In 2006, after years of taking photographs for myself, I decided I wanted to take photographs “for a living”. Forget the American dream, I wanted to be a professional photographer. At first, I thought I wanted to photograph children because that was what all of my friends were doing. I tried it, and quickly realized that it was not for me. I then tried photographing weddings. I love being invited to be a part of such an intimate experience, watching it all unfold and documenting it for them to relive. But there was still something more pulling at me.

In December of 2007, as I pulled out of a parking lot in the Heights neighborhood of Houston, Texas, I looked across the street at a building and thought to myself, “I want that to be my studio someday.” I had never thought that about any other space. Five months later, a friend contacted me to tell me about a space for rent in a building, and as fate would have it, it was the exact same building. As I toured the space, I opted to rent two rooms instead of just the original one; one for meeting with clients and one for the amazing light that I had to have. I decided that day that I was going to start taking boudoir photographs.

My experience with boudoir up to that point had been the Polaroids I had taken for a friend to give to her boyfriend. That was ten years ago!

I thought boudoir would be a natural extension of my wedding brand, that couples would hire me to photograph their weddings, and the bride would add on boudoir photography as a gift for the groom. It never worked out that way. Instead, I photographed women of all ages and stages of life. Many of them were married women who hired me to create a gift for their husband for an anniversary, birthday or a holiday.

I discovered in those early boudoir sessions that I could be a champion for women. I can cheer them on. I can help them see their own beauty. I could help them peel back the layers of the years of society telling them that they aren’t “ENOUGH”. Our sessions seemed to help them see that they were enough. They always ended their sessions saying how it was supposed to be a gift for him, but it ended up being the best thing for them. I took notice.

At WPPI in 2010, as I sat in a class on boudoir photography, the presenter mentioned working with Moms. I looked at the friend sitting next to me and practically squealed. MOMS!!! I HAD TO focus on working with MOMS!!! Time passed. I had a busy wedding season that year, and with boudoir sessions on top of it, the idea stayed with me but I didn’t act on it. I just knew it was everything I wanted to do. Somehow. I was busy, but I wasn’t happy. It seemed like the work would never end.

In September of 2010, I went to a workshop by Jeff Jochum on Selling to the Millennial Bride with MeRa Koh as a guest speaker that evening. When Jeff started the workshop, he went around the room and asked each of us to introduce what we did and ourselves. When he came to me, this is what I said, “Hi, my name is Christine, wah-wah-wah-wedding photographer-wah- wah (pretend that is teacher voice in the Charlie Brown specials), and I also shoot boudoir AND I WANT TO FOCUS ON SHOOTING BOUDOIR FOR MOMS AND IT IS GOING TO BE SO AWESOME!!!”

Jeff just looked at me and said, “Did you hear it?” Yes, Jeff. Yes, I did.

I always knew that specialism was the key to having a successful business, but I had no idea on how to get my message out there for my mom clients.

The first exercise focused on how your clients identified with your brand. While I could tell you everything about my boudoir clients, I couldn’t tell you what that looked like for my wedding brand. Not at all. I was a blank.

My own crack happened that day. It was only amplified when MeRa and I were talking that night and she asked where I saw myself in five years. I had no idea. However, when she asked me where I did not want to be in five years, I said without hesitation, “I do not want to be photographing weddings.” By the time I arrived home that night, all I could think about were the amazing moms that I wanted to be working with, and how I wanted to spread the message that we are ENOUGH, no matter what the mass media makes us feel about ourselves.

Like my clients, I’ve battled not being ENOUGH for a long, long time. It is why I went back to college in my 30s, because I thought I had to have a degree. It is why I stayed in an ultimately dead-end relationship with my ex-husband for eight years. It is probably part of why I married my ex-husband when I was twenty-one. The list is a mile long. I had fought not being ENOUGH for what felt like my whole life.

In October 2010, Jeff returned to Houston to teach his Biz Clarity workshop. I hosted it at my studio. I introduced myself this time as a “Destination wedding & boudoir photographer” (I was trying to find my place in the wedding label, so I added

Destination to it—thinking that made it special.) Jeff looked at me and said, “Trying to run two businesses at once? Huh. How’s THAT working for you?” I gave him a hearty “DAMN IT JEFF!” – complete with fist shake – in reply. By the end of the day, I declared I wanted to break up with weddings.

What I didn’t realize at that moment though was how hard the road ahead was going to be. In the three years leading up to that point, I had completely wrapped myself up in being a wedding photographer. All of my friends were wedding photographers. My life was spent online talking to other wedding photographers. I looked at wedding blogs. I went to wedding photographer workshops and conferences. Weddings. Everything was a wedding.

And while becoming a professional photographer in 2007 had changed my life in many excellent ways, it seemed I still didn’t know who the heck *I* was. My only identity was as a wedding photographer. That made the change even more of a challenge. I was lost. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to do boudoir photography for Moms. Hot Mamas, to be specific, because I believe that every Mom has a Hot Mama on the inside.

I started working with Jeff one-on-one in December of 2010. We dug in. What was my why? Why was I so drawn to boudoir? What made me unique? What made this truly, truly my passion? Why, why, why??? Who AM I?

Over time, Jeff set up a Facebook group for the members of Team-X, and having a community of amazing like-minded people, all of us searching for the answer to the same question of “WHY” but with wildly varying answers, helped me grow and learn.

I still remember the day my world shifted. It was in the summer of 2011. Jeff finally pulled the magical thread. The one that still makes me cry when I think about it because it holds that much profound truth:

“What are you healing in yourself with every boudoir session you do?”

It had been over 10 years since that dead-end relationship ended, and I realized at that very moment just how profoundly the ghost of it still haunted me. How often I had looked in the mirror and heard I wasn’t ENOUGH. How I had never faced that ghost along with so many others and dealt with them. I had just tried to walk away. It was time to deal with it all.

Once we figured all of that out, everything else happened so quickly, it just fell into place. I knew that my Superpower was helping Hot Mamas grow their confidence by rediscovering their beauty. My clients, in turn, help me to do the same.

It is hard to describe, but I feel a sense of joy & self-love that I don’t think I’ve had since I was probably 17 or 18 years old. I can honestly say that I LIKE ME now.

The best part of working with Jeff is that he doesn’t give you the answers; he just asks the right questions. And, he keeps questioning those answers, until you find the true answer.

Change is hard. I had so much change in my life while working with Jeff and discovering my Specialism. The year 2011 was THE year of change. I spent months fighting that change. Months trying to find the “Why” of my wedding brand. It was never there, it was never right. Not like my Hot Mama mission and my Superpower. In March of 2012, the armor finally cracked and fell off. I woke up one day and just KNEW. It was time. It was time to let weddings go, time to give my Hot Mamas my all, time to be completely focused and driven.

I am a Hot Mama photographer.

I don’t limit it to just boudoir – it can be beauty, glamour, in lingerie or in regular clothes. It doesn’t matter; I just want them to rediscover their beauty. At first it made me cringe to let the weddings go, but it doesn’t any more. When I get feedback from my clients months or years after their sessions—telling me that they have never loved themselves more, and it all started that day they were first in front of my camera? I know. I know this is where I am meant to be. It makes my heart sing with joy.

Thanks to defining my specialism, I can easily tell people what I do, and they get it. It has allowed me to find a self- confidence that was lost long ago.

From a business perspective, it has helped me not only grow my boudoir brand but thrive. I am on track for 2013 to make as much money from boudoir sessions alone, as I did in 2010 with a full year of weddings plus boudoir sessions. Even better, since my message is so clear now to my clients, they trust me in a way that they never have before.