Why I Shoot Boudoir Photography — Boudoir by Jamie Peterson Images

A question I get a lot as a photographer is, “why boudoir?”. And it is honestly my favorite question to answer. I get to look back on my photography journey and remember how I got here, from day 1 of picking up a camera.

It all started back in December of 2017. I had graduated college earlier that year with a Bachelor’s in Psychology with dreams of helping others. After doing some job shadowing and speaking with professionals in the Mental Health industry, I was quickly turned off by how quickly their burnout seemed to be, with low pay and long hours. It just seemed like all of my hard work to get there didn’t mean anything anymore and I started to lose hope. I spent many nights up late crying to myself, wondering if I’ll ever find my calling, my passion. I knew I wasn’t meant to clock in and out of a corporate job that just paid the bills, I knew I was meant for more than that. I knew I was able to help people, I just needed to figure out how.

Now in September of 2017 I married the man of my dreams, and hired the wonderful Nicole Eistert-Eastman to photograph our wedding (I believe we were her last one!) as she also captured mine and my sisters’ senior photos, and I grew up with one of her step-sisters, so it was a no-brainer. Not to mention her work is AMAZING. She single-handedly inspired me to pick up a camera of my own and get those creative juices flowing! After we received our wedding photos I was in love with the way all of the memories of the best day of our lives at the time came flooding back. I wanted to give that feeling to other people that she gave us. Capturing memories in a time capsule to forever view and tell the stories on was as romantic as it sounds. What can I say, I’m a dreamer!

So my spontaneous little legs ran to Target just days after we got our photos back and found a camera with kit lenses for half off! You betta believe I bought it. I think it was $349 for the Canon Rebel T6 and two crap lenses LOL. And then I got to Googling. I wanted to be a wedding photographer. I took a few online courses from some reputable photography educators and started photographing my friends and family. For a while, I was getting a good amount of weddings and families and couples, but I quickly started to burn out of weddings. Weddings require hours upon hours of editing after a long wedding day. And it is their wedding day, talk about PRESSURE. I realized I do better socially in a one on one situation rather than group settings.

What was it about boudoir that made me want to try it? The beauty I saw in photographs, the confidence, the vulnerability. I saw women feeling the way I ALWAYS wanted to feel, and I wanted other women to feel that way, too. So I advertised to my friends and past clients I was going to start offering boudoir after a couple of trial sessions (which went amazingly!). I fell in love with the way boudoir made my clients feel, and knowing I had a huge part in that. I had finally found my purpose. My purpose is to help women feel good in their own skin. And I take pride in that.

Over the year I have been able to hone in my craft and get better and grow my business. Now I specialize in boudoir and typically only advertise for it. I’ll do other work sometimes, but boudoir is my passion and it is what I am supposed to be doing, that I know for a fact.

Thank you for following along and reading about my journey to this point. I hope my story inspires you to find something that makes your heart light up and fills you with joy, even if it isn’t a career, maybe it’s a hobby, or parenthood. I want everyone to feel this full.