wildbride retreats!

Back in April I announced an idea for a second Winne trip.  I knew that the Brave was a creative home for me, and I longed for another Brave journey.  But I also knew that this time I didn't want the trip to be about me.  I didn't want it to be just a sight-seeing trip, or a personal growth trip like it was for my first one.  So I had the idea to travel around and interview cool ladies doing amazing things and create a podcast.  I was really excited about the idea, but I also felt like something was sort of off about it, for me.  I couldn't figure out how to make the project really resonate with me, it was like I was working against the flow trying to get the project going.  I had planned on leaving on the trip about this time of year, but time kept slipping by and the project kept getting pushed back.

When I took my break from the interwebs and started dipping my toes into doing Wildbride photo shoots, I naturally was inspired to involve the Brave in my life again.  I knew that the Brave and Wildbride were connected, deep down they meant the same thing for me.  They were a part of the same story.  So I started thinking of how the two of them could mesh.  The result: Wildbride Retreats!

I knew that I wanted to connect with more women beyond the Pacific Northwest, but that everyone who wanted to do a shoot traveling to me wouldn't always feasible.  But with the Brave, I'm mobile.  I could go TO people.  So starting at the end of January I'm hopping in the Brave with Kristina (the loveliest redhead who you've seen on this here blog plenty of time.  My soul sister and luscious goddess) and driving down the West Coast of the US leading Wildbride retreats along the way.  We have retreats scheduled for the Oregon Coast, Northern California Redwoods, Joshua Tree, and Sedona!

 

The retreats will be on weekends, arrival on Friday, Wildbride shoots on Saturday, and leave Sunday, and we've got so much fun stuff planned.  Kristina is a certified Yoga Instructor and will be leading yoga for us to get us all grounded into our bodies, we'll be staying in some incredible homes (don't worry, we don't all have to cram into the Brave), and eating delicious food.  You can see the tentative daily schedule here, I'm so excited to get to commune with Wildbride women and have a healing, celebratory weekend surrounding the photo shoots.  Each retreat only has 4 spots because I really want the retreats to be more intimate.  I don't want to feel like we're rushing the shoots, or that I don't have enough time to connect with everyone.  

 

Also, I have big dreams for taking Wildbride even further than the Winne can go.  I'm traveling to Paris Dec 1- 5,  and New Orleans Dec 29-31, and while I don't have time to put together full retreats for those trips, I would love to do Wildbride shoots while I'm there!  If anyone is local to Paris/New Orleans or happens to be there while I am, please email me and let's chat!  I'm also dreaming of Ireland, Iceland, and beyond for 2016!  But for now here are the confirmed Wildbride Retreats:

Oregon Coast | Manzanita, OR  Jan 29-31, 2016 (only 2 spots left!)
Redwoods | Mendocino, CA Feb 12-14

Joshua Tree | Joshua Tree, CA Feb 19-21

Sedona | Sedona, AZ Mar 4-6

You can see all the info on the retreats, what's included, what's not, and the tentative daily schedule over at the Retreat website!  I'm offering an Early Bird deal for everyone who signs up before November 30 (and I also have payment plans available for early birds too, so if you're interested in finding out more about the payment plan email me!).  After that it'll go up to full price, so make sure to sign up before then!

W I L D B R I D E

Sometimes you need a break to clear your head. To reconnect with yourself, get your compass set on your true north, get the voices out of your head and listen to the still, small voice that is your authentic creativity.

This summer I took a step back. I put pause on, well, pretty much everything except wedding photography (because the show must go on). I had some really refreshing time to assess what I wanted, to give my creativity breathing space, to nourish myself.

I started going on creative outings, just me and my camera. I decided to shoot whatever I was drawn most to. I knew that I was influenced by other creators, and I wanted to reconnect with what I, at my core, was drawn to, inspired by. I also reflected on what I was drawn to and inspired by as a kid. Not surprisingly, I was instantly led to nature. As a kid I was always in the woods. I was in love with nature. I was a die hard tree-hugger. When I first started fashion blogging I was shooting all my outfit photos in the woods, or out in nature somewhere. Since moving to an urban area I've tried shifting my aesthetic to be more city-friendly. I do enjoy doing more urban inspired photography, but it's definitely more out of necessity than anything else. If I had my way, I'd be in nature 100% of the time.

It was time to make a shift. I wanted my photography business, my blog, and my work to reflect this authenticity. I found a new passion that merged two things I adore. Women and nature.

