I see this question a lot, so let me explain why it can be as empowering. As f***.
There's something powerful about:
- a woman at peace with her body
Women are consistently taught to be at war with themselves:
We must battle our weight. Fight the signs of ageing.
Surrounded by the language of violence, towards and about ourselves, reaching a place of ease with your own body is to have crossed a battleground and made it out the other side. Not without scars, often both physical and emotional, but standing anyway, strong and confident.
And those scars? They tell a story worth honouring.
- a woman appreciating her body, for herself
Women feeling the freedom to revel in their own bodies - to see them, and appreciate them not for the male gaze, but for themselves has been so rare as to be revolutionary.
Why? Because there's such a strong narrative around 'women looking sexy = must be trying to attract male attention'. But there is a growing movement of women feeling the freedom to express themselves despite the male gaze. Acknowledging and expressing their sexuality for their own validation and not seeking it from someone else.
- a woman stepping outside of her comfort zone
Our clients come to us not because they are already feeling confident, but more often because they aren't.
Scared of the session, scared of the outcome, they come along anyway - often only just - managing to push the fear to one side enough to do the scary thing. The fact it turns out not to be so scary after all is kind of irrelevant here. Because no one knows that, or feels that, beforehand.
Never underestimate the power of stepping outside your comfort zone - every time you do, you realise you can do much more than you thought.
- a woman ignoring societal boundaries
When I hear the words "I'm not sure I can do this at my age" just the existence of that sentence proves why someone should. Because 'women of a certain age'? Well, we're expected to behave in a certain way. (Anyone else noticed that 'ageing gracefully' essentially means disappearing from view?).
Being able to think "Do I want to?" rather than "what will people think?" is a genuinely radical act. Not least because, as soon as you decide the 'rules' don't apply to you once, you start questioning the rest of them too.
- a woman simply doing what she wants
There are many women who would love to have a confidence-boosting portrait session, and can’t. Not because of confidence, or convention, but because someone else is actively preventing them.
Time and again in conversations with clients they will tell me "I've always wanted to do something like this". And one of the top reasons they haven't? Fear. Not of the session, not even of confronting their own bodies, but fear of the repercussions.
They are coming to reclaim their own power over their own bodies having escaped from relationships that would have made doing so impossible previously. This is a massive 'two fingers up' wrapped in rare bravery.
So, can taking your clothes off for photos be empowering?
Hell, yes.
Much love,
Anna
xx
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