The Calm & The Chaos ~ Boudoir Educator

This past April, I headed to Calgary to teach a workshop alongside one of my favorite photographers, Boon Ong or Figuratif by Boon Ong (he's the one that inspired me to put music to my blog posts to amp up the experience!)  I had contacted him last year to see if he would be interested in teaching with me for a few reasons: 1) I wanted to learn from him 2) I knew he was the complete opposite method and approach as me and 3) There are very few Canadian boudoir specific workshops that happen!  When I reached out to him, I could tell he was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, but part of my charm is that I don't give up and I pester with extra emojis and exclamation points until people come play with me, so when he agreed I was suuuuper excited!!!  As we approached the workshop day, Boon and I checked in with each other here and there to chat about how we wanted the workshop to flow, what were we each teaching about and just how would 2 seemingly opposite humans create a successful workshop.  Welp, somehow we made it work.  We booked a stellar airbnb in Calgary, managed to convince 7 strangers to hang out with us for the weekend to learn about the ins, outs, up and downs of our businesses, and helped Boon celebrate his birthdayl!  Through the 2 days that we were teaching, I learned A LOT about Boon and was so impressed with the thought that goes into his art.  As an educator in the boudoir field, I always think it's important to let my attendees know that there is never ONE way to do things, and by having Boon and I, literally complete opposites, teach together, we hammered this home.  We helped our attendees understand a few key things: that you don't need to be an entrepreneur photographer to be a professional photographer, the best experience you can create for your clients is by being 100% authentic to yourself, and of course, don't put yourself into a box when it comes to making art.  The thing I like about having Boon as my colleague is his quiet confidence and ability to honestly critique my work....I have massive respect for this guy because every time he puts out new work, I notice something new...to the point that sometimes in the middle of sessions I will stop and say "how would Boon frame this/light this/pose this?" just to mix things up!!  I think he is humble in his acceptance of my accolades, but that just makes me swoon over him that much more! Anyways, I hope we will do another Calm & the Chaos in the future!Photos featuring me were taken by the beautiful and talented Shannon Smith of Artist Shannon Smith in Calgary, AB (so you should book her for your session!!)  She caught me looking my most professional, of course.

Winnipeg boudoir photography

Identity Crisis {Guest Post}~ Winnipeg Boudoir Photography

boudoir photography winnipeg

TRIGGER WARNING: THIS BLOG POST DEALS HEAVILY WITH WEIGHTLOSS, SURGERY, MENTIONS OF SUBSTANCE ABUSE & SEXUAL ASSAULT, AND FATPHOBIA

