What was I so anxious about?

Have you ever been so anxious that you could not really focus, and your daily “to-do-list” of tasks went out of the window?  

If you did, then you know how I felt during the last week. I was so angry, anxious and so scared and I felt like a little hurting girl again.

WHY? No, it wasn’t a fear of Corona Virus.

Let me share with you a little story why was I feeling this way during a week of my birthday, where I should feel happy and appreciative that I am healthy and alive in the time of Corona Virus taking away so many lives around us.

When I was a little girl, and had to write a story, essay or anything on the paper, I was always told “IT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH”, or “YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW TO WRITE WITH SENSE”, or “THERE ARE SO MANY SPELLING AND GRAMMAR MISTAKES”, or “YOU are great when you speak, so how come you do not know how to write….?”, “YOU ARE NOT FOCUSED ENOUGH”, etc., etc.

Can you relate to that in some way? Has someone ever told you that you are not good enough and instead of trying to focus your energy on the things you were good at, undermining your ability to achieve/comprehend things you struggled with?

So, going back to the week of my 39th birthday (w/c 13.04.2020), I decided to take some boudoir pictures of myself, as a gift for my birthday. As a female portrait photographer in London I usually serve and deliver beauty portrait photography, corporate headshot photography and personal branding photography to women including photo shoot makeover. However, I wasn’t offering boudoir photography service, despite photographing few women before in “not strictly boudoir” portraits but close enough. Moreover, I wasn’t able to use their images from their glamour/boudoir photo session, as they were very private about it and I respected it.

What is this boudoir photography, you may wonder? I found this description on www.modelmanagement.com website, which I really like:

“Boudoir photography is an experience that a woman takes, a personal trip about love and rediscovering her own beauty. This style has gained popularity because so many women want and need to feel beautiful and unique in her own way. ... Boudoir Photography is all about loving yourself and feeling good in your body.”

That made me want to find out how it feels to be photograph in boudoir style and whether I would I have the courage to publish the images without being worried of what people will think of me. Hell yes! You know, I am pretty extravert and I like the attention.

However, what I wanted the most is to challenge myself to be a model and be photographed by myself at the same time. I wanted to see if I have the same skills of posing myself for the best features, as I pose my clients. And of course, I can’t photograph anyone at the moment, because of social distancing, self-isolation and corona virus guidelines.

So, I thought this is a perfect time to just celebrate me, challenge my photography skills and also release my creativity pressures of not being able to photograph for few weeks now.

I had my lighting ready, my camera steady, my backdrops and my clothing waiting for me to get in it. Kids were already in bed so there was no one to interfere with my creative boudoir photography process.

It was really awkward at first when I started to pose, but eventually I did let go of my learnt habits of posing and remembered all the poses I studied for few years now. I focused on enhancing only the beautiful body features I have, as trust me nobody is interested in seeing my post pregnancy tummy or my breast and cellulite in its natural, read “not posed” way.

My lighting was just perfect, and it highlighted only my best body features. But hey, I won’t say no more, check the results for yourself and let me know whether you would be courageous enough to post your image in lingerie, like I did. “Fear no-one” is my new slogan. 

Oh, we are here at the end of my blog and I think it wasn’t that bad after all. So, let me say “thank you” to Mr and Mrs Teacher from primary and secondary school as it turned out I might be ok with writing a blog.

Next blogs are coming up soon and are titled: “What to do with my boudoir photos after the shoot?”, and “How I felt being photographed in boudoir style by a portrait photographer “near me” (read – self-portrait by me in corona time; lockdown style shoot- lack of models!).

https://www.modelmanagement.com/blog/why-has-boudoir-photography-become-so-popular/