Why We Boudoir!
Amy Panucci of The Babe Festival in Hartford, CT (but also serving Rhode Island!) reminds us of Why We Boudoir!
As a boudoir photographer, I hear so many women say:
“I would love to do that, but I could NEVER!”.
And it kinda crushes my soul a lil bit, because I have to ask…
WHY?
Where are we getting this information from that what you are is not beautiful enough or deserving enough to be photographed? I believe without realizing it we have given the power to social media to tell us how we should look and how we should feel about ourselves. Before it was instagram, it was magazines, and so on. There has always been people in our lives that we think define what beauty is. And as a culture, we continue to pass down to our daughters and the next beautiful generation of women that they are not to be photographed unless they fit this very selective description of what beauty is in that moment.
Stop and think about how powerful that is- that by believing this notion of not being good enough to step in front of a camera and have our photographs taken we are literally giving the power or our own self esteem to other people!! Strangers that we will never meet and who will never know us!
There is a buzz phrase going around right now which I really love:
Present over Perfect.
I love this for it’s telling us just to show up in life, be there, be all there and care less about attaining perfection before you show up for your own life and the people who love you. Cuz guess what, life goes by so freaking fast! This translates to our photos as well. How present are we in our own photographs? What will we leave as our legacy? To be totally honest, as a photographer I’m kind of sick of seeing “perfect” everywhere I look. I get frustrated seeing accounts that post only the same looking “perfect” bride. It is contributing to notion that this is how we should look to be confident enough to post photos of ourselves. And what of the brides that don’t fit this mold, does their love not deserve to be shared by the photographer they hired? Does their joy not deserve to be shouted from the rooftops?! *Spoiler alert* a lot of times what we see flooding our social media are Styled Shoots- not actual brides, not actual couples, definitely not in love!
You know what I find beautiful? Love. TRUE LOVE. Confidence.
And any woman who steps in front of my camera. What if every woman who ever thought to themselves “I couldn’t do a boudoir shoot because I have 20 pounds to lose!” thought instead “I can’t wait to accept the compliments that will come from posting a gorgeous image of myself, for people to see me rocking my REAL style and not my everyday work/yoga/mom attire! What if they had something to look back on in 30 years and think, “I feel silly for every worrying about my weight, look how beautiful I was!” or for their daughter to find and show her friends and say “I told you my mom was a model!”. This thought always makes me think of Cher in Clueless when she calls her mom “such a Betty” but see, her mom had a huge portrait done of herself… same thing!
This hit me on a personal level recently. I got the opportunity to finally photograph my beautiful sister. She was nervous going into it, but I reassured her over and over again that it was going to be amazing. So A) she went shopping for sexy outfits- which she had never done. This began the “oh this is kinda fun!” mentality. B) had her hair and makeup done, which also is rare, but totally put her in the “I’m doing something to pamper myself and it feels amazing” mode. C) TOTALLY ROCKED HER SESSION! I mean girl looked GOOOOOOD!!! I HAD to show her the back of the camera and her reaction???
“Oh my god, that’s ME?!?!”
YAASSSS- that reaction was worth everything. And then I posted the photos and they received 476 likes and 40 (totally positive) comments! Imagine how going from feeling like you’re not good enough, to FIVE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN interactions reaffirming just how gorgeous you are!!
So this is why we boudoir.
It’s fun, it’s confidence inducing, and people who love you are dyinggg to see you shine!!
Check out the original blog post on Amy’s website here.
Amy, we love this blog post so much. As boudoir photographers ourselves, we so often hear “once I get in shape” or “I just need to lose a few more pounds!” and it’s so important to us that our clients know that boudoir is about embracing themselves AS THEY ARE, and celebrating every curve and dimple on their body! There will never be a perfect time to do a boudoir shoot – just go for it, and remember, you will walk away feeling fabulous and your friends and family will LOVE the pictures!!!