I have a confession. I am starting this blog without a hot clue what I want to say.Teri asked if I could share a little bit about my journey, weight loss, skin removal surgery, and my views on my body, and while I am SURE that I have much to say on the topic, I am drawing a blank and the reason why is very simple:Because body positivity is hard.  There. I said it.Now let’s jump in:After a fairly traumatic adolescence and early adulthood battling substance abuse (but that’s a whole other blog post, let me know when you’re ready for that one, Teri.) I found myself almost 300 pounds and hating myself.  I didn’t do much to address my concerns about my weight, but I spent just about every second of every day analyzing my body, my weight, and what I had done wrong to get it to this place where I hated it so much.Did I hate myself because I was 300 pounds and society had taught me that everything about that was shameful? Or was I 300 pounds because I hated myself? I searched for the answers. Maybe I was neglecting myself. Maybe I didn’t feel like I was worth caring for. I looked around at family members, was it my genes? Maybe I was subconsciously attempting to protect myself from the violent gaze of men after being a victim of sexual assault. Surely, I am emotional eating to mask the pain. OR What if this was a personal failing?  Was I just deeply and profoundly flawed and that was the hand I was dealt in life? Is Karma a thing? Is the universe getting even for all the mistakes I’d made? How could life be SO unfair?! I spent years trying to rationalize my shame around my weight. Standing In front of the mirror in tears, pleading with the universe to fix me.It was exhausting.Then through the magic of the internet, I found out about the Body Positivity Movement. This idea that I could be fat AND OKAY?! Well that just blew my mind. This whole other way of thinking was so exciting to me. I wanted to know more. HOW CAN I BE BODY POSITIVE TOO?!I followed all the Instagram accounts, I joined the Facebook groups, I googled the memes, I read the books, I watched the documentaries and to be completely honest,…  I didn’t really get it…But oh dear Lord, how I wanted to get it! I wanted to feel okay. I wanted to love myself.So I faked it. Fake it ‘till you make it, baby!  I walked the walk and I talked the talk. I shared the posts and I publicly celebrated me.  I liked everything I was promoting but I wasn’t sure that I was really feeling it at my core. Years of self-loathing is hard to just turn off. (Am I right?!) Nevertheless, I kept at it. I wanted to be enlightened too.And eventually the funniest thing started happening,… if you surround yourself with positive energy, reassuring thoughts, and inspiring people,…. It becomes you. You become it. Like, actually.I had not realized it at the time but looking back, I wasn’t miserable because I was fat. I was miserable because I was filling my own world with negativity every single day.As the positivity crept in and started taking up all of the spaces that were once full of hate, my whole world started changing for the better.But now that I wasn’t spending every waking moment analyzing my shame, what was I going to do with all this free time?!I decided I would take “fake it till you make it” to a completely new level. I entered a Plus Size Modelling contest for a local plus size clothing shop,… and son of a bitch, I won!I WAS FAT AND I WAS OKAY.Around this time I met Teri Hofford and I had my first shoot with her. I loved her light and her energy and I wanted more of it. I had a BLAST.  I started modelling more and I really fell in love with it. Teri’s studio became a safe place for me. I could be who I am, and my body could be what it is, and I never had to worry about anything. Unapologetically naked and unapologetically fat.I WAS FAT AND I WAS OKAY.I started dating again and men liked me. I was funny, and charming, and kind of cute even.I WAS FAT AND I WAS OKAY.I GOT IT! FINALLY!  I WAS BODY POSITIVE!As I started to accept myself more and more I stopped dwelling on the past and began focusing on the future and my goals. I wanted to go to the gym, I wanted to diet, I wanted to lose weight!!!…. …. ….. WAIT…  What?.... Is that body positive? … Shit. I was stumped.Like I said, Body Positivity is hard.So, I reverted to an old tactic… I’m going to analyze this and I’m going to get to the bottom of it!Why did I want to lose weight?Surely, to be healthy! Yes, that is body positive.  And I liked feeling strong and powerful! Yes, that is body positive too. The endorphins give me energy! Yes! I am still body positive!But also, honestly… because I still hated my body. I was still ashamed of my fat.I cannot say this enough… Body Positivity is hard!I went to the gym, I changed my diet, but I also made sure to remind myself of my worth every single day and that that worth was not determined by my weight.Over the next 2 years, I lost 100 pounds. I now sit around 175 (but I don’t pay much attention). I moved in and out of healthy spaces along the way. I balanced the days I paid too much attention to the scale with days where I just felt happy to be me but eventually I was struggling with a new shame. The fat I hated so much was replaced with excess skin that I hated even more.Body positivity is hard.Could I want to lose weight and still be body positive? That one was tricky.Could I get plastic surgery and still be body positive?At this point I was done analyzing, I was going to do what made me happy and I did not care who (including myself) understood it.With the help of some great women who had been there before, I found a surgeon and had my excess skin removed. The surgery involved cutting a 20-inch horizontal incision across my hips and another 10-inch vertical incision up to my sternum and removing 5 pounds of excess skin from my abdomen.  My belly button was realigned and the skin from my back and hips was pulled away from the muscles and stretched forward and to cover my tummy. This was not a minor procedure. The recovery was hard. I could not take much for pain management due to my past addiction issues. I could not stand up straight and used a walker to get around for 2 weeks. I was off work for 6 weeks and out of the gym for 3 months. I am told I will be fully healed in about a year.At this point, the weight was lost, the skin was removed, and I prepared myself to fight a new mental battle against my scars but the most peculiar thing happened. I LOVE THEM. These scars represent my strength. They are a reminder everyday of how truly amazing my body is. When I was almost 300 pounds it carried me. As I started fueling my body with nutritious food and self care it energized me and made me unstoppable. It did incredible things in the gym every single day that I wasn’t sure it was capable of.  It was cut up and stitched shut, and it healed me. I have nothing but MAD RESPECT for this body o’ mine.Once I was healed and armed with mad respect it was time for another session with Teri Hofford. I hadn’t done a shoot in over a year and working up to shoot day I was nervous, which in itself was out of character for me but I felt like I was a different person and this was my very first photoshoot. I have shot with Teri a lot over the years. She has seen every LITERAL inch of me but that was my old body. This one was new and I was still figuring it out…#identitycrisis. but I walked into the studio and it was the exact same safe place it had always been. One of the first things she asked me was how I felt about my scars and if I was comfortable showing them. HECK YES! “What have you got for wardrobe?”“I’m thinking nothing. Are you okay with that?”  LET’S DO THIS! In an instant, I wasn’t nervous anymore. It’s almost like fat Nikita and Skinny(er) Nikita were the exact same person all along (radical concept I know.)  And as always, (no matter the size of my body) I look at the beautiful photos Teri has captured and I feel proud.My mind is *usually* a safe place to be now. Rather than feel like a failure or a hypocrite, I accept that body positivity is a process. That it is something I am going to have to work at and that some days will be harder than others. I accept that that I am not perfect. I don’t have all of the answers and that my understanding of what it means to love myself is sometimes going to be lacking insight but I am going to do it anyway.There is so much pressure on women today to look a certain way and to behave a certain way. It can be confusing to navigate all of the expectations.  When it came to being Body Positive / Self Accepting, I was still trying to do it “right” in the eyes of everyone else and it took a while for me to realize that it is a personal journey. It is about dropping the expectations and just doing you.As Teri once told me…. The LEAST interesting thing about you is what you look like.

