Boudoir Albums for Sexually Empowered Women

This spring I ran an empowerment marathon where a bunch of women participated in a portrait session to empower their sexual selves.
The guidelines were:

“You might feel strong and bold, subtle and sweet, or edgy and kinky. ALL of it is OK. None of it gets judged.
You can have your portrait taken just for yourself, for your lover, or for any other reason you see fit. (Heck, have it taken as an eff-you to beauty standards, mainstream media & anyone else who ever made you feel anything less than perfect)

Shave your legs, or dont. Just come as you feel comfortable, and leave knowing you faced the mirror and loved yourself completely – I’ll give you photographic evidence of that love. Post baby bellies, stretch marks, wiggly bits ALL WELCOME.”

The idea behind the session was to give sexually empowered women a place to express themselves, or to reclaim their sexuality, and the marathon was a huge success. I had SO MANY beautiful conversations with the participants about beauty, sexuality, self-esteem, femininity and what it means to be a woman in the modern world. So it was a really eye opening experience for me, when I delved into a conversation with a client who said she was trying to be supportive of one of her friends who constantly seemed to be manipulating her  body. I realized that I had a lot of my own judgments about other women, and myself. I noticed myself saying over again, I don’t want to be a “fake woman” I want to love my natural body, but in doing that had somehow maybe put down those who enjoy fake lashes, and nails and spray tans and fake breasts.  After the session I decided that I really shouldn’t judge anything Im not willing to try myself, so I went out to a nail salon and got a set of acrylic nails.

When I got to the salon the woman (who barely spoke English at all), really tried to encourage me to go for nice soft pink nails. Much to her chagrin I requested
“Boss Bitch” nails. I wanted them long, black, matte, filed to a point with golden bows on my middle fingers. It was incredible how the nails transformed me! First I really got a sense of female camaraderie just sitting there in the salon. In a world that is often cold, harsh, judgmental, and can be crushing towards women, the salon was a place of refuge. Women went there to be with other women. To feel understood. To feel beautiful. There was a silent sisterhood in the salon. A community. It didn’t matter how fat you were, or if you had hairy legs or pimples or were wrinkled, you could just relax and paint your toes and feel pretty and pampered for an hour. It was actually a really beautiful experience. The second half of my experience was amazing because I really owned those nails. I spent my days listening to Rihanna and Beyonce, and feeling strong and powerful pointing my claws at strangers as I sang out loud in my car. I took up a no-bullshit mentality for a good long two weeks. I started to feel like I did have claws and I didn’t have to put up with anything that made me unhappy. It was almost like putting on a costume and getting into character, and to be honest it was fun! Now, to be totally honest I’d never do it again. I couldn’t type, I couldn’t text. I couldn’t open a can of pop or load the dishes without dropping and breaking them. They actually hurt my fingers, and I’m still recovering from the damage they caused to my nail surfaces almost three months later, BUT the important thing was I challenged myself to have an experience, and I came out the other side of it feeling less judgmental and more accepting of other women (and more importantly, myself). Im so grateful to the women who participated in the Empowerment Marathon. You all pushed me to shed my own ideas about beauty and sexuality and femininity and I feel like I have grown so much. It was an absolute pleasure to run the session, and I’m sooo happy everyone was pleased with their pictures!

Here’s an album from one of the sessions below.

Album details:
Size: 5×5 Hand Mounted Mini-Album
Material: Midnight Black Brocade Silk
Features: 10 Spreads | 20 Pages

Thanks for stopping by our blog! We are Brad and Kendra Coupland. We are a couple of award winning Vancouver wedding photographers who travel across Canada documenting weddings and love stories from coast to coast. We have also shot destination weddings around the globe, and our photographic travels have taken us France, to Indonesia, to Cuba, to Barbados and all across North America. We have been ranked as two of the Top Twenty Wedding Photographers in Canada by the Professional Wedding Photographers of Canada, have won awards from the prestigious Fearless Photographers Association, ISPWP, and we have been the recipient of the Couple’s Choice Award from Wedding Wire a whopping 5 times, and recently were a two time finalist at the 2015 BC Wedding Awards.

We are now booking for 2017, but still have a limited amount of space available for 2016 weddings. If you’d like to learn more about our services and products don’t be shy to inquire. You can reach us by clicking the contact button above, or emailing us at info[at]lovetreephotography.ca. We look forward to hearing from you!