“Believe in Beauty” is a term Kimberlee and I decided on because it is just that; it is the gratitude we feel for God allowing us to have a career in which
we can celebrate His beauty by using every bit of the creativity and imagination He blessed us with.
These concept shoots are something that we plan months ahead and dream about even longer than that. We are also beginning to offer them
to our studio clients. If you can dream, I am sure we can create it!

We are so grateful to Tenley and Kiptyn for doing this shoot with us. As well as quite a few others like:

Weston Boucher wrote the song for us which can be found for photographers use at www.triplescoopmusic.com

John and Norma of NR3 Video Productions did the fancier video footage

Peggy Rogers, amazing make-up & hair! Find her here.

Handsome gentlemen in tuxes:
Brian MacKenzie (ladies he’s single)
Luke Long (he’s in a famous band called Ha Ha Tonka, he’s not single, sawwy)
Jeff See (amazing artist, no idea if he’s got a lady friend)
Weston Boucher (step off, he’s mine, lol)
Ps. Not sure why this became about their relationship status, guess I knew we’d get a comment or ten about it.

Hot air balloon was provided by Sky Surfer Balloons

Becky Pesche and Ashley Sapp also helped take video and stills

Danielle Adams was the much needed and appreciated reflector holder

Always a thank you to our sponsors BAY PHOTO LAB & GRAPHI STUDIO

You can also check them out at the end credits of this video. Thrilled that this video and our Paris launch could be on the same day! What a celebration!
Pop the bubbly! Talk about a happy day for us!! Yay!

Not sure how much our SD clients know about some of what we do in the education world of photography, but every year Kimberlee and I do at least a few speaking engagements, quite a few workshops, and head to the biggest Wedding and Portrait Photography Convention in the world, WPPI. There we spoke at a fun event called Photographers Ignite and sold our newest Lighting DVD that we created so that other boudoir photographers can learn how we light and photograph our clients. We just got home last week and I wanted to share a fun video we made of our adventure!

That’s right… just wanted to clarify a little about our blogs. This one here is for our clients for our Boudoir studio in San Diego! If you’re a boudoir photographer, check out TheDivasBlog.com to get some more specific info geared toward photographers. Marissa Boucher & Kimberlee West (the owners of The Boudoir Divas San Diego) have been educating other boudoir photographers for over four years now. Their boudoir workshop was one of the FIRST workshops for photographers who wanted to learn more about boudoir (this was back in the day when most people thought they were crazy for even wanting to shoot boudoir at all!) The professional photography industry has come a long way now, and it’s getting to the point where almost EVERY pro photog out there is now offering boudoir! Yay! We are all so excited that this trend has finally caught on. The Divas’ newest product is an educational DVD for photographers to learn how the Divas utilize lighting during their boudoir shoots. In case you’re interested, here’s a little teaser of the DVD!

I (Marissa) was able to photograph this cool lady, New Yorker, Laura B. Laura is also a boudoir photographer and we met in Paris (wow that sounds so hip doesn’t it?!) at our Paris Boudoir Workshop. She is also a very gifted photographer and owns Rue Boudoir in New York and being the smart gal she is she wanted to make sure she knew exactly what her clients were experiencing in their boudoir shoot, so she flew all the way to sunny San Diego to see us and have her very own images taken! We were thrilled! Thanks Laura for giving us the honor of getting to know such a great lady as yourself. We know you will continue to be nothing but successful as your boudoir business flourishes and buy do we feel special that we have been a part of it.

Oh and thanks for letting us show the world your beauty Laura! Those green eyes still kill me. Wow!

If you are considering flying in for a boudoir shoot like Laura did visit our website at www.theboudoirdivas.com
or email our studio manager at sdstudio@theboudoirdivas.com

That’s right, you guys – it’s FINALLY time for us to start posting some videos from Paris! :) Here’s one that shows our outdoor fashion shoot with our fab model LoArna… we absolutely LOVED shooting on the streets of Paris, and our workshop attendees also got some stellar images for their portfolios! We LOVE Paris! :)

We usually go to Paris every spring for the boudoir workshop we host for other boudoir photographers around the world, but in 2011 we are changing it up a bit and going to the Caribbean. Can you imagine how gorgeous boudoir images will be in the blue Caribbean ocean. Wow.

