Do you ever look at my photos and think "I could NEVER do that"? 

Or maybe it’s more along the lines of "I'd love to do that, but I'll never be like them." "Of course they can do it, they're confident/strong/blahblahblah"

Come here, lean in close. 

WE ALL FEEL THIS WAY SOMETIMES. What you are experiencing is imposter syndrome. Feeling like you aren’t good enough to do the thing that you’ve always dreamed of doing. Feeling unworthy and unable to stand in your power. I'm gonna tell you a secret: we ALL feel imposter syndrome at one time or another. I still feel it, constantly, regards to my work both behind the camera, and when I'm in front of it. Imposter syndrome is when we doubt ourselves, fall victim to the monster of comparison, or when we put ourselves in boxes and make ourselves smaller because of our subconscious fear of taking up the space that we are entitled to.

Taking up space is your birthright.

Doing the things that call to you is your birthright.

Joy is your birthright

Self love is your birthright.

Let me tell you something. You are not an imposter here. There are no prerequisites to a boudoir shoot. If you are a living breathing human being, congratulations: you are more than worthy of being documented, celebrated, photographed, praised. You are more than worthy of doing everything you have ever dreamt of. You are worthy of claiming this space, exploring this side of yourself, healing past wounds, celebrating your triumphs. Celebrating your damn self.

So the next time you see a photo and think "oh, I want to, but I could never." Ask yourself why? Why could you never? Is it a real barrier, or a perceived/inner barrier that you just need to work through and shatter?

You are worthy.

I want to romanticize the fuck out of my life.
Because no one, not one person, gets off this ride alive.
So why not make the most of it?
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I want to dance in the rain.
I want to feel the rain drops on my face.
I want to feel the ground under my bare feet.
I want to feel the waves of the ocean lick against my body.
I want to take myself on grand adventures:
Across the world, into my backyard, deep into my own mind.
I want to laugh at the vastness of it all.
I want to remember that this is all we have.
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That there’s no time to spend doing anything less than what sets myself aflame.
No time to spend doubting myself, my abilities.
No time to spend at war with my body.
There’s only time for love, joy, laughter, and making the most of this wild ride.

Are you holding yourself back from romanticizing the f*ck out of your life? What are you waiting for? It’s time to lean into celebrating yourself and this one wild ride we have on this space rock.

So you’ve booked your boudoir session, and you’re super excited! The dust from the initial excitement settles, and now the nerves are starting to poke their nasty little heads up.

Those little reasons why you kept putting this off keep getting more and more clear, and you can’t help but worry “Is this the right time? Am I ready?” The emotions are starting to get the better of you… and guess what? That’s totally normal! And there are ways to work through it, so you can still get the most of out of your empowering experience.

Step 1: Know that it’s normal

I often like to refer to the boudoir experience like bungee jumping: the concept is way more terrifying than the actual experience. You’re standing at the edge of the platform, and you’re thinking “why the f*ck am I doing this!?” but then you take the leap of faith (booking your shoot), and for a few seconds you’re free falling, and it’s terrifying. But then the rope catches you, and it’s not nearly so scary: fuck it’s even fun! But heeeey guess what, I’m your rope! I will be with you 100% of your session. Do know that it’s fully normal to be a little nervous - but nerves and excitement are psychologically the same feeling. Try flipping the script and leaning into the excitement, and all the positive things that this will bring you.

Step 2: Get out the feelings

Time to grab your notebook or journal! Using stream of consciousness writing techniques can be a great way to release any emotions/tension that your body and mind is holding onto, and allowing to impact your emotions and mental state. Stream of consciousness writing is exactly what it sounds like, you just write whatever your mind is thinking. Get it all on the page, out of your mind and onto the paper.

Step 3: Set an intention

What do you want this experience to do for you? Boudoir is the most powerful experience when you are able to focus on an intention, and call that into your session. You could have multiple intentions, and you intention can even just be as simple as “doing this thing that scares me” or more profound. Whatever works best for you!

Step 4: Write down affirmations

Affirmations are such powerful tools to help invite more positive energy into our lives. You can use these whenever your’e feeling nervous, anxious, or anything less than your highest self. You can use them leading up to your shoot, and even during your shoot - you can repeat them back to yourself to be your own hype girl. Here are some of my favourites:

• I am worthy of celebrating myself exactly as I am

• I am strong, confident, and capable.

• I am deserving of joy, love, and pleasure.

• I am perfect and beautiful just the way I am.

• My body does so much for me and it is wonderful.

Step 5: Breathe or Meditate

Still feeling a tad nervous? Take a deep breath, hold it, let it out, and repeat. If you meditate, try meditating on your affirmations to invite those more deeply into your subconscious.

