Miss D traveled in for her shoot and though it started out as a gift for her fiancee, she quickly realized that it would also be a gift to herself. As per her request, I am only showing anonymous shots, but lemme tell you this babe is super saucy and we kept the good stuff for her now-husband. In any case, I am extremely thankful that Miss D let me share her images and it comes after me having a conversation with another boudy babe that there are not as many middle-aged women in my galleries. While I would love to represent every age group, ethnicity and size, it is not always up to me! I take my client's request for privacy extremely seriously, so I will not post their story if they don't want to share and I find my middle-aged and older clients tend to be more private. Miss D, however, wrote a stunning follow up and was very eager to share (after the wedding, of course!) So without further adieu, here is her take on her boudoir experience:
I am 51 years old and I have wanted to do a boudoir shoot for years but I could never work up the courage; I was too fat, too jiggly, too old, you know! I was going to wait until I lost the weight and toned up. I've had body issues my entire life - even when I was a size 7 so this was something I wanted to do for myself eventually.
When I came across Teri's blog and website I knew this was my time. I had my consultation and upon meeting Teri I instantly felt comfortable and at ease. I booked right then. I was nervous when I arrived but once again, Teri made me feel so at ease. As soon as my makeup and hair were complete she told me which outfit to wear and we got right to it!! Teri's direction is so easy to follow and she encourages every step of the way. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life!!
I had my reveal the next day and I was so nervous to see my photos, way more nervous than I was for the actual shoot. I didn't need to worry - the photos were incredible. I am giving my fiance an album of them for a wedding gift. I've already had my gift - an unforgettable, empowering experience that has stayed with me, making me feel strong and sexy every day since! Thanks Teri, your talent is remarkable! Ladies, book your session now. You will not regret it.I can't say much more than that. Miss D is right...this is an experience that you will never regret and I can tell you that until I am blue in the face, but until you actually do it you won't really know. If you want a peek into how fun it can be, I am doing a fun promo/fundraiser for the month of October! Essentially you get to choose one outfit from our Boudy N' Beauty Wardrobe, get a 20 minute shoot (hair & makeup NOT included), and 2 digital files!! Contact me with your email for more info!!
These Years Are About Them, But This Day Was About Her ~ Winnipeg Boudoir Photography
Miss J traveled in for her Classy Session and we had a lot to chat about as she currently lives in the hometown where I grew up. This beautiful farm girl has a gaggle of her own and hasn't had a chance to acknowledge her womanhood in quite sometime, so she was excited to have the chance to feel pampered and have the spotlight on her for a bit. She brought some amazing heels covered in sequin which I couldn't pass up and I also found out that she does MMA! How cool is that? This little beauty is a perfect example of the quote "Though she be but little, she is fierce." Ps. check out how well our new rug photographs!!!!
Everything about my experience with Teri was amazing. I'm a stay at home mom to 3 and a farm wife. My kids leave the house all looking like superstars and I follow behind in sweats, a bun and no make up. That's always been okay for me because these years are about them. But being at Teri's, I got to be the attention. I was pampered and got to step out of my mommy shoes and just be a women again. I needed to remind myself that even though all my focus is on them it's okay if sometimes it's on me. And my husband will be very happy with the outcome!
I wholeheartedly agree. Her husband will be VERY pleased with these images, but more importantly Miss J was very pleased with her images and the overall experience. I think it's really easy for babes to forget they are women when they are focusing on just keeping their babies alive and healthy! So many of my clients are moms and wives, used to putting themselves last, but it is also important to take a few hours a week to remember who you are a woman and human. That may mean hiring a babysitter, locking yourself in the bathroom, putting on mascara while you are in the car parked outside your kids' school...SOMETHING. And when you have a few more hours, come see us and we will get you feeling all sexy, glammed up, feminine, and what not.
She Allowed Herself to Feel Sexy ~ Winnipeg Boudoir Photography
Miss R is one of the most beautiful human beings I have ever met. I had the pleasure of meeting her at my very first empowerment project back in the day and then we have seen each other a few times after that. We learned a lot about each other at our Body Positivity Roundtable and as someone who is in the same profession as me, we have quite a bit in common. This babe is a talented photog and creative person with a big heart. After our body image conversation, I knew that this session was going to mean a lot to her.
