"Who Is This?": The Day She Realized Who The Real Enemy Was
"I wasn't happy with myself. I didn't like who I saw in the mirror."
-Miss A.
“So I said, what the hell, and signed up to do a model call. Because if Angela picked me, then maybe she saw something in me that I couldn’t see for myself."
Sit with that for a second. She volunteered to stand in front of a stranger's camera, half-dressed, not because she felt beautiful or confident or ready… but because she hoped someone else might see something good enough in her.
The Mirror Trap
Miss A. had all the same fears, nerves, and worries all of my clients do…
She stood in front of the mirror and thought, "I don’t like the image of the woman in front of me. She wasn’t skinny enough or pretty enough for this.”
But despite that negative voice in her head, she didn't cancel. She'd decided the photos would be a gift for her husband, "because he loves me for me." So she came anyway, scared and unconvinced, which is the bravest way anybody ever walks through my door.
Then came the part most women dread before they get here… trying on lingerie. Miss A said, “I thought it would be so uncomfortable to parade around in lingerie. I mean, I was putting myself out there to literally be critiqued by a stranger.”
And here's the line I want every woman who's ever hesitated to book to read twice:
"But let me just say - my body wasn't critiqued. The clothing was."
When something didn't sit right, it was never that your butt is too big or your boobs are too small. It was practical. "Angela said, yeah, that doesn't fit your torso" - not her size, the length of her torso. A fitting note. A styling call. The kind of thing a stylist says about a garment, not a verdict or criticism anyone was handing down about her body.
That distinction is the whole thing. The fear that keeps women out of the studio is the fear of being assessed - of standing there while someone silently tallies up everything you've spent years apologizing for. It doesn't happen here though.
I’ve shot over 1,500 boudoir sessions, women's bodies don’t surprise, confuse or disgust me. They are delightful and beautiful and necessary for the art I love to make. When we try on outfits, we're solving a piece of the photo, not auditing the person.
The Shift
We started easy. An off-the-shoulder sweater, nothing dramatic, just a good practice outfit for her. (Every session starts this way btw). Then we moved to her second outfit and set… and this is where she started feeling the shift.
"Once we moved to the green chair, that's when I was relaxing and enjoying myself," she said. "I loved the banter. We talked about music, books, and shoes."
That's what the actual room sounds like. Not a tense, breath-holding, “be sexy” performance. Three women talking about shoes, or husbands, or new babies, or why their boss sucks. Yes, the photo portion happens and we do get lovely, stunning, beautiful images… but it’s nothing more than you being who you want to be in that space.
"Who is this?"
When Miss A. saw her final images, her first thought was:
"Ummm, who is this?! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Those images were not the girl in the mirror."
And they weren't. Because the girl in the mirror was being narrated by a voice that had spent years "always finding flaws." The woman in the photographs had no such narrator. She was just there - relaxed and real. The same body. A completely different story being told about it.
This is the part people misunderstand about what I do a lot. I'm not airbrushing someone into a stranger. I'm documenting the version of you that's already there on the days your inner critic isn't doing the voiceover. The photos aren't a lie or magic or photoshop. The mirror was the lie, the enemy. The images are just evidence of who was standing there the whole time. Trust me, your lower back hurts enough the day after your session that you KNOW I didn’t do all the work. You participated, you were there and worked for it.
Habits & Chocolate Chip Cookies
Miss A told me two things that have stuck with me since her session.
The first: she's trying to unlearn the habit of criticizing herself.
The second: she hopes people always remember her as kind and loving.
And here's what I want for her - with all my heart and soul, and every chocolate chip cookie I've eaten in my entire life: I want her to turn that kindness around. To aim all that love she so freely hands the rest of the world back at the woman in her own mirror.
Because why would you give to everyone else what you won't even offer yourself?
That's the whole thing, really. The grace, the warmth, the kindness… Miss A. speaks it to other people all day long. The work now is just learning to say it in the first person. To stand in front of the mirror that's lied to her for years and answer it with the same kindness she's never once withheld from anyone else.
She actually already knows who that woman is. She met her on the green chair. She saw her at her viewing and said "who is this?!"
That's her. That's always been her. And she deserves every ounce of the love she's so good at giving away.
Thinking about your own session?
If you've read this far and recognized yourself somewhere in it:
You are not too much, and you are not lacking anything. You're just standing too close to a mirror that's been your enemy for many, many years. Come let me show you a version of yourself that you don’t have to fight with.
Miss A. already told me she'll do another shoot again. And that door's open for you too.
Reach out to book your Northwest Arkansas boudoir session
