Boudoir Session with Catrina Shero

Eastern Iowa Traveling & Destination Boudoir Photographer

Recently I took a trip to Chicago with my assistant Kasie as well as a good friend and colleague to go to Exxxotica. While we were there, my friend (we’ll call her Kay) set up a session with Catrina the morning after Exxxotica. We booked a beautiful studio space that ended up falling through last minute, but Catrina was generous enough to let us come to her home and take photos. It was definitely very out of my comfort zone since I tend to shoot and edit darker, but I’m stoked with the results and learned a lot about editing. I definitely feel like I needed something to totally throw me out of my comfort zone, and editing the photos from the sunroom were just that for me.

Kay had some camera difficulties during the convention so during the session we were actually handing my camera back and forth and switching out our SD cards. It was definitely a unique experience, even if it did make it stretch to the length of five hours total since we weren’t able to shoot at the same time. It was fun getting to watch Kay work with Catrina and note our differences in shooting styles and how we work with our subject differently!

Kay noted that I was a lot more hands on than she was, and since then I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve always known I’m hands on with posing, simply because I suck at giving instructions and being able to distinguish left and right. I was relieved to see at the workshop I went to later that week that I’m not the only one!

If you’ve ever done a session with me, I’m always either modeling the pose first, or straight up posing my clients physically. We get to be very close during your session! Of course, at the beginning of the session I always ask if they’re okay with me touching them. At some point, I’ve adjusted a wedgie for almost every one of my clients!

Talking with Catrina was definitely the favorite part of the session. Near the end, after we finished up, Kasie, Catrina and I spent about thirty minutes talking about the perceptions around plus size people and body positivity. Catrina is a published model and founder of The Femme FATales Burlesque Troupe. She wants you to know that you can be fat, and beautiful.

It's made up that there's something wrong with our body. We're actually fucking perfect.

-Catrina

I laughed so hard when she was telling me that if anything, her friends and her are a bit vein- and that it’s okay and we shouldn’t make people feel as if it’s selfish to think they’re hot.

The tears came at the end when she started talking about how her aunt played such a big part of her life and she never thought she was beautiful. I got emotional too at that point because that’s exactly how I feel about the amazing women who played a role in my life. Growing up and seeing relatives put themselves down and go on diets constantly really impacted my self-image, and I know how hard it is to want to tell them they’re beautiful just the way they are. She had such a beautiful portrait of her aunt and you could see the love in her eyes when she looked at it. I definitely want to make sure to capture the female role models I had growing up so that they can see what they look like through my eyes!

Check out Catrina on Instagram! You can also sign up for her Patreon to get extra access to content from her.

Check out the rest of Catrina’s gallery below! Click and scroll through to view large and uncropped.

Being able to talk to someone that’s passionate about what I’m passionate about was such an amazing feeling. Catrina wants her images to show women that they are worthy of love and shouldn’t be afraid to take photos of themselves because of their size. That’s exactly why I work so hard to make sure I’m photographing ALL people, of all shapes and sizes. I want every person that looks at my work to be able to see someone their size and have complete faith I will give them the boudoir session of their dreams.

Your size does not dictate how fucking beautiful you are. If anyone, including yourself, ever made you feel that way- they’re wrong. My goal in what I do is to make sure everyone who gets behind my camera walks away with a new view of themselves.

I’m so thankful for having the opportunity to shoot Catrina, a professional model. I loved her confidence and knowledge of posing. It made my job easy! It was my first ever time shooting a professional model, and I definitely learned so much about posing from this session! I’m also so thankful for my friend and colleague, Kay, who let us ride with her to Chicago and was the mastermind behind putting this session together!

Are you thinking of booking a session? I have a lot of spots filling up with the nice weather coming up! I’m so excited for beautiful summer nights out on location with clients. That golden sunlight is seriously calling my name! Contact me, let’s chat about your dream session and your journey of self-love! I’ve also just put together a new info guide for inquiries that is jam packed with good info.

Coming up in my blog queue for the next couple of weeks is my workshop I attended in Milwaukee, my time at Exxxotica and client sessions. Make sure to sign up for my mailing list below to get notified when blogs drop! I’ve got some fun things coming to my email list exclusively and you won’t want to miss the fun!

With Love,

Lexy