Miss R transformed in front of the camera. She definitely brought her A-game and killed her session. And when I found out how flexible she was, there was no stopping us! More importantly she exclaims that her boudoir experience was "MIND NUMBINGLY FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC" and her story is something you are definitely going to want to read!
Let me start by saying sentences were the hardest thing to form while having my reveal… only words, two or three at a time, were producing out of my mouth. “Holy shit” seemed to be my preferred combination!
What interested me the most during this time though, was how every time I fell in love with a picture and became happy, I almost immediately began telling myself to “calm down and stop being narcissistic”. I felt like I wasn’t allowed to be in love with my photos… wasn’t allowed to be in love with myself because I was being vain or self-absorbed . Then the next photo would pop up and I would go through that cycle again. I felt like I wasn’t allowed to be pretty, sexy or beautiful in these photos until someone else told me. Which, let me tell you, Teri and Jill were DEFINITELY letting me know!
But why? Why did I feel like I needed that validation, that permission? It wasn’t until I took a step back half way through my photos that I realized, all I needed was to feel as happy as I was. I am allowed to think I am gorgeous, I am allowed to believe that I don’t just look good because “these are professional photos”. I look beautiful, simply because, I am.
Another thing that interested me, no… rather, what SURPRISED me, was that I didn’t find myself nit-picking at my body. I wasn’t looking for things I didn’t like or looking for the things I “know’ are there that I don’t like. I didn’t find myself comparing myself in my head to my friends (as I normally do), or wishing that my body looked like someone else’s or wishing that I had “just lost 5 more pounds” for the shoot. I was more than happy just being me, having the body I have right in this moment. And let me tell yeah, just how FUCKING empowering that was.
I always worry about how people (even my friends and family) look at me and 100% of the time I think everyone just looks at me and thanks their lucky stars they don’t have my body. That they feel they can rest easy knowing they don’t have my body and don’t look like me or don’t weigh what I weigh etc…. But not this day, this day I thanked my lucky stars I have this body in all of its Goddess Queen like glory.
After my shoot, literally on the way out of Teri’s studio, I ironically came across this quote that I feel sums up my whole experience with my boudoir shoot. “The woman who does not require validation from anyone is the most feared individual on the planet” – Mohadesa Najumi
I know without a doubt, that the battle Miss R was having during her reveal is one that many women go through. This is why it is so important to me that we communicate after the reveal slideshow. Whatever the reaction is, it is completely normal! For so long we look to other people for validation of our beauty, but I think the world is coming around to the fact that we don't NEED to do that anymore. It is not narcisstic for you to love yourself and tell yourself you are beautiful...in fact, it is HEALTHY to do so. It is not shameful for you to appreciate your assets and your Goddess-like nature. It is important. I need all of you babes that relate to Miss R's self-conversations to stop right now and say "I'm beautiful and I am worthy and I am a Goddess....and it's okay that I am saying this."
She Became Proud Of the Woman She Was ~ Winnipeg Boudoir Photographer
Oh, beautiful Miss T! This lady's soul is just as beautiful as her sparkling, ocean-blue eyes! This has been her third experience in front of my lens and every time we shoot, I feel that we uncover another layer of this babe, getting her one step closer to recognizing her awesomeness. You can check out her first shoot here, second shoot here, and now her current one below. Even more awesome than the images, is the dissection of her feelings towards every boudoir experience she has had, so take a read below:
I have been blessed to have had three shoots with you now, but each shoot has been so different – physically and emotionally.
The first shoot I booked after working with a Health Coach, particularly in regards to self confidence and self esteem. After our six months together, she recommended that I continue working on myself by going outside of my comfort zone (VERY outside of my comfort zone) and book a shoot with you. I did and was so extremely nervous that I didn’t sleep for two nights before the shoot. I did not tell my husband what I was doing, which made “sneaking around” even more stressful! We did the shoot, and in all of Teri's professionalism, she made me comfortable and relaxed. When I received my book, I was very happy with the pictures, but honestly a little embarrassed that I had done that.
