Today You Are The Youngest You'll Ever Be

Today you are the youngest you’ll ever be.
A photographer (in her 20th) asked in a boudoir photographers group for tips on how to pose an old-ish client in a boudoir session. When she said old-ish she meant a 44-year-old woman. You might imagine the types of comments she has received from female boudoir photographers who were twice or three times her age. 
What age is old? How do we define old? When is a woman too old to feel sensual and even sexy?
Though the change is happening and some big brands are starting to do things differently, still women in their 50th  are becoming invisible in our society, and they are almost disappearing when they are in their 60th  The representation of older women in the advertisement is quite limited to a certain type of women that look half of their age. Even the magazines that are targeted at “middle-aged” women are using images of models in their 30th or highly photoshopped images. On one side we are all exposed to the hyper-sexualized images of “flawless” and “ageless” women and on another side, we are seeing images of women with silver hair advertising for retirement villages and incontinence products. What message do we receive from that?
No wonder a young photographer feels overwhelmed with the task of capturing a sensual site of a client who is double her age.
Reading this post I remembered myself when I was in my 20th – I might have been a bit ignorant. It also reminded me of all the valuable lessons I learned from my amazing boudoir clients. 
A month before my 30th birthday I had a bit of a meltdown. I had this feeling that from now on my life goes downhill. A couple of new wrinkles and grey hair combined with messages from society about women and age can make us feel quite miserable.
A few months later I had an eye-opening experience with a boudoir client who was 66 years old and my oldest boudoir client until then. She was fabulous, she was confident and she loved her body. She didn’t care what other people think. She knew what she wanted (and what she didn’t) from life. She was well aware of her wrinkles and rolls, but this didn’t stop her from feeling sexy and adorable. Her age didn’t stop her from falling in love and enjoy herself. 

 his fabulous woman made me forget about my meltdown and taught me a lesson:
 “Feeling sexy isn’t defined by age! (or size, or shape)”
Since then I had many boudoir sessions with women in their 50th, 60th and 70th and they all were fun and inspiring. The advice I would give to the young photographer is: 
“Age is not a limitation.
There is no age-appropriate posing. Go with whatever your client defines as sensual and with whatever makes them feel comfortable. “

To my future clients who might use the excuse – I am too old:
“Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Marina