Loving the skin you're in...

Hey, girl! Let me tell you something ... Beauty standards and looks aside, everyone is worthy of documenting and celebrating their life stories and their bodies and should exist in print. Every woman deserves to feel beautiful now and have artwork to look back on. Doing the damn thang even through the fear can actually help you on your self love journey!

Photographs celebrate the beauty of what is now and as time passes they become treasures that help us reminisce on what is no more. #EXISTINPRINT has been a tag line of mine for years so I fully agree with the late Catherine O'Hara here.

This post has gone VIRAL since her passing. Let her words sink in, friends.

Self love is a journey that evolves with time. As our bodies age and change, embracing every curve, line, and mark becomes a powerful act of acceptance and dare I say REBELLION against bullshit beauty standards. Seriously! Why are we so hard on ourselves? .... Beucase we were taught to be.

Ashlyn's words about choosing me for this very vulnerable session and seeing herself in these gorgeous images --

"Your art form is what attracted me. Your focus is making women feel beautiful about the parts of themselves they normally see as not so pretty due to social stigma, and you made me appreciate those things. Seriously."

It is my honor to hold space for women in this way and help us integrate our body image.

More feedback from other QUEENS --

 Carissa - "Thank you Lainey for the amazing and beautiful experience. Since gaining a bit of weight, I’ve been so insecure about my tummy and my “rolls”. But you’ve helped me a lot with these amazing photos to see them as beautiful and a part of me. Having those is not the end of the world and I still look beautiful, and I hope to inspire others to embrace themselves as they are!"

Jleigh- "I truly found self confidence and love from doing these photos with you. It opened my eyes. I haven't shown my belly even in a bathing suit to anyone that wasn't a close friend and I realize now that I have suffered with so much insecurity and in all actuality I am young and beautiful. This experience felt like someone seeing me and cherishing me, drawing me like something out of a movie, like Titanic. I will cherish having something to look back on when I'm old and gray LOL. I feel worthy of being remembered and to feel special, to be noticed."

Anonymous - ""I cannot thank you enough! I was talking to my sister about it after and how I HATE my stomach and the loose skin and the stretch marks but the way you photograph women showcases it in a beautiful way. There was an image where you can clearly see the stomach pouch that I hate, and I didn't hate that picture. IDK how to explain it, but you photograph women in a beautiful natural way that shows the beauty of a woman's body.

The last boudoir session I did, I felt like I had to have the perfect body. You didn't make me feel that way."

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My aim is for women's healing through these photoshoots, but spicier fun is always welcome. Women get to see how hot they are for their own self confidence and if there happens to be someone special to share the artwork with, its a win/win for you both ;)

Woman, you are ART.

xoxo