From insecure to unstoppable: how boudoir helped me find my confidence

I remember right after I got my boudoir photos for the very first time. I wasn’t even planning on doing the shoot in the first place (I had gone with a friend who was doing one, and reluctantly got roped in), so the anticipation of my photos was…scary. I didn’t feel good about myself, so surely the photos were going to look awkward, and most certainly cringy. But boy was I wrong. When I got the photos back from my photographer, I literally couldn’t stop looking at them. Multiple times a day; at work under my desk, at home cooking dinner, doing a random errand on a Sunday afternoon. I had to keep looking at them over and over because I finally saw the power in that woman in the photos. And the woman in the photos was me! A couple weeks after the shoot I went on a work trip to Vancouver and I was sitting at a bar having dinner by myself. I started talking to the woman next to me and after we’d exchanged pleasantries and a few surface level stories I burst out, “do you wanna see my boudoir pictures?!” Probably not a comment best suited for a complete stranger but ya know what? I didn’t care! And I had ALWAYS cared. I didn’t care because I was amazing! And the photos proved it. I had it right there in my hands so I could keep looking back, again and again, and never forget it. I can tell you now from experience, when the proof is physically with you, it’s very difficult to disprove it ;)

That was 10 years ago. And when people ask me now why I got into boudoir as a career, my answer is easy. That boudoir shoot was the game changer for me that I had needed my entire life up until that point. Even though I didn’t know it. Those obtrusive and unkind insecurities started to melt away and I began to hold my head a little higher, began to believe when people told me I looked nice, began to have kinder words I used for myself when I looked in the mirror. I had no idea how this one boudoir shoot, that I wasn’t even planning on doing in the first place, would seep into so many different aspects of my life. The relationship I had with myself in the mirror, my relationship with my friends because I was showing up better and kinder for myself. My relationships at work, because I was overall just more confident than I was before. The way I carried myself when I went on dates, because I had more self-worth and didn’t stand for the normal bullshit I was used to from men.

Seeing myself through a different lens (quite literally), helped to shift my perspective. Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t happen overnight, but the process began with that shoot, and so did my passion for boudoir.

Many years later I was on a boat in Texas for one of my best friends birthday’s. Some of the girl’s asked me to take their picture, and as I was hyping them up and telling them how amazing they looked one of them said to me, “you are such a good hype woman, you should be a boudoir photographer.” And holy shit. Did that hit me like the freight train that I needed to be run over by. She was right! I was meant to be a boudoir photographer because I was wildly and fiercely passionate about helping other women feel as empowered and unstoppable as that first shoot of mine made me feel.

Let me tell you girl. We all have insecurities. No matter where we came from, no matter what we look like, no matter what size we are (I promise you, no matter what size we are). And as I start being more vocal about my insecurities and my journey to conquer them, I’m learning it helps people understand why I’m so obsessed about why I do what I do. It is refreshing sometimes to hear other people say, “I have those same feelings!”, so that we don’t feel so alone and isolated in our own thoughts.

A lot of my clients will look at photos in my portfolio and say, “but I don’t look like her. That girl is perfect.” But the woman in the photo who is being called ‘perfect’ didn’t think she was perfect when she came in for a session. She too, had insecurities. It’s so much easier to see those insecurities within ourselves, especially with all that noise that goes on in our heads. We pick apart everything, from head to toe, and never think we are good enough.

But I’m here to tell you that you are good enough. You are more than good enough. Because you are you, and you are incredible. Being a boudoir photographer constantly reinforces my own confidence while I see other’s go through their empowerment journey. And it lights me up every single time. I am here to be your hype woman, and shout from every single rooftop how badass and unstoppable you are.

After the start of the New Year I always hear people talk about their word of the year. The word that they will embody and that will be their mantra for 2025. I used to struggle with finding just one word, but this year it came easy to me. And it’s silly, and makes most people laugh, but my word of 2025 is feral. Yes, like a feral cat. But to me this word means wild and fierce. And even though some might laugh, that’s okay. Because boudoir has also taught me that it’s okay to be unapologetically me, and it doesn’t matter what other people think because I am amazing. This year I turn 40, and I’m wild and fierce. More to come on turning 40 in my next blog.