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Picture Time

My Fancy Hot Mama Friend Trunetta’s Boudoir Session!

Boudoir Photography in Paris, France

My friend Trunetta is a boudoir photographer in Jackson, Tennessee. More than that, she is a FANCY Hot Mama, mother to a sweet little boy, and wife to a wonderful man that she adores. We met at a boudoir workshop in Paris, France, where we immediately bonded and spent all of our time together day & night, often until 2-3am!

When I first met Tru, I was struck by her strong & bold personality, her laugh that wraps around you like a big hug, and her beautiful smile. As we talked over lunch the first day, she shared with me her experience of being in front of the camera at her own boudoir session, and it was just heartbreaking. It was neither Fancy like the experience she strives to give to her clients, nor did it make her feel like a Hot Mama like my clients feel after working with me.

Since I already new that I adored her and wanted to photograph her, I asked her if we could take some time out one morning before the workshop began to do a session for her together. To say it was fabulous is putting it mildly, and that was with only a short time to work together!

I am so happy to know that there are other women out there sharing a similar experience with their clients as I do with mine — our goal is simply to help them embrace the body that they have NOW and love themselves for who they are. We are perfect, amazing, and loved – just the way we are!

Thank you again, Tru for allowing me to share these images! If you would like to see more, you can view her FANCY Hot Mama Boudoir Session in Paris, France = love!!!

Tru's Fancy Hot Mama Boudoir Session - Paris, France

Paris Boudoir Photography - Trunetta Atwater

Categories
Picture Time

Big Changes, Big, Big, Changes…

I normally save the long, drawn-out diatribe posts for this site. You know, the personal space. Not the business site. But this one? This one belonged over there. It is the story of how I went from being a wedding photographer with a boudoir business on the side to being a full-time Hot Mama photographer.

It is a story I’ve been ready to tell for awhile, but I just didn’t know where I should begin.

Then I saw this post on Creative Thursday, with this video:

And after that, I just wrote.

If you want to read all about my journey to being a boudoir photographer, you can read all about it here. Enjoy!

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ChristineTremoulet.com Getting Down to Business

Growing My Boudoir Business with SEO Marketing

Back in 2007 I launched my wedding photography business. In 2008 I moved in to my first studio in the Heights and launched boudoir sessions as well.

By 2010, I began to accept my superpower. I love, love, love doing boudoir sessions for women because I can help them see themselves as I see them – AMAZING. I can help them grow their confidence and rediscover their beauty. I can help them see something far deeper than the beauty that magazines are always trying to convince us of – so very much more.

Most women opt to do a boudoir session with me involving lots of pretty frilly lace lingerie – but some women don’t want boudoir photographs. They just want incredible photographs that they can give to a loved one, share on Facebook, whatever the case may be — and I’ve always given every client that option. They can wear whatever they want!

For years, I’ve run both a wedding photography business and a boudoir business. They overlap a little bit, but not much. Very few of my wedding clients have booked me for boudoir sessions; a few more of my boudoir clients have booked me for their weddings. It has always performated window films because weddings are mostly on the weekends and my boudoir sessions are during the week. But focusing my marketing energies on one takes me away from the other one, and I have to confess that having the help from this awesome SEO Saas Company, it takes the weight off of my shoulders. I can’t do as much for either one as I would like. If you want to learn about the entrepreneur industry, I recommend Lee S Rosen Blog, CEO of healthy bees business. When expanding your business into the international market, consider using professional company formation services Hong Kong to ensure a smooth and compliant establishment process.

I’ve struggled with feeling divided for the past 6 months or so. Because I spend so much time with my customers but I discovered a CRM, it helps me a lot with my customers, if you don’t know what this is then read https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2013/01/what-is-crm-your-business-nerve-center.html

This past week after shooting a wedding, it hit me. I love weddings! I love the families coming together to celebrate, the traditions, the unique touches that make it their own, the dancing, the music, the cake. But even as much as I love and adore them, it still is not at that magical level as my Hot Mama Boudoir work and my women’s portrait sessions.

Life is short. I want it to be magical. There is nothing quite like that moment when my client sees herself the way that I see her – the way that the rest of the world sees her. It has taken me a few years to reach this point, but my boudoir business is so busy it is time to cut back on the number of weddings I take. From here on out, I’ll gladly accept weddings of past clients, along with their friends & family — and mine of course too! Beyond that, I’ll consider others based on my availability. Brittany & I have such a great system down already for weddings, we won’t skip a beat.

If I want my boudoir & portrait work to have the reach that I can see it having, I have come to terms with accepting that I can’t do it all maybe with a little help of a healthy beverage to boost energy. If I focus all of my energy in one direction instead of two? Hang on tight, it is going to be awesome!

