How did you get here?

Many of my clients ask me, at some point during their visit, “So, you take booty photos for a living.. how did you get into all this?”

Since vulnerability in my own life is something I’m relearning, I figured I’d take the time to share with you my passion for photography and how my boudoir business came to be. It’s been a wild ride.

My interest in photography initially started when I was about nine years old. My mom’s best friend regularly watched us while she went to work, and was, at the time, a photography student at the University of Akron. One day when my sister and I were around 8 and 9 years old, she did our hair for us, straightened my natural curls, put us in cute outfits and took us into her yard for a photoshoot. The next time she watched us, she had these beautiful black and white portraits printed and I just thought they were amazing. It’s kind of sweet in hindsight that she got us all dolled up, photographed us, made gorgeous prints from her work, and now - I’m doing the same thing with all of you.

After that, I eventually became interested in other art forms, taking classes at a community center from time to time. We worked with watercolor paints, learned a little about charcoal drawing and I spent Wednesday afternoons painting ceramics at our elementary after school program. While I did enjoy all of it, photography was the creative interest and outlet that continuously reappeared in my life. If I wasn’t drawing, painting something, or binging 90’s Nickelodeon cartoons, you could find me outside in the woods, or hanging with the old lady next door, soaking up all the information she would tell me about the flowers in her garden. Ya’ll know I come alive when we shoot outside. It’s safe to say my childhood has heavily influenced my creativity as an adult. Aside from the photoshoots my sister and I had with my mom’s friend, photography wasn’t’ an active part of my life again until I was about 16 or 17. This was the early 2000’s. I’m sure all of you remember those disposable point and shoot cameras and the one-hour photo service. I fucking loved that shit! I was constantly saving my allowance or lunch money to get them and was so excited to pick my prints up when they were ready.

Only a few years later, as a young new mom who needed a creative outlet, her own money and something to help keep my identity outside of motherhood, I accepted a seasonal job at a Picture People studio in the mall. It was a corporate studio that specialized in childhood milestones and large groups for family portraits. You know - 15-20 family members all wearing jeans and white t-shirts packed into a small camera room, pretending to like each other for their annual family portrait. I know you guys remember that. After my time as a seasonal employee was up, thankfully they decided to keep me and I eventually went on to become our studios Senior Photographer, Mobile Photography Manager and assisted with local marketing projects. I taught photography to our new employees and continuously coached them, managed our printer and backdrop system and regularly worked with preschools to provide their spring and fall portraits. After four years of working there, the corporate photography structure started to decline, and our studio was closed. It was just my daughter and I at home, so I felt discouraged and just thought the most responsible thing to do was to get a “real job”.

I’ll keep that part short, but over a period of a couple of years I worked in banking, started nursing school and eventually started working as an STNA at a nursing home. This was responsible, right? Having a secure job and working toward my degree in nursing was nice, but a part of me just felt so far away. I hadn’t touched a camera in years, felt so out of touch from my creativity and it was killing me. I started assisting an old studio co-worker with weddings that she was shooting, learned a lot and eventually got my own camera. I spent about a year taking any photography jobs I could get to make a little extra money and gain experience, but that just wasn’t doing it for me either. I eventually thought to myself, “I cannot sit in this room and listen to lectures about cellular division when I could be putting my energy into something that challenges me and I’m truly excited to learn.”. At 29 years old, I quit nursing school for good.

This was a huge risk to take, and to be honest I felt kind of insane doing it, but I just had to try. I was new to working outside of the mall studio, so I taught myself everything by taking really bad photos (half of the time, for free), messing up, making shitty edits because I didn’t know how, and just trying again. YouTube was my best friend and I soaked up everything I could from photography groups on the internet. During this time someone asked me to model for a boudoir shoot. This type of photography was becoming more accepted at the time. I loved it right away. I loved getting my makeup done, experiencing something new and seeing myself in a really beautiful way. I’ve always adored women. Even from a young age. I idolized singers in the 90’s like Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston who had those big powerhouse voices, and I was raised around a lot of women who weren’t afraid to use their voice or get their hands dirty. It’s only natural that I would gravitate toward this work, and as an almost 30-year-old woman, I believed in the importance of celebrating sexuality, women and boosting our confidence every chance we could.

I dove right in and spent a few years renting hotels for shoots and learning everything I could. As time went on, intimate portraiture became less and less focused on women only, which I love. Celebrating sexuality, body image acceptance or neutrality, beauty and whatever that looks like to you, is something everyone should experience. I’m grateful that my experiences in life lead me here, and that I can use my heart, curious mind and creativity to connect with all of you and make art. It’s a way of life that I know now I can’t live without and it’s so much more fun than nursing school!

Thanks for being here along the journey and for keeping me going.

XOXOXO

Jamilyn