There are certain emails that stay with me forever.
This was one of them.
I actually teared up reading it.
With permission from my client, I wanted to share her words exactly as she wrote them after receiving her boudoir images and album. I think her experience captures something so important about this work — that boudoir photography is often about so much more than photographs.
“Wow- thank you so much for sending the beautifully edited pictures and the gorgeously laid out album. You are incredibly talented and a gifted artist. It looks perfect.
I’ve been wanting to write you to thank you because doing these pictures really changed me and got me thinking. I didn’t realize how many titles I had put on myself over the years about things that I am and things that I am not. Things that I’m good at and things that I’m not good at. For many years I just kept encouraging what I thought were the valuable and desirable skills - I work hard, I do for others first, I hide the things I don’t like or feel shameful about. And to that, I was always ashamed of showing my body. I was too busty as a young girl and I always hid my body with baggy clothes and turtlenecks. I did not think I was sexy, I thought I was fat (I’ve lost >30 lbs) and had big boobs. My narrative was my narrative and I carried it for years. Not sexy. A good girl.
When I was in your studio, I was worried I would feel shameful, but instead I felt free and fun. I felt like I could be sexy, and that is what changed me. If I “could” be sexy, then what other things could I be that I have believed I am not for so long? I always thought I was not a good artist, but have I ever really tried? I thought I was not a good dancer, so I have started dance lessons. I wonder, how many things did I decide about myself before I gave myself a chance to see if they were even true?
So thank you. The safe space you provided me gave me a chance to be free in a way I have never let myself be free before, and really deeply changed me. I cannot go back to the way I thought before, and I am so glad.
Thank you for this gift.”
There were so many parts of this email that hit me emotionally.
Not because my client suddenly became someone different, but because she allowed herself to question the stories she had carried for years about who she was allowed to be.
Not sexy.
Not artistic.
Not a dancer.
Not someone who could take up space freely.
So many women carry these quiet identities for decades without ever realizing they are stories — not facts.
Reading her words reminded me why I care so deeply about creating this experience for women.
One of the things I love most about boudoir photography is that sometimes, for just a few hours, women step outside those old narratives. They laugh. They breathe. They see themselves differently. And occasionally, that shift follows them long after the session is over.
This is why creating a safe, warm, judgment-free space matters so much to me.
Because sometimes the experience changes far more than the photographs.