I have been a photographer for over 10 years, and have been focusing on fine art and boudoir for almost all of my career! My intense fascination with it all started the day of my senior portraits. I went into that session with so much anxiety I thought there was no way I was even going to be able to stop hyperventilating long enough to get any photos at all...I had a close friend with me there to help make me feel better but nothing was helping. My thoughts were drowning me with all the ways it could go wrong and how I was going to ruin everything and not look good at all. Little did I know, that day was going to change the rest of my life. I spent the whole time laughing and I had a whole new view of myself! I spent that whole night taking more selfies than I had ever taken in my life, I just couldn't get enough of how beautiful and happy I felt! It was insane to me that something as "simple" as being photographed could make me feel so confident.

That photo shoot turned a girl with no clue what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, into a lady with her sights set on a newfound goal. Just a few months later I started college to pursue my dreams of skillfully and wholehearted loving people with the art of photography.

Fast forward 4 years (the biggest, most important, lesson learning years of my life) I finally reached my goal of graduating college with my Bachelors of Fine Art Photography! One month after crossing that stage and receiving my diploma, I decided it was time to dive as deep as humanly possible into what I believed in so I enrolled in a program to become a Certified Professional Boudoir Photographer (1 of only 3 in Ohio) and opened the Everlasting Truth Boudoir Photography Studio in Piqua, Ohio.

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Now, I will spare you some of the details of those four years i so graciously skipped in that first paragraph, but I think it's important I do share with you a few of my major life experiences, the ones that shaped the woman I am today. The ones that set my soul on fire and sparked the unstoppable passion I have for women. 

1. My boyfriend at the time and I decided we wanted to start a family and so my daughter was conceived. 

(not my smartest decision only a few months into college, however, it is one i will never regret)

2. Through pregnancy my body, like most, changed. A LOT.

I felt so much pressure to be sure I didn't gain "too much" weight. To be sure I did everything in my power to stop the inevitable signs of my body growing. (yeah, I really thought I was in charge of whether or not I got stretch marks, silly me) And lastly, once I was finally holding my sweet girl in my arms, resting on my new squishy belly, I felt so much pressure to "get my old body back".

3. I took my first steps.

Now, before I share too much more about this I want everyone to understand that at no point am I shaming anyone. In fact, for many reasons this again, is one of the turning points in my life that I would not change and am quite frankly thankful for. This is MY JOURNEY. It taught me everything about what I wanted for myself, my daughter, and really, the rest of the world.

One day, as i stood in my kitchen, I looked down at my sweet girl sitting on the floor playing with her toys and I just thought about how absolutely beautiful and amazing she was. Then almost immediately I realized how absolutely fu*cked up my opinion of myself was. For so many reasons (which I will spare you) I did not love myself...

It broke my heart to realize this was a fate that my daughter would soon know, and I decided that day, that something had to change. And so, I started to take my first steps on a journey to accept who I was, in every aspect, and love who I was, exactly as I was. I knew that it wasn't about changing the things I didn't like about myself, but rather seeing those things exactly as they were, accepting them, and loving them. I also knew I had to clean my life of all of the things that were a constant reminder of how I could be "better". Now ya'll gotta know that this sounds so romantic and inspiring but I need you to understand that this sh*t is no joke. I did not do this alone, I needed help, I needed guidance, I needed someone to listen and to be there when I was too far off the path I was trying to travel. This is the exact reason that I made it my mission to be that somebody and create a positive environment for other women. It is why I dedicate all of my time and energy into being there, being kind, and actually giving a sh*t. 

Through my own journey, I started to see things differently. I started to notice just how much hate and comparison and disappointment and disgust we as women feel within ourselves. It wasn't until I stopped, that I realized the depths of it.

This was the moment I fell in love with boudoir. 

I started by doing a few shoots in studios i rented in the area, then I wanted to be able to do it more often so I moved to my attic which I had renovated to use as a studio space (lawdddd ya'll shoulda seen it! I built all my furniture by hand and I may or may not have been permanently concussed from how many times i would hit my head in that space, or lack thereof). The first weekend I set aside to focus on boudoir I was hooked. The stories from the "attic days" will never leave my memories and they have kept me going when I was scared to take the next step into creating what we have today. This particular story is of one of the first women who booked with me for my first weekend shooting. It starts by her trying to cancel the night before her shoot. She had become so engulfed by her inner dialog and the idea that she was not enough that she could no longer understand why she should come at all. After speaking with her about her fears, she decided to swing by anyway and just hang out to see how it made her feel, no pressure, if she decided she didn't want to go through with it then no worries. After moments of hanging in my kitchen with a friend she brought and myself, she decided we could give it a real shot! (yes ya'll the nerves fade) But what she said to me during her shoot as i was showing her the images on the back of my camera, that's what really got me. She paused for a moment in the midst of all of the fun we were having to tell me that she has never felt comfortable in her body. Furthermore, she had modeled before but it only ever made her feel worse about herself. It wasn't until that moment that she actually felt good in her own skin. It was the first time that she saw a photograph of herself and it actually made her feel beautiful. She left that day glowing with her uncovered pride and confidence in herself. (YA'LL I WAS SCREAMING WITH HAPPINESS) I was so thankful that I got to be a part of that with her and I knew that I had to do everything in my power to bring that kind of experience and that kind of realization to as many women as I could.

You might think I am crazy, but I will not stop under any circumstance. I am here to change the world, one woman at a time.