In January I started doing boudoir photo shoots. I really loved how they made both me and the women I shot feel powerful and confident. It's empowering to feel sexy and gorgeous. But there was something about it that didn't sit totally right with me. Doing bedroom-lingerie-Victoria's-Secret type boudoir felt...off. There was an aspect about it to me that felt intended for the male gaze. I knew that that wasn't always the case. Sometimes a gal just wants to put on some sexy lingerie and look hot for her own damn pleasure.  I'm so for that.  But at the same time, there was something about those types of boudoir shoots that didn't feel authentic for me, as a photographer and a woman.  I wanted to be about something different.  I wanted to create something different


 

In June and July I was hot and heavy into Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes Ph.D's "Women Who Run With the Wolves" (a book I recommend every single one of you read immediately. Or read again if you've already done so). I was feeling the Wild Woman vibes like whoa. Every word was like, YES. And I knew I wanted to make images that tapped into THAT aspect of womanhood. This wild, natural, powerful aspect of women's nature. No airbrushing, no liquify-tooling away "imperfections." Being powerfully sensual, feminine, and beautiful. I wanted to photograph that. I wanted to give women those images. I wanted to be a part of that experience with women.  And so Wildbride was born.

The name Wildbride came from the idea of women who were married to nothing but their wild woman nature. She belongs to no one. No one owns her but herself. She is betrothed to the wild within her. She's made vows to the wild woman in her soul alone, to her creativity, to her mental and spiritual health.

So, quietly over the past few months, that's what I've been doing.  Finding ladies who are like, "Yeah, all that? I'm about it. Let's do this" and then going out into the wild, stripping down, letting it all hang out, and making magic happen. And it's making me come alive. I'm so excited about Wildbride.  I've been doing Wildbride shoots the past few months, but now I'm officially pushing it out of the nest and letting it spread its wings.  I can't wait to connect with more women, bring more diversity in body types and ethnicities into these shoots, and even create Wildbride images with women beyond the borders of the US.  Everything about Wildbride resonates with my soul.

Women are incredible, strong, wild, sensual, powerful creatures. There is a part of a woman's soul that is married to the wilderness in a way that escapes explanation. We are so much more than how the media portrays us. Our bodies are so much more than meant for the male gaze to consume, they are sacred. We are Wildbrides and there are parts of us that will remain untamed until our last breath. Sometimes we squirrel it away because it's not proper. Sometimes we only let it out when we are alone. Sometimes we find a group of women who let us tear down the walls and get wild.


Instead of traditional boudoir shoots, I'm offering Wildbride shoots to clients anywhere around the globe.  I know not everyone can afford to fly me to them for a photo shoot, but I'll be announcing my travel schedule for the next six months and some super exciting Wildbride news later today for those of you who would love to do Wildbride but aren't local to the Seattle area.  
A Wildbride shoot is for you. Not for your significant other (though I'm sure they'll love the images we create), first and foremost we make these images for you. My hope and desire for Wildbride is that they aren't just photo shoots.  I want them to celebrate womanhood, to empower, and to heal.  I want women to have their Wildbride images to look at be reminded of the creative, sensitive, sensual, powerful, sacred being that she is.  

After the Jump there are a few more images that are NSFW, and you can always head to my portfolio to see more as well :)  Also: photo credit on the top image of me to Bailey, the lovely green haired goddess in the photo above.  The water was pretty cold so I got in all the way for some solidarity with her and she took some Wildbride shots of me!

my hairy body: an exploration of personal and cultural conceptions surrounding women's body hair

This summer I decided to take on a "project."  I called it a project because I didn't really know what else to call it.  An experiment?  I'm not sure.  What I was sure about was wanting to see my body in its natural state.  I thought to myself how weird it would be to go my entire life never seeing my body in an un-hairless state.  In an untouched state.  I'd talked about body hair on the blog before, but I'd never jumped into the deep end and stopped removing hair altogether.  I had always been an au-natural gal when it came to "below the belt," if you will, but letting my legs and armpits run wild was something I'd never considered for myself.  Shaving seemed to be, well, just something I did.  Just... because.  But "just because" seems like a really odd reason to do something for your entire life without thinking about it.  I started to feel strange about the patriarchal pressures on women and how they've influenced us in ways that we don't even think about any more.  I wanted to see if I could feel beautiful and love my body as it was naturally.  
Could I?  The answer turned out to be way more complex than I anticipated.  I went into the "project" with feminist spirits high, feeling pretty gung-ho and "fuck the patriarchy, yeah!!"  As my little hairs grew I'd continue going to the gym in tank tops, rocking my baby pit hairs with (a bit of) confidence.  But as it went on, I started feeling less and less confident.  It's not something that is subtle, especially for a lady with thick, dark hair.  Perhaps it has something to do with my introversion, but I got to the point where I just didn't want to risk having a stranger bring it up and have to talk about it.  
Another side affect was that I became hyper aware of other women's shaved legs.  I did this over the Summer, which might seem like ridiculous timing, and it probably was, but it really starkly highlighted how different I was, or at least felt.  I'd see girls with short shorts and tank tops and envision their body with hair and how that'd look.  I knew I didn't like the way it looked, the hair.  And my conflicting emotions about it all were frustrating.  I hated that I'd been brainwashed to see my body and the bodies of other women as unattractive when sporting their natural body hair.  I thought about how ridiculous it was that women were "gross" for going unshaven, but men were "normal."  I felt ragey, sad, annoyed, self-conscious.