You got this!

I'm gonna tell you a secret. Lean in close.

You 👏 don't 👏 need 👏 to 👏 love 👏 your 👏 body 👏 to 👏 celebrate👏 it

That's like saying oh, I can't paint until I'm Leonardo Da Vinci. We all need to start somewhere. Celebrating your body and capturing your body through boudoir photography is part of your journey: it's just one of the tools you can add to your paint-box so that you can paint self-love circles around yourself like a mother-fucking renaissance artist. The goal isn't to leap into a boudoir shoot already loving the sh*t out of your body (although that would be f*cking DOPE - and definitely the long term goal). The short term goal is to leap and know that my team will be there to catch you. The goal is to make that decision to celebrate yourself, and through that action, be able to commit a little deeper to your self-love journey.

As adults we think we need to be good at something before we can do it. Loving your body is the same thing! You're not going to be great at it when you start out. THAT'S OKAY. You're learning, and building a tool kit for the long-term. Every small commitment you make to yourself, every action you take in love and celebration of yourself, makes the on-going practice of self-love just that much easier.

Stop thinking you need to love your body in order to celebrate it and respect it. Saying you need to like what your body looks like in order to give it love or respect is actually objectifying yourself. Your body deserves your unrelenting love, respect, and celebration REGARDLESS of what it looks like.

I shot this series with my good friend – and incredible mother-fucking human being – Portia Favro. If you don’t know this goddess, Portia is a professional dancer, mover, burlesque-glitter-queen, community builder, and light beam. (Did I just call her a professional light beam? I sure fucking did).

We shot these photos in under 20 minutes, in her tiny apartment bathroom. We laughed so much I swear to god I almost peed my pants, and creating this art together was just a reminder of what magic you can make in a short amount of time if you just set your mind + heart to it, and just let things flow and unfold. No fancy costumes, no real idea of what we wanted to create, just two dorky friends, collaborating and sharing some giant belly laughs.

I’ve been meditating a lot and calling in the Three of Cups card lately – I pulled it at the beginning of the year, and I keep bringing it back to my mind almost every month.

In the Three of Cups, three young women are dancing with each other in a circle, raising their cups high in the air in a toast of joy and celebration. They look to one another with appreciation, honour and respect, and are bound by their emotional connection and friendship. There is a sense of lifting each other up and celebrating each woman’s unique contribution to the group. The ground is layered with flowers, fruit and a pumpkin, symbolising the celebration of an abundant harvest and the goodness in life.

The three of cups is a card of creativity, connection, camaraderie, and friendship and sisterhood. These are all the things I miss the most about post-Covid life, but also the things that I know we can come home to and keep in our lives - even if it looks a little bit different. The Three of Cups reminds me that even in the most dark times, in these weird stressful days of a pandemic world, that big belly laughter and sharing in our creative connections are what will bring us back home to ourselves, and each other.

Thank you Portia for being an amazing professional light beam, and radiating that light back into my life and helping to infuse it into this artistic collaboration.

In the "before times" (this is what I will now call pre-Covid reality) I was spending a lot of time thinking about what abundance meant, looked like, and how to call it into my life. I've always been a believer of "the more I have, the more I share", so calling in abundance means a lot to me because it means I can share more with my community. 

In the before times, abundance to me looked like more clients, more travelling, more shooting, more work, more income, more stability. Sure, these things are nice and would increase my material quality of life. But my perspective shifted when I began to think about natural abundance. 

And boy, that assh*le Covid really just swept in and provided me with the "sit down and think" time to really appreciate natural abundance. 

We have so much to be grateful for. And now I spend most of my days literally just sitting here being grateful for all of it. (This is going to get a little woowoo but heck if we all can't use a little more woo in our lives right now). This universe and earth provide us with so much abundance, if we are willing to see it, thank it, and appreciate it when it comes to us.

Things that are in abundance right now if we care to seek: laughter, hope, dreams, aspirations, love, ocean breezes, wind waiting to caress our hair, rocks that need painting, friendship. 

I know for a lot (if not all) of us, the anxiety around the uncertainty of the future can be crippling. I am in the same boat as a lot of you when it comes to loss of income, not knowing what my financial future looks like during and post-pandemic. This can be (and is) quite scary and stress inducing. But when I start to feel the tug of panic wearing at the corners of my soul, I close my eyes and remind myself of the natural abundance around us. Of everything we have to be grateful for still. 

The universe is, by nature, creative. She is abundant with it! We will find creative ways through this, I am already seeing so much love and support in our communities for one another. Together, hand in hand with creativity, and love, we will find our way back. Economic abundance may seem far off, but we still have an abundance of love around us. And for that, I am grateful.