I had the pleasure of working with Katie for her Mama-to-be photo shoot last week. Katie has great style and it was fun to see that shine through during her session. As a result, she has a blend of sweet, sexy, and artistic images. Thank you, Katie, for granting us permission to share your ‘Hot Mama’ pics!

xoxo, Crystal

We had a lot of fun at Imaging USA in Nashville, and we can’t WAIT for next year (2011 Imaging USA in ANTONIO TX!!!) For those of you who don’t know we get asked to speak to other photographers and teach about boudoir photography. We also have written books and host boudoir workshops. If you want more info about that please visit our site for photographers. We never had a chance to blog the random photos from our time in Nashville, so here are a few of them:

Then only a month after Imaging USA in Nashville, we headed over to WPPI in Vegas and held a boudoir workshop and had ANOTHER tradeshow booth. Check out this video to see some fun clips from that. I love when Deena talks about “the men.” Ha ha.

Whew! We made it home and are back at it. It goes with out saying that Crystal and Deena did a fantastic job of keeping the place running smoothly, as usual. Thanks Ladies! We had such a great trip in Paris. Reminder: We were in Paris, France for almost a month teaching two boudoir photography workshops and enjoying our favorite city in between. Obviously a few stressful moments thanks to a major natural disaster but in hindsight it could have been worse. About half of our attendees couldn’t make it out but luckily they will be joining us for our June boudoir workshop here in our studio in San Diego.

Now for the goodies. Paris was even more beautiful than we left it last time. I swear the morning light is even pinker and the nights and even more enchanting. I’ll never forget the night we slowly walked along the Seine taking in the lights of Notre Dame, the bridges overs the river, Il de la cite, and then the Louvre with the Eiffel sparkling in the distance. No one really even spoke, there really was nothing to say. “It’s so beautiful,” wouldn’t have even come close to doing it justice. Maybe Kimberlee took some photos she will share in future, but as usual, for me when I am in a location that is just too pretty for words, I can’t even pick up my camera, I just want to soak it all in. Which of course I inevitably regret later and then feel like I can’t really call myself a true blue photographer if I am not always wanting to pick up my camera. Oops.

The Paris Boudoir Workshop (year two of us doing this fun project!) was a real treat for us. Just sharing and chatting for hours about our passion, showing the attendees how we pose and light our clients, how we make them feel comfortable, always puts us right into our element. We hope to have a lot more to share in the future, there is always so much to do when we get home. So for now I leave you with a few teasers….

One of our gorgeous model LoArna and the dress my mother and I made.

Still one of our fave hotspots, the Palace of Versailles

Our view from the first apartment that we rented in the Tour de Eiffel district.

Planning to share more soon!- Marissa

Don’t worry, the ENTIRE studio won’t be gone, but Marissa, Kimberlee and I (Ashley) are heading off to Paris, France! We are so excited to be hosting not one, but TWO workshops while in Paris. For those of you who don’t know, The Boudoir Divas host about 4-6 workshops a year to teach other photographers ALL about boudoir photography and the business. And once a year, we teach workshops in beautiful and romantic PARIS; we can’t wait! We will be posting videos and blogs, so keep checking back to see what’s going on with us. Crystal and Deena will still be holding down the fort at our San Diego studio, so if you are considering booking a shoot or Pin Up Party, contact us asap (sdstudio@theboudoirdivas.com) as May is almost completely filled up already (awesome!)

au revoir!

We love, love, love hosting workshops in which we get to teach boudoir photographers everything about our boudoir photography studio! If you are a non-socal resident and you are interested in a boudoir workshop please click here to view more info and a video about our boudoir workshops. The next one is approaching quick!