Planning something a little special this Valentine’s Day?

This red hot little number will definitely spice things up. This Sterling Long Lace-Up Camisole is $125 at Trashy.com…(notice that it’s modeled by the infamous Masuimi-Max)

Check out their Facebook page for some beautiful photography and lingerie ideas.

Love them or laugh at them, millions around the world care about and compete for the Miss Universe pageant.

Crowned as only the fifth woman of color, the gorgeous Leila Lopes from Benguela, Angola is a natural beauty who cares about HIV and sunscreen. These are not a bad things.

Do women of naturally curly hair get the same respect as women with wispy, straight hair? Tell me what you think.

Click on the image to see more photos of Leila Lopes.

Who knew you could get crack eyelash advice from a beautiful server at one of the world’s most sophisticated coffee shops?

If you visit The Bakery at the Plaza Hotel, you’ll not only find exquisite coffee and cupcakes, but a really friendly staff who are more than happy to talk about their beautiful eyelashes.

I had to comment on this young woman’s eyes. The long, feathery eyelashes were clearly super-human, but they were exactly the right balance between over-the-top and something-a-little-extra.

Her secret? Duane Reade. And no, do not attach those lashes with eyelash glue. She said use the hair bond adhesive you can find at a beauty supply store. She said hers had been on for two and a half weeks – and they still looked great. Apparently the adhesive bond dissolves easily with water, so if you’re careful in the shower, you never have to pull out an entire eyelash set again when removing your lashes.

My apologies for the grainy picture. The iPhone doesn’t do so well in low light!

While it does seem that most women signing up for boudoir pictures have long hair, this young woman proves that short hair works just as well. Wish her well – she’s taking a really hard test all day today and then she’s volunteering in a third world country for a few weeks.

I know I’m not supposed to post unrelated images to a boudoir site, but I thought this was a super-cute dog photo of my little Havanese, Charlie, the day of Hurricane Irene. We finally left the house around 2pm on Sunday – the day of the Hurricane-wanna-be.

I couldn’t decipher who took these shots, but they will certainly inspire you…gorgeous work!

As all of you who’ve done a session with me will admit, modeling is very hard work. The poses are often pretty uncomfortable, and effortless curves take a whole lot of concentration. I hope this smart, young woman will make the effort to earn some money from modeling, no matter which route works for her. I think fit modeling – what do you think she’d be good for?

I found this article on Jewish Woman and thought it was a relevant read for us here.

By the time she was a teenager, Stacey Nye couldn’t wear a bathing suit without observing a set of self-imposed rules. “I never put my legs flat on a lawn chair because my thighs would spread,” she recalls. “When I would stand up, I always put a towel around my waist.”

For Sharon Goldman, summer used to be the worst time of year. While many of her friends wore bikinis, she would sit on the beach “in ugly one-piece suits,” wishing she had smaller breasts. “I never let myself be photographed in a bathing suit,” she recalls.

Nye and Goldman are not alone in their tales of swimsuit woe. Though exceptions surely exist, it’s tough to find a Jewish or, for that matter, an American woman who wholeheartedly loves herself in a bathing suit and doesn’t fear the three-way fitting room mirror like she fears the dentist’s chair. For many women, this simple piece of Lycra can unlock a Pandora’s box of body image and self-esteem issues, and it’s not difficult to understand why. Simply watch TV, read a magazine or glance at yet another stick-thin airbrushed model on a billboard.

“Our eyes and our brains are trained to think that’s what a woman’s body should look like,” says Ophira Edut, a New York City-based activist and media entrepreneur who’s spent the past decade championing the cause of positive female body image. “So when you put on that bathing suit and look in the mirror, you’re setting yourself up for a shock.”

“The vulnerability that a bathing suit brings up for the vast majority of women is overwhelming,” says Susan Bartell, Ph.D., a Long Island, N.Y.-based psychologist specializing in female body image issues. “You can’t hide in a bathing suit the way you can in other clothes.”

Bathing suit anxiety is rooted in the combined fears of exposure and judgment, says Nye, Ph.D., a Mequon, Wisc.-based psychologist who also specializes in body image and women’s issues. “In a bathing suit as opposed to your underwear, you’re completely exposed to lots of different people at one time. Also, women tend to notice those who they think look better than them. There’s also the issue that if you do cover yourself at the pool or the beach, you stand out even more.”

For Jewish women, bathing suit season can conjure up an additional set of culturally specific anxieties. “We have this whole legacy of the baleboosteh and the bubbe, of short, dark and curvy women who are cooking all the time,” says Ruth Andrew Ellenson, editor of The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt (Dutton). “These are women not found on the pages of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.”

