I fell in love with photography underwater.

After my time in the Air Force, I ended up living in Okinawa, Japan, where I spent every spare moment beneath the surface, earning my master diver certification with a camera always in my hand. Underwater, the world was quiet and beautiful, and it was never the same twice. I wanted to capture all of it. I didn’t know it yet, but that’s exactly how I’d come to see every woman who steps in front of my camera. So when I came back to the States in 2011, landlocked and missing the ocean, I bought my first professional camera and started Stephanie Marie Photography.

Four years later, I was in Paris for a workshop, shooting with a few friends, when a boudoir photographer leaned over, elbowed me, and whispered, “You could totally shoot boudoir.”

I laughed. *Hell no.* I had struggled with how I saw my body for as long as I could remember. Even standing in front of a camera fully dressed could send me spiraling. Why on earth would anyone choose to do that almost naked?

But her words followed me home.

I rented a space for one day, organized hair and makeup, and asked two women to model for me: a friend, and someone I had never met in person before. Neither was a model, and neither had ever done a boudoir session, so I was really challenging myself. Honestly, I still had no idea what I was doing, or why. I kept asking myself that question for a full year, until I finally realized the answer: I want to help women see what they can’t see in themselves, and leave with photos they truly love.

Then came our new home, and a basement that sat empty for six months. One day I picked up the phone, called my friend from the Paris trip, and asked, “What if I turned my basement into a boudoir studio?”

She didn’t hesitate. “HELL YES.”

That was all I needed to hear. In January 2017, Stephanie Marie Boudoir Photography Studio opened its doors, and the rest is history.

I’ve never forgotten why I said *hell no* that day. It wasn’t about boudoir. It was about me. I used to let other people’s opinions about my body become my own, and it took a long time to stop believing some of them. So if a little voice in your head is saying *hell no* right now, you’re in good company.

And here’s what ten years of running a boudoir studio have taught me: a session can absolutely be a gift for someone else, but it’s so much more than that. It’s for the woman who wants to see herself differently, or simply remember who she is right now.

My family is the reason I do what I do. I have an adult daughter and a toddler son, more than 20 years apart, which means I’ve changed diapers in two different decades and I still don’t have it all figured out. My husband and I have been together for 15 years, and he’s been my biggest believer through all ten years of building this studio, even when the plan sounded a little crazy. We packed up and moved away once, and it took leaving to realize Iowa is home. So when you walk in, you’re meeting a woman who has her own hard days in front of the mirror, and who’s going to make you feel like a total babe.

Photo by Sarah Siler Photography