens after you see your final images because most women frankly don’t think they will look like the women in my portfolio. I thoroughly enjoy proving them wrong!

Before and After

Before & after from Siobhan’s boudoir photo shoot.

This before & after is super cool to me. In her before picture Mrs. S is actually wearing her beginning outfit for her session sans makeup, no retouching, straight out of camera.

The image on the right is one of her finished images. I captured this with just my camera after her makeover and some natural light I found around us in the cottage.

The big take away here is that beautiful images are all about great posing. I guide you towards poses that play to your strengths and accentuate your feminine curves. This is how I'm able to reliably direct everyone towards images as beautiful as Mrs. S’s.

Boudoir Album Design

For Mrs. S’s session she chose to have her final artwork presented on our 10x10 signature boudoir album. As is true with all of our albums the first page is a half spread which starts on the right. All pages thereafter are 2 page spreads except for the last page which ends on the left as a one page half spread.