Bartell, author of Dr. Susan’s Girls-Only Weight Loss Guide (Parent Positive Press), believes that the “fantasy of going to the store and finding the suit that will make your body perfect” has particular resonance for Jewish women raised by parents who believed or expected their children to be perfect. Not all cultures struggle with issues of perfectionism, she says. “I treat a lot of Jewish girls with eating disorders and there’s no question that some of this stems from the quest to be perfect.”

Wendy Shanker, author of the humorous memoir The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life (Bloomsbury), adds that Jewish women contend with the “added element of ancestral modesty issues. In Brazil and Spain, you come out of the womb in a bikini. In Jewish culture, you’ve got Orthodox women going swimming in long skirts and pantyhose,” she observes. “Even if you’re not observant, these notions of modesty are wired into you. Plus, we’re not a beach culture. All the food you associate with the ocean…crab, shrimp, pina coladas…the whole thing reeks of goyville.”
It’s a severe understatement to say that American notions of beauty have evolved since 1945, when Bess Myerson, barely fitting into her size 12 white Catalina swimsuit, became the first Jewish woman to win the Miss America pageant. Back then, Myerson’s Jewishness made the evening news. Had Myerson won today, she’d make headlines for wearing a size 12.

Ray Gottesman, a 75-year-old resident of Boynton Beach, Fla., remembers that as a “skinny 18-year-old, I wanted a swimsuit that exaggerated my hips and padded my bottom a bit. Back then, it wasn’t so good to be a skeleton,” she recalls. “It wasn’t the look.”

As a college student in the 1960s, Doreen Kingston wore a bikini, “but I don’t remember feeling self-conscious about it. Maybe because it came up to my belly button,” she recalls. “I also remember girlfriends that didn’t have the best figure having no problem hanging out on the beach in their bathing suits. We weren’t so hard on ourselves.”

Today, wearing a bathing suit “is still not such a problem” for Gottesman, though “it’s never going to be my favorite outfit. Look,” she says. “There’s beauty at every age and it’s ridiculous to think you’ll look anything different than your age.”

Kingston, on the other hand, estimates she hasn’t worn a bathing suit in about 20 years. “I carry my weight in my stomach and you just can’t hide that in a bathing suit,” says the 60-year-old homemaker from Irvine, Calif. “I definitely feel more self-conscious now. Bathing suits are so much more revealing today.”

For Goldman, a 38-year-old copywriter and musician from Brooklyn, N.Y., wearing a bathing suit became less odious after she had breast reduction surgery at age 19, which took her from a 36DD to a 36B. “As saggy as I might feel now, nothing could be worse than the trauma I experienced as a teenager,” she says. “I remember feeling the ugliness of my breasts like it was yesterday.”

The “constant sense that we’re not good enough is a form of female oppression,” says Ellenson, who lives in Los Angeles and recently lost weight. “I can fit into a size 6 and 4, but I obsess that I can’t wear a size 2. In our society, women are never thin enough, pretty enough or young enough and we all buy into it.”
Although the media and fashion industries might be prime culprits behind bathing suit anxiety, swimwear designers in recent years have responded to the collective outpouring of female angst toward their products. Lands’ End, for example, which primarily sells its clothes through catalogs and the Internet, allows women to shop for swimwear by “anxiety zones.” A&H Sportswear promises its “Miraclesuit” will make women look 10 pounds lighter due to a fabric that contains more Lycra than other bathing suit fabrics. Swimwear designers such as Malia Mills and Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss offer two-piece suits not as sets but as “separates,” so a consumer can mix and match.

“Working in swimwear is a challenge,” says Laura Reiter, who designs two lines of swimsuits for A&H Sportswear and has worked in the industry since 1968. “Sadly, you’d think times have changed, what with more women earning better salaries and in so much better shape. You’d think they’d have a wonderful self-image but there’s something about getting into that bathing suit that strips them of their power.”

Mills, who has four stores in New York City and two in Connecticut, began designing swimsuits because growing up in Hawaii, “where swimwear was a uniform, the shopping experience was always a drag and I always had to stitch the top smaller to fit me,” she recalls.

With “Love Thy Differences” as her company’s slogan, Mills is on a mission to “teach every woman that if the suit doesn’t fit her, there is something wrong with the suit, not her body. I want to encourage women to feel beautiful just the way they are, and every suit I make must answer to this,” she says.

Like many women interviewed for this article, Mills believes that bathing suit anxiety is mostly an American phenomenon. Recalling a vacation with European friends on a Spanish beach, “not once did I hear anyone complain about their bodies, and there wasn’t a cover-up in sight,” she says. “And these women were of different sizes and ages. They were totally at ease with their bodies. In America, the message is one of scrutiny instead of celebration, where it’s all about how women need to improve or change or limit their options to look good in a swimsuit.”

