This is my best friend. Shannon has been my best friend for over 15 years. Shannon swore to me for years that she was not photogenic, that she much preferred being on the other side of the camera. She hates her legs. She hates her nose. She battles with the same feelings of insecurity that I myself have felt... and that every single one of you have felt at some point in your life. Here is the difference between Shannon and every one of you that have not yet stepped in front of my camera... She felt the fear and did it anyway. She refused to let her insecurities rule her world. She trusted me.

This is not the first image I've taken of Shannon and God knows it won't be the last. The day we shot these images was a shitty day... for the both of us. We were planning for a week or so to have a "play date" and neither of us wanted to let the other down, so we showed up at the studio. I hadn't slept, hadn't eaten, was overwhelmed having gone off of medication I was on for years, and was a flat out, hot mess. Shannon had an argument with her fiancé, had been crying, had PMS (we all know how we feel when we have PMS) and felt "gross". We almost said forget it, let's shoot another time. But we didn't.

She threw on some red lipstick, messed up her hair, climbed on the couch and got vulnerable. She turned down the noise in her head and TRUSTED me. This is what happened. MAGIC.

So here's the thing- You can continue to tell yourself that you're not pretty enough, skinny enough, sexy enough- whatever... Or you can suck it up and reach out- tell me what you're afraid of, tell me you're not photogenic and don't know how to be sexy, or better yet tell me why you want to do this even though you're scared to death. Then trust me, MAGIC will happen.

If you need some more encouragement and proof, check out this post about why I know you can do this!

Check out this post about our Top 10 Boudoir FAQs.