“I used Shannon for some boudoir pics before the wedding for my fiance. I was so nervous going in. I am a plus size woman and wasn’t sure if I would look sexy. Shannon made me look and feel AMAZING! Honestly never felt sexier. My fiance LOVED the pics. Said he was marrying a model. Everyone deserves to feel this awesome about themselves. Thank so much Shannon!!!” – Ashley

A new location in charming Charleston means new and charming products!!! We are thrilled to be adding this adorable perfume drive, complete with your favorite retouched, high-resolution digital files. Perfume drives are included in all curated collections, completing the perfect gift for your loved ones. Click [HERE] for pricing and info.

It’s finally spring time! And while most people are spring cleaning their homes, we’re spring cleaning our product line!! Out with the old, in with the new. It’s with great pleasure and excitement that I get to announce our newest product… the “Peek-a-boo Book!”

I’m obsessed for 3 reasons:

1] This book is made by the same company as our one of a kind, Bedroom Book. It is handled with ultimate care and created with amazing quality. It’s made in Italy and shipped within 2 weeks [super fast for this level of detail]!!

2] It’s two products in one! This album comes stored in a custom “frame box” with a clear, magnetic, plexiglass covering [not shown because the reflective surface is a bitch to photograph and I wanted to share this immediately. Check back later for an updated photos with covering]. That means that you can hang it or stand it up on a photo shelf and in the box, it looks like a framed portrait. Which means that…

3] You get ultimate privacy with the Peek-a-boo Book. We’ve listened and heard you when you say you want to keep your boudoir photos private. Place this as a framed photo and no one is the wiser that there are secretly 20 pages of you in your most intimate unmentionables inside. Chose a beauty portrait for the cover, tuck the ribbon in the front page and your boudoir album becomes something out of a James Bond movie. Well, maybe it doesn’t blow up but how cool that you can walk over, pull the magnetic cover off and take your album out of the wall!!

I almost forget to mention the best part; the box, the spine, and the ribbon are all 100% custom designed!! You can get almost any color you want and our design team is excited to help you select the perfect color combination for your cover photo and/or home decor.

We are so thrilled with this book and can’t wait to show it to you in person! Contact us at any time to schedule an appointment to come see this album in action!!

Thank you to all who came out to shop local and support small business artists!
Enjoy a few photos from our shop small Saturday open studio, featuring fashion illustrator Holly Nichols, makeup artist Danielle Keefe and yours truly!!

Miss out on today’s event and holiday offers?
You can still get a complimentary mobile look book when you schedule any boudoir or beauty portrait in the month of December.
For more info, contact us HERE.

#ShopSmall

[Danielle’s Organic Lip Scrub]

Love & Lipstick’s own Danielle Keefe can now be found at Shannon Michelle Photography!
Designer Decor . Custom Lip Treatments . Headshots

Holiday Cards and Mugs by Holly!

Holly Nichols Studio [left] | Shannon Michelle Studio [right]

Live Sketching by Holly Nichols

We LOVE Christmas and the holiday season and we’re excited to share with you what we’ve got planned for the biggest shopping weekend of the year! The deals below are exclusively available Friday, Nov. 28th – 11pm on Monday, November 30th.

BECAUSE ALL HE WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU…

We are making boudoir sessions easier and more affordable than ever…introducing Holiday Mini Sessions! This years theme is “LIPS OR LEGS” and includes an 11×14″ canvas print for just $159!
[No coupon code required]

If you’re a past client and have a BEAUTY PORTRAIT that you love, save 50% on all canvas prints!
[Coupon code: SHOPSMALLCANVAS]

If you know you’re going to be in way too many holiday photos this year, you might want to take advantage of 50% off the POSE THIN VIDEO download.
[Coupon code: SHOPSMALLPOSING]

Last but not least, if you’re a FASHION LOVER, take 20% off select DESIGNER DECOR. At just $12 each, they make the perfect stocking stuffer!
[Coupon code: SHOPSMALLPRINTS]

For more info on deals and to purchase online, simply click HERE for BOUDOIR and HERE for DESIGNER DECOR.

Why do you hang portraits of your children? Why did your parents hang portraits of you? All pondering aside, did you know that research shows children who grow up in homes where their portraits hang on the wall, grow up with higher self esteem than those without?

Why?

Because it says to them that they are valued and are worth showing off to anyone who sets foot inside their home. It says “my parents are so proud of me and the family that we’ve become and I am a worthy part of that equation.”

I can almost hear your thoughts….

“Well then, how about just pictures of the kids then. Maybe one family portrait from 10 years ago and a small print of our wedding photo will do.”

Nope!

Something I’ve learned as an adult and as a wife is just how much our parents’ actions and belief systems mold us into the people we are today, for better or worse. You can tell your little girl anything you want, but if you don’t believe it for yourself, she’ll have a hard time believing it for herself. The best thing we can do for our children is live by example; to be the person we want them to be.