Fortunately, one does not have to move to Europe to alleviate bathing suit anxiety. Bartell recommends putting on an old bathing suit before shopping for a new one. “Tell yourself you won’t look that much different. You’re never going to find this Holy Grail of a bathing suit, so it’s important to keep your expectations realistic,” she says.

“I tell my clients to remind themselves why they’re in a bathing suit,” says Nye. “Is it because you’re a model or because you want to have fun with your friends at a pool party? What you look like in a bathing suit is not as important as you think it is.”

Mills urges women to “throw away all the fit tips” listed every year in the mass media during bathing suit season. “There is no one perfect suit,” she says. “But there are different styles for different occasions and moods. If a suit doesn’t fit, fling it aside and try on another. Remember you have options.”

Rachel Caplin, author of I’m Beautiful Dammit! (Terrace Publishing) and the founder of Curvolution, an organization dedicated to body size acceptance, likens bathing suit anxiety to the fear of flying. “Just like you have to fly to get over that fear, you need to just put on the damn bathing suit and go outside. You can analyze yourself to death in therapy, but it’s not going to overcome your fear,” she says. “And avoid dressing room drama. Get in. Get out. The dressing room is not a place to linger and analyze.”
Recently, Edut, who’s re-launching her body image website, www.loveyourbody.org had an epiphany about adopting a more radical, activist approach to bathing suit wearing. Arriving at a water park in a tankini, Edut “went into psychological terror” when the time came to take off her T-shirt. She wound up taking off her shirt because “I thought to myself that I could contribute to a little shock therapy, do something to counteract those hundreds of ads we see every day and say to the world, ‘this is what a woman looks like without Photoshop,’” says Edut, who’s 34 and describes herself as short and curvy.

Edut believes that any woman brave enough to wear a bikini in public regardless of body size “is making a contribution. We need to muster up some courage and push back,” she says. “We need a new context with which to view our bodies, and all it takes is one simple act of love-handled defiance.”

Shanker also had a recent revelation about bathing suits. “A friend of mine was taking her baby for her first swimming lesson and I saw a picture of my friend in the pool with her kid. That’s when it occurred to me that if there’s a mom in that class who’s missing such a moment with her kid because of how she looks in a bathing suit, then that woman is a fool,” she says.

Since then, Shanker has been “more willing” to wear bathing suits. “I’m never going to be the girl from Ipanema,” she says. “But man, life’s too short. Take a dive. Get in the pool.”

Susan Josephs is a freelance writer who lives in Venice, Calif.

Here’s a new idea…..hire this talented illustrator to translate your boudoir photo into a stylized, pin-up drawing! I love his work….visit Igor Lukyanov’s website to learn more.

Black women do amazing things with their hair. Ok, maybe women of all colors have the same options, but it seems the black women do it in such grand, stunning style.

What keeps photography interesting for me is the constant problem-solving. Pictures that are interesting to me make me feel things, or wonder what my clients are thinking about. Since virtually all my clients are dependent on me to position them and direct their facial expressions, I feel like I’ve done my job when I can this kind of range out of them. The first image is dark, introspective and turned inward. The second is the opposite. It’s engaged with the viewer, it’s relaxed, comfortable, happy. This makes me happy!

While some of the headlines claimed Paris had abandoned Barbie for S&M, I think this was a hugely successful photo shoot. I love the black and white images. Paris looks amazing, the styling is dynamic and the makeup is perfect. What do you think?

There’s nothing that makes my job more fun than enjoying the company of a smart, gorgeous, self-deprecating, natural model. This very tall, very fit young woman, went on and on about how she couldn’t bend, twist and pose at all….but, really? The results speak for themselves…one picture after another was great…SHE was great, right?

Happiness on the inside looks like this beautiful young woman. It’s wonderful when a bright, engaging, sunny personality comes to life in front of my camera. This woman is in a good spot in life in general, and it glows.

Let’s get started…

Whether you get a photographer’s name through a referral or a web search, this will help determine whether or not the photographer is right for you.

Obviously you’ll only consider working with someone whose work you like, so here’s what happens AFTER you find some juicy options.

Photography shoppers generally fall into two distinct categories:
1) Price, or
2) Something Else

It’s clear what it means to be a Price Shopper. It means you are looking for someone to do the job for the price you want to pay. Quality, personality, choice, experience, reputation are all less important.

If the photos are necessary but not than important, it’s perfectly fair to communicate that you’re a price-shopper to the photographer you’re interviewing.

Valuing something else

Those who value Something Else are emotionally connected to the reason for needing a photographer. They will choose based on finding someone who responds to that emotional place. This is not to say that Something Else shoppers don’t have a budget, but it will probably be more elastic that a pure Price Shopper.

How important are the photos?

This is the most important question to answer honestly.

