Boudoir by Paula

As I sit in our "new" house, memories hit me. Don't get me wrong I love the set up in our house. But at times I miss the lighting and the amazingness of the old house. For those who don't remember, I have shot boudoir at our old apartment and our last house. It was a 100-year-old farmhouse and man, was it quirky!? But that house was where I said I am doing this thing. Regardless of space and location, I was going to start being a boudoir photographer. The lighting was amazing in our main bedroom... and a small bedroom next door... and a bedroom on the main floor.…

Everybodies Workshop was such an amazing experience. I knew even as it happened in 2018 that I needed to blog the whole experience... Three days that shocked and unnerved me in a good way. The second day of the workshop was even better than the first. The morning was a lot of talk about being really inclusive. Especially since all of us come with our own bias whether we realize it or not. I like to consider myself a pretty open person but there is still much that makes me uncomfortable. Whether learning the right pronouns or the right way to address someone. I am always too nervous about offending…

Long hair. It seems like such a simple statement, but it isn't. Everyone I talked to have a lot of the same concerns from what their body looks like to how long their hair is. It seems the shorter the hair the more people are worried about it. Not everyone does... but a lot do. Growing up long hair was one of my dreams. Straight down the middle of my back like my cousins'. They always looked so glorious and amazing. Where my hair is very wavy and messy and thin, it would get to a certain point and I'd say "Chop it!" or "Put it up!" It never lasted…

When I signed up for the Everybodies workshop in Dallas, TX in 2018, I knew I would be pushing my limits and being vulnerable. I knew I would be learning a ton and getting excited about building my business even more. And here we are a few years later, but I still want to post some of this amazing workshop. It really kicked myself into gear about getting with doing boudoir more full time.. The workshop was way before the thing called C*vid existed and when the world was normal-ish. Sadly Teri Hofford is not doing these workshops anymore at the moment.  On the first day, Kevin Lowery was talking…

Ms Lucy wasn't feeling a boudoir shoot this day but the lure of a water shoot capture her! She showed up to her session with a light blue dress that immediately captured my imagination and demanded create something magical. And then right out of the gate, the first image I captured. She looked like a princess heading out into the water. It was so dreamy! The best part about boudoir is that you decide what is sexy. If you want to wear a dress or lingerie, you get to decide. For our water location, it is a semi-private/public location. Meaning that we can move further down and be in a…

Ramblings of a Boudoir Photographer. I sit here on a Tuesday evening. My alarm set, trying to motivate me to shut off electronics ...went off about 10 mins ago. And yet here I type. I have been trying to be better. Not really a goal just a direction. A direction that let's me relax and be myself more. To have more confidence, to feel comfortable in my own body, etc. It's not something that I know will happen overnight. Though most of the time I wish it would. Something as simple as to go to bed and wake up, refreshed and ready -- with none of the hard work. How…

Practicing Emotions in real life instead of on a virtual session is definitely a little strange. Especially when you haven't touched a camera for almost 2 months or more. In 2020, I started a course called Stripped Down to learn about emotions and to enhance my photography. I didn't realize that I would be furloughed and allowed to work extensively on the basement and this course the week this course started. In the course we practice on each other and well, virtual sessions can be difficult. So I started to get nervous that when I was in front of someone with a camera I would go blank. That's when as…

In 2020, we all dreamed about leaving our houses and being around people. For photographers that sometimes can get even worse. There is a sense of depression mix with apathy about everything. I was furloughed for about 5 months. And for most of that time, I was remodeling my basement and dreaming of shoots. It was good and bad for me. Some days were easy and others not so much.  This was the first shoot that really made me feel like the world was getting back to some resemblance of normalcy. Social distancing and masking were the main things everyone was talking about. There were no vaccines yet so everyone…