Learning Balance in Italy | Photography Workshop

Hear from Tamara, the owner here at The Vixen Society boudoir photography studio, in Dallas, Texas.

I recently attended a "photography" workshop put on by 3 of the most incredible female educators in the portrait photography business, held at a castle in the Dolomites, Italy. (insert bougie hair flip) What originally sold me on the idea, besides the location of course, was one of the educators who I had worked with years ago, was doing a class for burnout. I have been to countless photography workshops, but I knew this would be much more than how to take nice pictures. I honestly didn't know if I even wanted to pick up my camera much while I was there!

There is no secret that running a business with no partners for over a decade can be exhasuting, but burnout isn't something that's talked about amongst entrpeneurs enough. Leading up to this workshop I knew I was tired, and feeling less passionate than I used to, but I didn't know to what extent. On day 1, we jumped right into body image and self worth. Myself, and about 1/2 of the class broke down crying on multiple ocassions while we had realizations about ourselves, and about how we run our businesses. What I personally realized is that I had been running The Vixen Society studio as a "well oiled machine", and I had gotten away from purely creating at least 8 years ago. This was my major eureka moment. I stopped creating, which is what I NEED to feel truly alive and fulfilled. My other realization was that I was giving our clients the image retouching I thought they wanted. But not everyone wants to have their entire body and face retouched/airbrushed. I could get into the details of these aspects more, but I think I'll do that on our Vixen Mindset podcasts. Emma and I sat down and had some incredible talks about how to improve body image support for our clients and have already implemented some fabulous changes.

When I used to think about boudoir, I would think it HAD to be overly sexy, tons of popular strappy lingerie, and "enticing" looks. I did what I thought was expected of me, and stayed within that narrow field of creativity. Of course, there were absolutely benefits to this... I got incredibly good at making women feel comfortable in their bodies and with their sexuality. And I wouldn't trade that for the world. But I was limiting myself and putting the business in a box that would lead to my burnout.

After this workshop, I came home with a completely renewed excitement for my business, but moreso excitement for shedding the limits I put in place over the years. I immediately set up some shoots so Emma and I could purely create. It was incredible! When we were shooting what we felt like creating then, we both had so much excitement and immediately started talking about ideas. We are doing away with tons of bright colors like pinks, purples, and oranges, and are moving more towards moody black & white, and timeless ethereal. It's been a long time since we used a simple black backdrop, in fear that our clients would find it boring, but it renews our love for focusing on women and what makes us special. We want every single one of our clients to have a piece of wall art of their favorite image that they will cherish as a piece of true art for the rest of their lives. We can't wait for the art we get to create with our clients now! Everyone is unique, and we are celebrating that. Stay tuned on our Instagram more of this style! And don't worry, we are still shooting fine art nudes and boudoir, we haven't completely reinvented the wheel.

The amazing photography educators I learned from are Sue Bryce, Kara Marie Trombetta, and Teri Hofford. I am so grateful for them! After feeling renewed, I did decide to shoot a bit at the workshop. Check out some of the images below!

With Love, Tamara