If you’re getting married for the first time, there’s a very good chance that the wedding photographer is as important as the venue.

However, if you’re getting married for the second time, the food may be far more important.

If your photographer choice is based on Something Else and less on price, make a list of the other things that are important to you. Start with these questions.

1. Do you need a personality that will fit you and the other people at the shoot or will you put up with a diva?
   • The best service providers are part chameleon; they change their stripes and colors to mimic the person paying the bill.
   • If you stumble upon one who didn’t inherit this gene, don’t despair.
   • It might be worth tolerating a diva personality who can deliver the look and feel of photography that is important to you.
2. Do you need assurance that the photographer will show up on time and deliver your prints, proofs and albums in a timely manner?
   • If missed deadlines and tardy arrivals get your dander up, the photographer has got to make you comfortable the he or she will perform as expected.
3. Do you want to name-drop your photographer so that you can impress your friends and family?
• Plenty of people love to share their brilliant taste and ability to pay for a name.
• If this is important to you, choose a photographer who speaks at the trade events (Imaging USA, WPPI, Photo Plus, etc.)
4. Need confidence that your photographer can offer choices and options appropriate for your lifestyle and budget?
• I recently had a client whose engagement photos were delivered mounted. This meant that she had to custom-frame the prints at a significantly increased expense.
• Clearly the photographer thought he was delivering a value-added product, but it backfired on him and unpleasantly surprised the client.
• If your budget is fixed or if you just plain old don’t appreciate financial surprises, it’s important to understand all the costs of your photography project, including framing.
• Be sure to ask about this at the initial interview.

Equipment – does it matter?

In a word, no. The iPhone has a wonderful app called Hipstamatic. It adds special effects to iPhone pictures which are preciously distinct. If you saw them, you just might want a whole set.

And that would be a good thing.

Cameras range in price from practically nothing to the price of a nice SUV ($65,000). While an expensive camera can create an image with more information, it doesn’t mean that it’s a better image.

What does matter is that the photographer understands his or her equipment. He or she must know how to control the camera.

Are you laughing yet?

I spoke with a photographer who bought a digital SLR on eBay which she says “…shoots only on Auto because the camera knows what it’s doing.”

If you’re a Price Shopper, this should be fine. If you’re looking for Something Else, keep looking.

What are you going to do with the photos?

Next to how important the photos are to you, your vision for what to do with the photos comes next. If you’re a Price Shopper, it might be fine if the photos live temporarily or forever in a drawer or on a disk.

If you have something else in mind, a wall portrait, album or folio, it’s important to share that with your photographer. If you don’t have something specific envisioned, it’s also fine not to know. Many of my clients tell me they have no idea, but they always get inspired when we do the proof review session.

I use software to project life-sized images that can switch between color and black and white, and show multi-print layouts. Plenty of inspiration comes out of these sessions, including this favorite story…

I had a client who couldn’t decide between color, black and white and sepia. I put the same image up on the sreen in each of the three color spaces, and voila! She said, “I love THAT!”

We printed the same image in each of those colors on a single, large print. Who knew?

Physical attributes…

I’ve heard some crazy rules.

My favorite is, “Don’t hire a female photographer for your wedding because she’ll never want to make the bride look better than her.” (I know that’s bad grammar). How do you respond to this? I’m in the business of making all women look their best. If this quote were true, I’d be long bankrupt.

“Don’t hire a short photographer because she’ll always be looking up at you.”

Oh, the irony.

If your photographer is shooting a 35mm with a zoom lens (which most of them are), the lens automatically bends the image so that objects at the outside of the frame are smaller than the center.

The ideal position for the lens is about half-way between the top and bottom of the framed object. If it’s a full-length body, then the lens should be at the waist.

Since this is virtually impossible based on the way 35mm cameras are designed, you’re definitely better off hiring a SHORT photographer rather than a tall one!

Also, it’s generally pleasing to look direclty at or slightly up at a human photographic subject. This may be based on the emotional tie we have to celebrities and dignitaries that we “look up to”.

I am in love with the elegance, poise and sophistication of this first photo. And you can’t help but love the authenticity of the second…please share what you think….

New Orleans is one of my most favorite cities in the world. I love the food, the music, the art and the dare-me-not culture. I learned today that costume parties in NoLo are competitive…this client says if you show up to her festive parties in a store-bought costume, you are put in costume jail or are asked to strip naked (which the police turn a blind eye to). Which would you pick?

This beautiful young lady cancelled a few times basically due to the factors that many women fear: I’m not thin enough, I’m not shapely enough, I’m not toned enough…heard it before? Well, she finally faced her fears and braved the camera with lovely results. Plus, she brought me an amazing bag chock full of a true delicacy, Godiva chocolate! I hope she comes back!!!