Early on in the project I'd sought out psychological studies on women's body hair in our culture.  I was feeling such strong emotions about it I couldn't imagine there hadn't been studies on this phenomenon, especially because I knew there were incredibly strong reactions to women's body hair by both men and women.  I ended up finding a study that was recently conducted which actually paralleled my own project.  
The first part of the study just collected responses from a diverse cross-section of women regarding body hair.  By and large their impression was that removing body hair was a choice that women had, but that they'd almost always choose to do it and the consensus among the women was that it was undesirable, un-hygienic, or even disgusting to not shave.  
The second part of the study was experiential.  Women in an upper level women's study course were offered an extra credit assignment–– don't shave for 10 weeks.  They were to journal about it, record their own reactions and others' reactions.  One of the big impressions the participants noticed was that shaving felt very compulsory.  While in theory it is a "choice," the reality felt very different.  Not shaving was much harder in practice than many of them anticipated.  Quite a few received extremely negative reactions from loved ones and significant others communicating undesirability, inability to find or keep a mate, and social pressures.  
I was very thankful for Dan's positive reaction to the project.  He was all for it, which I was not anticipating.  I figured he'd be intrigued by it and think it was interesting but prefer my shaved self. Instead, he constantly expressed unwavering love and physical attraction, regardless of the presence of hair.  I didn't have much conversation with my parents about it, though my mom did express that it was important for my husband to find me physically attractive and that if not shaving was unattractive, then I should maybe just shave to please him for the health of our relationship.  My women friends are all radical chicks so they were stoked on it.  Dusty had no notable opinion.
One situation I found myself torn in was my professional life.  I was photographing a wedding on a hot day and normally I would've worn a sleeveless, knee-length black dress, but I realized that my clients and/or their guests might think that I didn't care enough about the event because I hadn't even bothered shaving.  Or just that body hair was unprofessional and unsightly.  It reminded me a lot of the conversation surrounding ethnic women's natural curly hair in the workplace and how it's often seen as unprofessional, messy, and unruly.  I've never worked somewhere that gave me that impression for my curly hair, but I definitely felt that pressure with my body hair.  I was worried my clients would see it as rude or unprofessional.  I wore tights and a blazer with my dress.  Is my work the right time and place to fight the patriarchy?  Do I risk bad reviews or unhappy clients over this?  More questions.  
 

I didn't go into the project with an end date in mind.  After reading the study, 10 weeks seemed like a good period of time, but I didn't keep track, though I think it ended up being about that long.  Maybe a little less.  I didn't go into the project planning on doing it forever, though I thought it could be a possibility.  It felt like caving to the patriarchy, to our weird over-sexualized culture, to shave.  I knew I wasn't a "failure" because there was neither winning or losing, I'd just wanted to experience my body in its natural state, but I still felt like I was crawling back to the abusive master in a way.  I want to (someday) raise kids who see natural women and don't think of them as abnormal, weird, or gross.  Does that mean having body hair myself?  How can I tell them one thing and live another?  Ugh.
It was weird to shave again, but also felt kind of relieving.  Back to being "normal."  Back to the routine.  Back to not having to think about my body hair every day.  Aside from social pressures, there were some other reasons I wanted to shave again.  For one, my armpits stank real bad.  I work out pretty hard 5-6 days a week for 1 hour a day and it was incredible how much more my body smelled.  I've heard that Americans are just not used to smelling their own body scent and that when you're surrounded by it constantly it goes unnoticed. This makes sense to me.  I used to ride horses and I was so acclimated to the smell of the barn that I didn't even notice it, but after I came from the barn people could smell the horse on me like whoa because they weren't used to it.  
Strike two: my legs were so. itchy.  Also: in the summer walking around outside I just felt like I had bugs on my legs  c o n s t a n t l y.  I was on high alert for spiders all the time.  I missed smooth legs and putting lotion on and having soft skin.  I actually felt more self conscious of my leg hair than my armpit hair which seemed opposite of most things I'd read.  
And lastly, Burlesque.  I'll be honest, I really want to do a hairy-girl-political-statement-act.  And I think someday I still will.  But it's definitely a statement and I'm doing an act for a show on Halloween and I didn't want it to be about the body hair.  It's frustrating to me that having hair makes everything about the hair.  Like, why can't it just be?  Why does it have to be a political statement.  Can't it just be normal?  But it's not.  Not here, not yet.  "Well, you should be part of shifting the norm by rocking the hair."  Yeah, I know.  I'm not sure if I'm there yet.  
Does shaving mean I hate my body?  That I'm supporting an oppressive, anti-woman, patriarchal, over-sexualized culture?  Do I feel like I'm a bad feminist for choosing to shave?  Part of me feels like the answer is sort of, "yes."  I don't know if I'm able to overcome the programming that makes me want to shave, feel compelled to shave.  Maybe it's just going to be a matter of raising girls and boys who don't feel compelled to shave, who aren't programmed to feel like female body hair is anything other than normal and regular.  Who knows.  I think I raised more questions within myself than answers in the past few months.
I did a couple photo shoots over the months I was growing my hair.  I think some times we need to work shit out through our art and photography helped a bit.  This is the last self portrait shoot I did with my hair grown out.  Looking at these photos is so odd to me because I'm not all that bothered seeing it in photos.  I feel very separated from it, in a way.  Some people may think it's disgusting, some people may think it's amazing.  I'm still working on figuring out how I feel about it all, but in a way I'm happy to free up the brain space I spent brooding over my hairy feminist badge of honor for other creative thoughts and ideas.  Huge props to you ladies who rock it.  I'm still working on getting to that point, but I have a whole new respect for women who let their body hair flag fly.  Lately there are more and more conversations surrounding women's bodies, and issues like how women's natural bodies are seen as undesirable, and I feel a subtle shift.  Women taking back ownership of their bodies, challenging the status quo.  While, for the time being, I'm back to being back in my mostly-shaven body, I hope that the conversation continues and we keep pushing back against patriarchal systems and social structures that marginalize women.

