So I never thought that I would be doing boudoir photography. I actually maybe hated taking photos of people! If you can guess what I actually wanted to do, that would be crazy.
If you know me, you know what I actually wanted to do for my line of work when I was in college. The backstory between college and Adeline and Grace and how it all came to be, and the cliff notes version, is, I went to school, and while I was in school, I may have taken an internship with a fashion photographer. And he would go down to Brazil with his fake photography name and he would shoot Brazilian butts on the beach. And my job was to retouch the acne off of their butts. So yes, Brazilian ladies have acne just as well. But my parents were like, what are you doing? And I was like, I’m retouching. They’re like, what are you are you retouching? People. I’m retouching people. 🤣
I got done with school, I came back up here, started the wedding side of the business. And I had a bride who wanted to do boudoir photos. And I told her: “I can’t promise you anything. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never done this before!” And she’s like: I trust you. I showed up and she was gorgeous. She looked just like who is now Carrie Underwood before Carrie Underwood actually existed, because this was in 2007 that I did a my first boudoir shoot.
So up until this point, I actually wanted to do food photography. And I have been cleaning out the Benicia Studio and I actually found my old portfolio. So we had this class where we had one assignment every week. And at that point, I had no clue what I wanted to do when it came to photography. Because you could do fashion, children, pets, cars etc. And I really didn’t have a set idea on what I wanted to do at all. And then we had this food class, and I clearly… My food work looked completely different than everybody else in the class.
Somebody turned to me and they’re like: I think you should do food photography.
And I was like, okay. That’s how gullible I was!
Once I actually started doing it, I hated it. We would spend four or five hours on one shot of food. We did end up with food at the end of the day, but it was really boring.
So fast forward to this. I said I never wanted to photograph people. And one of my reasons why I didn’t want to photograph people was because (This is in 2001, okay) I said to myself, I cannot change the way that people think about themselves. I cannot make them like themselves.
And here we are today! And that’s crazy to go from one end of the spectrum to the other. Now I see women that come in that are super timid and quiet and nervous. Like last year, we had a lady throwing up in the bathroom before she started doing her shoot. I’ve seen everything! And to watch these ladies so scared the first few minutes of posing then they start to relax and they start to loosen up. It might be the posing direction or it might be the champagne, I don’t know! But women walk out feeling completely different.
My favorite part of the process is actually when women get to see themselves at the end of the shoot: they’re not retouched. And it’s really cool to see their reactions, because they’ve always had such a negative outlook on themselves. And obviously, not everybody has the same reaction. But I would say a good majority of women have something that they nitpick about. It’s really amazing to see women come in and go from shy and timid to feeling like they can kick butt and conquer the world. Here we are, what, years later, 17 years later. I said I never wanted to photograph people, and here we are now photographing women. Not just people, but women in their underwear, which is crazy to me, because that’s like the extreme end of things, when when people are sort of vulnerable. And I just have to thank you guys for being so vulnerable with me and for trusting in the process and seeing that this is how other people see you and believe in you and see you every day. You know, we always tend to pick on ourselves and find the worst part. But what if you flipped it around and whatever your worst thing was the thing that you tried to improve on? Or just flipped your perspective on your viewpoint of yourself.
I’ll share a little story about me and a friend right now. She has just taken up running. And she looks at me and she’s like, I can never wear shorts, my legs jiggle. And I was like, oh my gosh, that’s totally why I wear shorts! I actually wear shorts at the gym because I go to the front row, and if I see my legs jiggling, it makes me keep going. So perspective. It’s all about how you think. And I challenge you this week to change your perspective on something that has been a negative in your life and look for something positive in it. And then hold onto that positive and just keep rolling with it. Because negativity breeds negativity. And if you can change and retrain the way that you’re thinking, wouldn’t that be better for yourself and your psyche? And maybe a few people around you? I don’t know, maybe. Just a thought.
But it’s definitely been an honor to photograph so many women. I think already this year, we’ve seen over 68 women, and they’ve had a surge of confidence and a massive increase in the way that they look at themselves. So thank you for that! And if you’ve got any friends that you think might be needing a confidence boost or anything like that, feel free to direct them to our Instagram, which is @adelineandgraceintimates. On Facebook, it’s @ Adeline’sIntimates. And then if you are on the boudoir group or you want to be on the boudoir group, hop onto Facebook. And in the search bar, type in Adeline and Grace VIP into the search bar, and you can request to join. It is a female only group, so there is a no guys in there. So it’s a safe place to share images, thoughts, ideas, and a little behind the scenes footage.