The second time was initiated by Teri when she asked me to be part of her New Year's photo shoot. I was truly honoured to be a part of that, but was unbelievably nervous as I was meeting and working with other unbelievably gorgeous ladies that I had admired on Teri's website. They were all professional, knew what they were doing, and were about 20 years younger than me! While I was getting my hair and makeup done, I was thinking of excuses I could make to escape the photo shoot! It ended up being tons of fun, but I continually felt like the odd one out (nothing to do with Teri at all – definitely all in my head!).
So here comes the third shoot. This was spurred on by Teri's Leap Day special – completely a spur of the moment decision on my part. I told my husband what I was going to do and it was really special to have the two of us involved in the prep – what type of pictures, outfits, etc. I was really excited to move forward with this shoot and ended up having an awesome day in the studio. I felt comfortable and confident that day, mostly thanks to Teri. When I received the link to my gallery, I was nervous. I didn’t know if I wanted to see the pictures, let alone have my husband look at them. It took a couple of days for me to get up the nerve to tell him that I had them and asked him if he wanted to see them. We sat down together and opened the link. The first few shots I felt myself being critical – noticing the rolls here and the wrinkles there. I felt embarrassed to have my husband seeing this and questioned myself on why I did it. But as the slideshow continued, my mindset started to change and I began remembering the actual photo shoot day. I found myself telling bits and pieces of our shoot, little things I remembered or things that we said. As the conversation continued and the slideshow kept going, I felt myself overcome by the feelings that I had on the shoot day. Fun, laughter, confidence, self esteem…………it was almost a surreal moment, as I felt that I was reliving that day. As we continued through the pictures, I started picking out positive things on the pictures and feeling proud and confident that THAT WAS ME! After the first look through, I had to leave the room to take a moment, as I was feeling quite overwhelmed. My husband went through the pictures again and flagged his favourites. When I came back and looked through again, my favourites were almost identical to his. He suggested that we should frame some and put them up in our bedroom. Amazingly I agreed………my first album is hidden in a drawer in our room so this is a HUGE step for me.
So again, Ms. Teri – you have brought me to another level in my journey to self-esteem and confidence………and you have given me the journey in photos…………where I can look back when I am not in a good place and remember how you helped me to feel on that day………..and where I can look back when I am in a good place and be proud of the woman that I am!
I believe that the women I meet are never by accident and there is a reason they come into my life or I, into theirs. Miss T is no exception and now that we have been through so much soul searching together (and even joined her and her family for dinner!), I feel as though we are more than just client-photographer. Miss T, Jill and I are working on something super exciting for the Boudy Babes in 2017 so stay tuned for that! And remember, your first boudoir session is really just the beginning to peeling away those layers.
She Didn't Feel Sexy {Minneapolis Diaries} ~ International Boudoir Photographer
Miss A and I spent a lot of time together while in Minneapolis because she wanted to put herself into her clients' shoes, but also she wanted to get her mentorship on! I had the pleasure of photographing her in my gorgeous AirBNB and then hanging with her at her awesome Minneapolis studio! This babe was nervous, but also incredibly saucy once we started shooting! She totally gets my mission and promotes the same female empowerment at her boudoir studio, focusing on shooting ladies with curves. Both of us talked about how it was important for there to be diversity of body types in the media, and since we are technically the "media" we could help make this change! So, without further adieu, here is Miss A and her beautiful story.
I loved the experience and just the feeling of confidence afterwards and knowing that I have done this not only for myself but also for my clients when I photograph them. 
I was so scared and nervous and seriously thought that she couldn't bring out sexy in me because I don't feel that way... I sometimes feel cute or silly but not sexy and beautiful. And to be okay with my body, which is a size 28 and to actually see it being strong and holding those poses {which were hard work) and yet I could do it even at my size!
Overall, the experience really had me thinking and re-evaluating my body and how I perceive myself! Thank you for letting me see a different side of me and pushing me out of my comfort zone!
Not only did this babe kill it, but she now knows exactly what her clients feel: before, during, and after the shoot. You can see Miss A's own bog post about her experience here! I cannot wait to see her business grow! This is why I love, love, love to do mentorships (or teritorials as I call them)!! I, as one person, can only empower so many people, but if I can mentor and educate photographers to help them go forth and empower women, then so many more women will have their lives changed!! So, if you are a photographer wanting to impact more women and do more with your business, let me know or if you are a client who is ready to take the leap and do something you will NEVER regret, shoot me an email!