Chicago Boudoir Photography featured on The Story Exchange
I was honored to be interviewed by Candice Helfand-Rogers at The Story Exchange about my experience as a boudoir photographer during the 2020-2021 global Covid-19 pandemic.
The Story Exchange is a media organization and website aimed at helping and promoting female business owners. The “About Us” page describes The Story Exchange as
“An award-winning nonprofit media organization dedicated to elevating women’s voices. Through videos, articles and a podcast, we strive to provide inspiration and information to entrepreneurial women everywhere.”
When Candice called me to hear about my experience as a boudoir photographer during the pandemic, I was happy to share my experience. As we all know, the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020-2021 has been extremely challenging for all of us in various ways. No one has entirely escaped the effects of the pandemic. I personally lost a family member to the Covid-19 disease and have also seen the mental health effects among many friends and family members, including depression, anxiety and addiction. At the same time, this pandemic year has also provided moments of extreme joy and progress. To sum it up, the pandemic experience for me has been brutal and beautiful at the same time.
Candice’s article focuses on three boudoir photographers and their experience during the pandemic: Laurie Barrie, co-founder of national boudoir company Celebrate Your Sexy, Alyssa Lund-Kyrola of Illuminate Boudoir in Minneapolis and myself (owner of Chicago Boudoir Photography in Winnetka, IL).
The article opens with a favorite boudoir photo from the Chicago Boudoir Photography studio featuring a beautiful engagement and wedding ring set:
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
The story talks about how the Chicago Boudoir Photography studio’s schedule is booked up for the next few months with pent-up energy from the pandemic lock-downs. The article says:
An example: Liz Hansen’s studio, Chicago Boudoir, is presently booked solid for the next few months. She says many of her clients are coming to her in search of something light, something that makes them feel, to put it plainly, hot — and something they can hold onto once the session is over, especially after the pandemic took so much away.
The article also quotes me citing some of the reasons that women are booking boudoir photoshoots in Chicago in 2021:
A lot of women feel like this: 2020 was bad, and they want to celebrate [themselves] anyway, or they want to do something ‘for me’ anyway,” Hansen says, adding that she has especially seen an uptick in essential workers as clients — as well as one epidemiologist — who simply “want to feel beautiful and pampered” and “found [boudoir photography] as something to do that’s not awful, that’s fun, and that doesn’t require travel.
The article also echoes my sentiments about the good and bad of the pandemic year:
Hansen realizes how fortunate she and others like her are, to have found some success amid a global catastrophe. “It’s been such an awful time,” she says, recalling in particular the loved ones she personally lost to Covid-19. “But there have also been some beautiful things this year.”
I really appreciated the feature article and the for bringing my experience as a boudoir photographer to The Story Exchange! You can read the full text of the article HERE: “Finding ‘Sexy’ in the Era of Social Distancing: Pre-pandemic, boudoir photography was having a renaissance. Now, clients (and their long-lost sensual sides) are ready once more for a close-up.”