#flashbackfriday // merrill field

Looking back on these old outfit posts can be such a crazy memory jog.  I remember I was driving around with my dad in his truck this day and we had stopped by his airplane for some reason and I asked him to stop for a sec so I could do my outfit photos.  It was still pretty cold out and I remember being super careful walking on the ice in my crazy heels to get the shot above.  My dad waited in the truck with the heat blasting while I did my weirdo outfit photo thing and then we went about our day.  Also, for whatever reason I had the most perfect bangs in 2009-2010 and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get them back.  Every time I see photos from this era I'm like, "WHAT DARK MAGIC DID YOU CONJURE, GIRL?" and you'd think I'd have the answer because it was me, damnit, but no.  My perfect fringe will forever live in the past.

Merrill Field 3/20/10

Do you guys ever buy something thinking, "oh man, I love this! It's perfect!" and then you get home and you're like, "I have no clue how to wear this..."? I bought a black bodycon dress with lace sleeves back on black friday thinking how I had wanted one for a while, but it turned out that it was just a little bit too big so unless I get it altered, it doesn't really fit just right and makes me feel uncomfortable. But! A couple nights ago I decided to try and layer it underneath other dresses and it was like a whole new universe opened up before my very eyes. I want to wear it every day now with all my other dresses. I love how the lace just makes any frilly dress just a little bit edgy. Amazing! When I got this rainbow dress from the Delightful Dozen swap, I just knew I had to wear it with my lace bodycon dress.

It's funny how one little thing can totally spruce up your wardrobe, or make you see your wardrobe in a whole new light. I like that it's getting warm enough now to wear bare legs without people thinking I'm totally crazy. Okay, I realize most of you would consider below 40 degrees "crazy," but I feel spring in the air, people! The eau de printemps is slight, but by jove, it's there, I say! Look! Dry pavement!

Dry pavement means greater latitude in my footwear choices! The days of wearing snow-practical shoes are nearly behind! I found these shoes at F21 on sale for like ten bucks.. which wasn't the best part. Best part: they actually fit my feet. What?! Okay, well, they're technically a size and a half too big, but they lace up, which means I can lash them down to my baby feets! I really want a pair of these cute Seychelles, but they are a size and a half too big at their smallest size too, and I'm not willing to spend a hundred bucks to find out if they'll fit. Alas.

dress/modcloth (via JenLovesKev) :: 
lace bodycon dress/lulu e. bebe :: shoes/F21 :: necklace/shop in Kihei

mt. rainier engagement session inspiration peek

Ugh, you guys, this shoot.  K, so not only did we get to do a really fun hike in a gorgeous area, but we also got to take photos along the way and the end?  That view?  I die.  Oh and Kristina's Free People dress? Pretty much drooling over it.  Huge props to Kristina + Craig who were so game for the 2+ hour drive, plus an hour hike to make these images.  This is just a little peek at the shoot, head over to the studio blog to see the rest of it.  This shoot is going in the books as one of my all time favorites!