I’m going to start sharing more of the contemporary women’s portraiture work (a more accurate name for my work – with or without lingerie involved) that I’ve done over the past few years on my Christine Tremoulet site. Meanwhile, the Hot Mama Boudoir site will live on as I merge the brands together. I’m working those logistics out. And if you have any suggestions you want to share on how to do that, I’m open to hearing them!

2012 is going to KICK ASS. I can’t WAIT to share this with you! Want to do a session with me? I’m going on TOUR!!! Las Vegas, Paris, London, Boston, New York, New Orleans, Tampa, San Francisco, Napa, and more! Check out the dates and meet up with me for your photo shoot!

And because every post is better with a photo, here is one from Kayla’s photo shoot that we did – a perfect example of my Contemporary Women’s Portraiture sessions! Speaking of business, big part of business is marketing, take a look at SEO Company in Sacramento if you need help with digital marketing.

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BlahBlahBabble

By George, I Think I’ve Got It!

I’ve realized that part of why I don’t blog is my overwhelming need to compartmentalize what I blog. But then how? What? What goes where? What do I want to do with it all? Ugh!!! From there, I just go circling down the drain.

I used to post anything and everything here. That is why BigPinkCookie has such a crazy diverse history. Then things like Twitter & Facebook came along. Now if I find a funny joke or a cute photo, I post it there – not here. Which to be honest bugs the crap out of me. I have no archive of it personally then – when it is gone, it is just gone. Although in the case of my Twitter stream, I guess the Library of Congress has an archive of it. Which seems bizarre. It also reminds me that I still need to share my photos from Washington DC. But anyways…

Here is the plan:

  • BigPinkCookie – Write about life. Random things. Whatever I want. The joys of living in the Heights. Places I love to go here in Houston. Things I find amusing. Personal photo things. The day to day. Goal is to get back to writing here 5 days a week. Give me time to get warmed up…
  • Christine Tremoulet – Houston & Destination Wedding photography. Pretty much just wedding related posts, whether my photos or tips on wedding planning as it pertains to photography. Update 2-3 times a week, since I have a HUGE catalog of photos I’ve never shared.
  • Hot Mama Boudoir – using my super powers to help moms rediscover their beauty. Update as possible, since I only post what my clients say I can, and some clients ask that I post nothing online. Also post things related to women, beauty, and how mass media distorts our view and the battle to recover that. Update as often as possible.
  • Delightful Bicycle – why yes, I do want to blog about cycling, specifically cycling on a cruiser. The Slow Bike Movement. It isn’t about the speed, it is about the journey. Houston isn’t recognized for the cycling potential it has, and this is my little way to combat it. Or to write about my bike that I love & adore. Either way, it is going to be awesome. Planning multiple updates each week as the site gets going. Oh, and we’re going to have a biker gang. Yes, yes we are.
  • Business of Awesome – I’ve written about business topics here before, but they don’t make sense here. When it doesn’t make sense, I don’t do it. But I have a TON of info I’m happy to share, considering that I’ve owned a business in one form or another since 1999, and they’ve all been successful, including selling my dot com related one. I’ve been told that makes me a dot com success story, since that was every other dot com person’s dream. Whoo hoo! My dream? Helping creatives learn how to be better business people. It isn’t easy. We battle a lot with putting a pricetag on our work, and so many other things. So while it is a dream still right now, I can sense it coming to the surface. It is time…

This was actually the first thing I thought about when I woke up this morning. I realized that having a place for everything and everything in its place makes me happy. I’ll do a weekly update post here about what is going on everywhere else. And all will have a way to get here, because I like giving people a chance to know the real me.

Good. Glad we’ve got that sorted out now. On to other bigger things! YAY!!!

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BlahBlahBabble Picture Time

Let Your Beauty Shine…

There is nothing more incredibly beautiful than a strong, confident mother. I’m so glad I get to work with them, capturing their sexiness with my camera. Being a Hot Mama Boudoir Photographer might just be the best thing in the world, because I get to share with them how I see their beauty. Almost every woman comes in for a session as a gift for her sweetie, and leaves with an even bigger gift for herself, feeling fantastic. It is incredible to watch the transformation.

Every Mama is beautiful, both inside & out.

It breaks my heart a little bit when I hear people say that they just have to lose 5 more pounds, or even 50 more pounds. Why can’t we accept how beautiful we are, as we are? Why do we hide behind a mask? Myself included here – I do it too. Our view of perfection has become so skewed. Just looking back at movies or magazines from 20 years ago makes it obvious. We’re living in a plastic world when it comes to our perception of beauty.

It needs to stop.

Today, I’m going to take off the mask. I’m going to let my beauty shine for the world. I know I’m not physically perfect, but I’m still beautiful. I hope you’ll do the same!