INHERENT CONFIDENCE-San Diego Boudoir

INHERENT CONFIDENCE

inherent confidence woman in blazer with heels

I have been a boudoir photographer for years now. I have documented countless women’s journeys. Some of them starting their marriages, celebrating in some way, and some who finally came to the realization with how magnificent they are and were moved to document that. I have alluded to how much this work has inspired me in the past. But I am not entirely sure I ever sat down and combed through what it has taught me.

I have met women of all shapes and sizes with all different stories. I take each of them with me long after shooting wraps, and their personalities dance around my brain as I edit their galleries.

As I uploaded some of these sessions onto my computer I remember what it felt like to be around them. There is a certain electricity a woman gives off when she loves herself wholly and without suffocating dimmers. It’s the kind of light that can be heard. One that comes with inherent confidence. One that tingles the interoceptive parts of your internal senses. I have long searched for the right word to describe it but have never truly found the one that fits. Powerful? Yes. Magnetic? Yes. But there’s something soft about the whole thing. I have searched and searched and have decided that the word should be feminine. Because feminine should be synonymous with powerful. And that exact thought is the one you ponder when you meet these women.  And without this gorgeous career, I wouldn’t have ever been able to fully appreciate their force.

FEMININE SHOULD BE SYNONYMOUS WITH POWERFUL.

Watching women walk into my studio with the full intention on celebrating themselves, is something I will be in awe of for the rest of my life. It has brought me so much perspective. Not only their confidence, or their stories, but their willingness and eagerness to pose themselves as the main character.  A vulnerable, striking protagonist whose story just keeps beginning.

boudoir session white lace robe

It is the sort of thing I didn’t know mattered much until I started to realize that had I not been exposed to it, I might’ve made different choices or maybe wouldn’t have been equipped in moments that I needed to be. It has taught me to embrace vulnerability, stories that don’t look like my own, but always other women.

Even the ones that intimidate me. The gorgeous ones. The genius ones. The ones with inherent confidence, too.

And in the tiny moments in between shots I can see the positive impact this kind of declaration has had on me. The unapologetic celebration of women, their gorgeous bodies and their loud presences. It’s shoots like these that I feel so grateful that my gorgeous daughters live in a world where women are so heard.

So seen.

So powerful.

So…feminine.

Thank you for sharing your light. One that could never be dimmed.

xx,

Kim