She Couldn't Stop Looking At Herself ~ Florida Boudoir Photography

Miss Dawn will go down in history as one of my most self conscious clients....which is ironic, because she spends her days telling other babely babes that they are awesome and worthy of being photographed.  Miss Dawn is a boudoir photographer in Florida and someone that fell in love with our lovely miss Sam and since she saw that shoot she knew she had to have a shoot with me!  Well, the stars aligned when I took my little Florida tour and not only did I photograph her, but she also had me stay with her and do a Body Image Bootcamp for her clients, friends and family.  We had an amazing few days together full of shop talk, me yelling positive things at her when she would doubt her babeliness, dressing up in her studio outfits to make breakfast, and empowering other women that joined us!  In fact, the morning of her shoot she came out of her bedroom and told me that it was a good thing I was staying with her because otherwise she would have tried to cancel her shoot!!!  Hey!  If that's what it takes....invite me for a sleepover and I will make sure you get your session done!!  It's always fun for me to try to use other photographer's set ups and Miss Dawn has her studio out of her house (actually the bedroom I stayed in!!)  It's always a fun challenge for me to see the light differently, have access to different furniture and have to think on my feet!  Well, despite her fears, she KILLED IT.  As soon as we got going with the first outfit, she turned it on for the camera.  Shortly after I returned home and had sent her a sneak peek (photographers are worse at peskiness than regular clients) she was blown away.  However, before she even SAW the photos, she had noticed a change within herself that had come from just doing this thing that scared her....and that's what I tell all of my clients.  The photos are just a bonus for you to remember how amazing it feels to do something completely out of your comfort zone and to document the moment when you shed a bunch of layers of societal bullshit.  The EXPERIENCE is what we want you to have the most of!  A few of Dawn's phrases after seeing her images included: "This has forever changed me." and  "DON'T EVER STOP doing what you do. You are absolutely impacting women everywhere!" and "I cannot stop looking at myself!"Scroll through the images, listen to the music and when you get to the bottom feel free to watch her video testimonial![audio mp3="https://www.terihoffordphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Only-Thing-That-Matters.mp3"][/audio]

Portlandia - International Intimate Portrait Photographer

This just shows you exactly how far behind I am on posting things....I am doing a throwback post to when I traveled to Portland with my bestie Stephanie and photographed some amazing babely babes in our airbnb.  The airbnb we chose for our little vacay/shoot time was perfect....the right amount of kitsch, cute, great amenities, and perfect location for pretty much all that we wanted to do.  On our first day of shooting, I invited a handful of babes and fellow photographers over to the airbnb for a play date where we essentially ran around in our lingerie and photographed each other and the models.  It was perfectly amazing.  Because we were in Portland, I really wanted to capture the gloomyiness that is standardly prevalent in January...HOWEVER, we had some of the clearest skies they have seen!!  If you have been to my studio, though, you know I am capable of making even the brightest spaces look amazing dark and moody, so 'twas no issue on this lovely day!  I photographed the gorgeous Kiersten Williamson, a curve model from the Portland area and Ella Unusual, a curve model from the Seattle area (which you saw in our 80s themed shoot!)  For the session at this airbnb, however, I wanted to give off kind of a sadness, a sombre vibe to our babes...almost like these sad housewives from back in the day.  Don't ask me where my mind was, it's just what I was inspired to create.  Enjoy![audio mp3="https://www.terihoffordphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Hot-Air-Balloon.mp3"][/audio]

Birthday Suit? Nah, Birthday SHOOT {Mexico Diaries} ~ Winnipeg Boudoir Photography

I was super excited when Crystal said she was interested in coming along on our Mexican adventure back in February and when I found it was her birthday during that same week I was even MORE excited!  Naturally, we had to do a birthday session for her and while traditionally my work does have people in their birthday SUIT, we just decided to do a tropical themed birthday SHOOT for her!  (I had already gotten her nudie at her own studio last year)  I am pretty sure Crystal spends more time in Sayulita than she does in Canada, so I am sure if we go again, she will definitely join in on the fun!  For a little extra fiesta feel, listen to the music, relax and imagine you can feel a light tropical breeze and smell the scent of coconut sunscreen, as you peruse these images:[audio mp3="https://www.terihoffordphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Hot-Beach.mp3"][/audio]