Nature As Boudoir
"When Marina asked where would I prefer to have my Boudoir Session, I replied, that I saw ‘nature as my boudoir’ … so it would have to be there!
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And so it began
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A gentle process followed of questions to prepare for the weekend shoot – they were important and evocative questions, like why a boudoir session now? What makes me feel amazing? What’s the bravest thing I’ve done? For what am I most grateful for? The happiest memory?
Looking back, this is where the boudoir session started, in a reflective space. A gentle way in, to get clarity on intentions, to go inward, preparing to dive deep into the experience, reflecting on past self, and envisioning future self.
It was then that I came to see the Boudoir Session as a Rite of Passage. For myself, as a woman, I saw it as a gift, using this experience to consciously let go of anything that no longer brings me to life. And by releasing the old, really allowing myself to embrace something new. A threshold into the next chapter, heralding a vibrant, braver, bolder self. The session with Marina began to make so much sense as a way to consciously mark a moment in time. To strip back literal and metaphoric layers.
Marina understood all of this and mirrored back with so much encouragement.
| Coming Alive
I have often felt that my strength, sacred vulnerability, truth, connection to my body, has been ‘heightened’ in nature. Nature mirrors in truth and fullness; it is the solid ground, the muddy earth beneath feet and between toes, the vastness of sky and sea, a windswept face.
Nature can be silent, spacious, dry, mysterious, shadowy, flowing, fertile, sensuous, blooming.
Nature gives me a sense of strength and openness, to embrace and anchor what life has given.
It unearths wildness, it restores, inspires, it tells of cycles, of death, or renewal, of connection, to be loved, held, and at times, shaken and stirred! Dissolving into a landscape, I have felt empowered and mirrored in this way. Somehow this memory of being in nature, helps me re-turn or re-claim the truth of who I am and all I am. I guess without discarding parts or forgetting parts, it is the whole reality in all it's flaws, grittiness, and this beauty is somehow held by something much greater - some call it the Universe, some call it Love, I call it God.
Nature has a way of orientating to what is true and alive in me and what I am called to be in the world.
It burns away everything that is not important, or distracting.
To me, nature speaks in whispers.
It takes tender ears to enter into the stillness and silence.
Really really listen. It’s that sweet intimacy of relating.
It gives me the answers to my questions - I feel it in my bones and in my deepest knowing.
It lets me know I am safe and that I belong.
I began to feel ready to step over this threshold with Marina, excited and anticipating what might emerge for both of us.
And to allow her to support and guide and capture all that nature meant to me, within that luscious experience of ‘dissolving into the landscape’.
| Co-create. Led. Held.
From creating a mood board and exploring site options - where Marina found a spectacular National Park dotted with extraordinary rock and granite and ancient formations of wind and water - through to meticulously planning the shoot, Marina created a beautiful experience and made it seem effortless. She held the space and made it both fun and safe. Marina did what she said she would, she was our ‘wilderness guide’, boudoir photographer, co-creator and an artistic director.
Through the shoot and Marina’s guidance, I got to discover new limits within myself and pushed into places that felt incredibly empowering; lying within rocks crevasses, balancing on fallen trunks above creeks. Feeling the sunset on my back as we waited for the light to shift, I remember looking at the setting sun, through strands of hair that’d been carefully composed.
Marina was so delightful, we talked and shared stories, along paths, occasionally ‘stripping’ to gain a great shot in the light, and then back we’d return to the path, talking some more, again finding mist for another shot, kangaroos and wallabies came to join us and we giggled like school girls.
So disarming with her instructions, Marina has this way of instructing gently, intuitively, she embodies the pose and you really do create something together, it’s a process and I felt empowered and feminine.
I know in myself there are many layers so this process was the peeling back of layers I needed, to listen deeply to giant stones, the coolness of the rock, the soft light of the morning, the feeling of air on ‘goosebumpy’ skin.
I realised how grateful I am for my health, I realised how grateful I am to be held in nature, drawing strength from all that is there to love and support and nurture. Marina facilitated this process, by creating a safe container to play and explore. She mirrors her clients like nature mirrors. A few times along the way, I expressed nerves and she just gently listened and helped me see things with kind eyes.
“I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”
- John O’Donohue
We had a lot of fun and took some real risks.
There were moments of mutual trust and safety and creative play. Very special, And healing.
When I saw the photographs, it reminded me of the raw, wild, courageous and graceful parts within myself. I felt the depth and lightness captured so well.
The wildness of the earth.
The purity of it. The scale and strength, reminding me I am held.
I am a woman.
I am here.
And I am safe.
| PostScript. I joked that I am going to have to work hard to NOT take my clothes off from now on!
And would do it again in a heartbeat. Thank you, dear Marina."
Emerentiana