I believe:

We need to take better care of ourselves.
We need to celebrate ourselves.
We need to be proud of the person we are today and the person we will become.
We need to be patient with ourselves.
We need to forgive ourselves.
We need to love ourselves better.

The last thing you would want, is for your child not to believe in himself because you didn’t believe in yourself. Or worse, be afraid to become the best version of themselves because deep down inside they feel guilty about being the person you could not be. So how can you tell your little girl, learning to be a woman [or your little boy, learning to love a woman] that they should proudly have their portraits on the wall, but you’re not worthy of the same?

Lead by example.

And if you’re not ready to have children; first I applaud you for recognizing that and not rushing in, but second there’s no better time to build your own self worth than before you actually have them.

Either way, the people who love you, love you  just as you are today; and tomorrow is not promised. When was the last time you were photographed? When was the last time you were photographed in a way you loved? When was the last time you were photographed in a way you wanted to cherish?

If you can’t remember, call us [617.307.1155]. Let’s chat about how we can help you.
You deserve it! If you’re not convinced a wall portrait is for you, click HERE.

Recently, I was asked by the lovely Marianne Cherico to join her on a coaching call and offer advise to “women in their second half” about posing. I gladly did so and we briefly chatted about how important is for women to celebrate themselves and to be photographed. As Marianne was wrapping up our segment, she quickly added the words “and not in an ego way.”

In all honesty, it took be aback for a minute. Because I believe so desperately in what I do, it had never once crossed my mind that what I was talking about could be considered to be done out of ego. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard it before.

“O, I wouldn’t want to put up a big picture of myself. That’s weird isn’t it? Do people do that?”

If you’re a photographer who sells large wall portraits and you’re reading this, you’ve most likely heard this a time or two in your own studio. If you’re a client reading this, you may have had the exact same thought as you look around my studio and see lots of large artwork on the walls. And I’ve heard that exact statement come out of the mouths of a few of you. No worries though, I get it. I heard the question in your voice. “It’s so egotistical, right?” You’re asking the question because you love this portrait so much that you would want to see it hanging in your home somewhere but you aren’t sure where you would put it or how you would explain it to your friends.

“Do other people really do that?”

Let me answer this way….if people didn’t buy them, I wouldn’t offer them. So yes, other people really do that. But let’s chat about the bigger picture here [pardon the pun]. Why are you worried about what other people might think when they enter your home for a few short hours?

Isn’t that ego? 

Ego, by definition, is the part of the psyche that experiences the outside world and reacts to it, coming between the primitive drives of the ID and the demands of the social environment, represented by the superego.

…experiencing the outside world and reacting to it…so really, isn’t it ego NOT to hang your large portrait?

I completely understand if a portrait of you in the buff is not something you want hanging over your living room sofa. That’s not what we’re talking about here. My clients get a beauty portrait or something that is appropriate to share with the public during their boudoir experience. And some clients come to me strictly for beauty. So yes, maybe your bare bottom belongs in the privacy of your bedroom or in an album. But that stunning portrait of you, looking relaxed and confident, that belongs out where people can see it and celebrate with you.

If you’re ready to celebrate you or someone you love, contact us [info@shannon-michelle.com] for booking info.

“…but where does the CD go?”

While recently chatting it up with another artist friend who had bought the new 27″ iMac, she mentioned she felt a little silly as she asked that very question of Apple’s support team when she got home and realized that she couldn’t find the CD drive. She couldn’t find it because Apple no longer includes a CD drive on their iMac computers.

It’s just one more reason why we encourage our clients to have their photographs printed! Even if you managed to buy a CD of photos, where would you put it? I understand that most people still have a CD drive but that will no longer be the case in just a few short years. Because digital media changes so quickly, it is more important than ever to print your photographs. If you don’t, you’ll be required to constantly update the media and the more pictures you save, the larger that project becomes.

After all, can you still play your iPod on a CD player? Or a CD in a tape recorder? Or a tape on a record player? Who cares, you’re probably streaming live anyway. Get it?

Just like with music, you need to update your digital photos to the most current format [film scan, CD, thumb drive, hard drive, cloud etc.] in order to keep them “archived.” And I use the term “archived” loosely because every time you open those files, they diminish little by little. [For example, making a tape recording while playing a song on vinyl is not going to have the same sound quality as playing that vinyl on a record player. It loses quality.]  And just like a CD can get a scratch or a tape can become tangled, your digital files can become corrupt over time or when moving them to new format. That means they are damaged and lost forever. And I know you think you might be able to stay on top of it. I mean, a disc to a thumb drive seems manageable (as long as the files are still in tact). But when your parents were listening to Chubby Checker do the Twist, the internet hadn’t even been invented yet! Imagine their shock if you said “One day, you’ll be able to watch this on YouTube.” Thankfully music moguls have conglomerates who continue to archive their work so that we can all watch Chubby twist his little hips online. We have companies like Disney who spend millions of dollars and countless hours restoring their films so we can watch Cinderella on blu-ray. And in all fairness, because we see those oldies but goodies updated regularly, we really don’t give much thought to our own creative work that needs preserving. I think it’s fair to say that you probably don’t have access to those teams for your Easter Sunday egg hunts or your Sweet 16 or how you looked just a few months before meeting your little girl for the very first time [click here for maternity].

