I decided that this was the year I would dream big and do the things I want to be doing. When I moved into my place in late September, I knew it had the potential to be beautiful and help me realize my goal of staging the entire house for photography. A daydream of mine was to have a place I called home, that was decorated in such a way that I could drop a model anywhere in the house and take a photo, and that photo would work aesthetically. It was not hard for me to imagine what I wanted- a sort of French, vintage vibe with a great mix of antique and mid-century furniture pieces. The first thing that I bought was a dusty teal tufted Chesterfield sofa, when I didn't even have a living room to put it in yet. The entire color scheme around the rest of my living room revolved around this.
My absolute favorite part of this place is the sunroom that has 20 foot high vaulted ceilings, with windows everywhere you look around, and look up. As a makeup artist my first thought was the amazing natural light and airy space, how it would be a lovely makeup studio. I painted the walls pink, bought an antique sewing table to use as a vanity, and started bringing in paying clients. Once they started coming in and complimenting the decor I knew that the house was ready to start hosting photo shoots.
I collaborated with photographer Emma Wondra several times here, and stylist Kimmy Schmidt. After having a lot of fun together and realizing that our styles were very similar, we decided to have a boudoir event here at the house, in these staged areas, and see where it takes us.
Having worked in clientele business a long time as well as having been part of a boudoir team in the past, I knew a bit about what it was going to entail. Its the slow season right now, we are all really struggling financially, and even if this works it will not be making us money hand-over-fist (not initially at least... girls can dream about the future). Committing to being an artist is sometimes letting go of the idea of making money and simply hoping for it, but committing unconditionally to having fun. So that is what we are going to do. This puts to death the fear factor of "what if this doesn't work?"
Our strategy was to get together and do a photoshoot with our hairstylist Kimmy as the model. We did behind-the-scenes makeup, hair and wardrobe styling, moved some furniture where we wanted it and Emma got some beautiful shots.
Emma was so happy with how things were turning out she said, "I want you guys to do my hair and makeup sometime." Why not now? So we did her hair and makeup. I took some behind-the-scenes shots of Kimmy doing Emma's hair.
Then while Emma was setting a timer to take photos of herself on my couch, I decided that I, too, was going to model for these promotions as well.
We didn't put too much thought into it, we just did our thing and had fun. But once we looked at the images of Kimmy and Emma it became obvious that our personalities were shining through these photos. Kimmy has on earthy, sort of Stevie Nicks vibe, Emma is certainly darker and moodier, and once Emma started shooting me she said, "Oh my God, you're just cute." It was interesting to watch that evolve and see that through just being ourselves we were going to be able to reach women with varying personalities.
After the behind the scenes teaser images were edited, we overlaid some text letting people know that "Pink Pearl Boudoir" was coming soon. Believe me, finding a name we all agreed on and that wasn't already taken was a giant pain in the ass. When we all said, "yeah, that sounds good" and found out there was no OTHER Pink Pearl Boudoir, we just about lost our minds. Creating and sharing these teaser images online was an attempt to perk eyebrows and have people wonder what was going on.
Working solo a majority of the time and being a generally bossy gal, I started an Instagram, a Facebook page, made an email address for us, made digital promo images off of the edits, wrote an entire information packet including welcome letter, order form, client questionnaire, model release and contract, and fully expected that I would be the one making the posters, fliers and cards that we were planning to hand out to local businesses. Then Kimmy said, "hey, I can do that." It sounds really ridiculous, but the idea of not having to do something myself felt very weird. Having the burden of it all, not be on me, was half-relief and half-worry. Then I saw what she and her husband Josh made. They looked beautiful, Josh was so excited to be supporting his wife, and before I knew it I had actual printed promo materials being dropped off by the two of them at my studio. They took half and I took half. Meanwhile we began sharing online, photos of the staged areas, the promotional photos, and getting inquiries.
A friend of mine from California happens to know the owner of a local lingerie boutique here in the Twin Cities and hooked us up with being one of their "trusted boudoir photography providers." I thought that was going to mean they would just take a flier and stick it in a book already packed with other companies' information, but they took every version of our material to spread the word and help make it a success. We narrowed our focus to locally-owned businesses, owned by women, who were likely to have a higher instance of serving clientele around the arena of Valentine's Day. Developing relationships with most of these businesses didn't really need to happen because they were already established, but for the couple that we did, it was great to have support and an understanding that this wasn't just dropping off a poster; this could make them more money and in turn make us money as well.
This is a brand-new venture for all of us as a team, so we are excited about feedback and ideas that could make this better.
Continue to join me in my adventures in makeup artistry, model photography and the stories behind them.