I understand you want to keep the digital files for peace of mind and they are nice to have as a backup, but having your photographs professionally printed is the only real way of backing them up. Not to mention that your favorite photographs are meant to be seen! They are meant to bring a smile to your face when you are sitting at the breakfast table and look up at a big print of your little one covered in the frosting of his very first cake. They are meant to remind you of the love you have for your husband and the life you’ve built together as you flip through your wedding album. And they are meant inspire you to be confident and appreciate the person you are as you get dressed every morning, passing by your bedroom boudoir wall portrait. Your photographs are artwork that is meant to be seen!

You don’t really believe those digital files are the equivalent to a film negative, do you? If you did, you definitely don’t want to know what a photographer would have to charge you for them!

So, print your pictures. I suggest printing all your photographs small to have as keepsakes and choosing your absolute favorites to decorate your walls with. Your photographer can help you narrow down your decision and give advise on what will work best in your home. But, you have to start by making the commitment to print your photographs regularly.

Didn’t you just hate running errands when you were a kid?! I remember when I was little, one of those errands usually included dropping off a roll of film or two at the drive thru photo lab. It was part of our regular routine. And when I was in my mid twenties, my mom gifted me the most amazing photo album. It was a full collection of photos of me from birth to age 16. It included things like my mom’s hospital bracelet, dedication certificate and lots of photos! Photos of family vacations when I was a baby, holidays, music recitals, trips, birthdays etc. It was amazing. All those important memories, in one location and passed down to me so that I could revisit them whenever I like and share them with my own family one day.

I’m guilty of it as well. As a professional photographer, I have access to the best labs and even I have photographs sitting on my phone or desktop that need to be printed. We get busy. We wait until we have a bulk order and then forget all together. I get it! But I’m making that commitment with you today to print my pictures! Will you? If it makes it easier, just order 10 a week. Can I let you in a little secret? When people took pictures on film, they had no more than 36 photos per roll! You don’t need to print thousands at a time. You just need to print regularly. Your children and your children’s children will thank you for it. I can’t imagine growing up in a world where years, even decades at a time, of memories and moments are just missing because they were never printed, can you? Comment below if you will pledge to print your pictures!! 

If you want us to create and print your pictures, just email info@shannon-michelle.com for bookings.

[Drive thru photo courtesy of Kodak]

Boudoir is the ultimate in intimate gift giving. So it makes perfect sense that brides are having designer boudoir albums made to give their fiance’s on their wedding day.

Traditionally, grooms gifts are given on the morning of the wedding day. But when it comes to your intimate images, there are some logistics to consider. Like, how will you get the album to him without your dad or ring bearer getting a peak? Below are three “safe” ways to give him the gift he’ll never forget!

A.] THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT

O yes, your boudoir album on your very own personal app is the safest way to get your intimate images in the hands of your man without a drunken, joke-playing groomsman finding and sharing them with anyone and everyone. Imagine the love of your life, just a few hours from becoming your husband, and getting a text from you that contains the password to the NO PEAKING app, that you’ve so sneakily downloaded onto his phone the evening before. Even if he noticed the app, it says “no peaking” and if he is like most men and can’t keep his hands off it, he can’t get into the app without the password anyway. Click HERE to see the app.

B.] MR & MRS

Now that you’ve tied the knot, laughed with friends, cried with family, danced all night, and finished off the last of the champagne…there’s one more thing. It’s wedding night! Giving him the album the night of your wedding is a great way to share in the experience, make sure no one else sees it but still honors that bit of tradition about exchanging gifts the day of.

C.] HONEYMOONERS

Were you too exhausted to give him your album the night of? Did he have too much to drink and manage to shuffle his way to the suite’s kitchen to eat a snickers bar while wearing nothing but his socks? No worries, I’ve saved the best for last!

Give him your boudoir album the night of your honeymoon. This is my personal favorite because you get to see his reaction to the photos, you are both relaxed, refreshed and can enjoy the time together. Slip into one of those super sexy pieces of lingerie you’re wearing in the album, pop some champagne and have it wrapped and waiting on the bed…or even better…under his pillow.

There really is no right or wrong way to give your album to your groom to be but know that you have options and decide what’s going to work best for you!!

We use the new line of lipsticks from Danielle Keefe Artistry today! Click SHOP to order your favorite hydrating lip balm.