Brooklyn Boudoir in the World of COVID-19 | Health and Safety as New York City Opens up

wear a mask and make it fashion

I cannot believe it’s been three months since my last shoot. Oh how things have changed in such a short amount of time!

When things shut down, I had pretty much just gotten back into the swing of things after my maternity leave. I was working towards opening a new studio, rolling out a year full of amazing sessions, and setting up some educational resources for fellow photographers. But alas, life is funny and had other plans for us all! I never imagined I’d be homeschooling my kid! After much patience and time we are ready to re-open and start capturing beautiful boudoir images for you again!

Here are some things you should know:

• Initially, session availability will be limited. I will be maxing out at 2 sessions per week as a start. The extra protocols take up a bit more time and will cause a reduction of session availability.

• Please be courteous of everyone’s health. If you or anyone in your household has a temperature of over 100.4 degrees or COVID-like symptoms please contact me to reschedule. Reschedule fees will be waived if they are COVID related.

• Know that I will be doing temperature checks for anyone on set - myself, hair and makeup artists, clients and friends - as an extra layer of protection.

• Please arrive wearing a mask. I will be wearing a mask as well, as will everyone on my staff. Friends who join the shoot will also be asked to wear a mask at all times.

• Hand sanitizer and/or soap will be available at your session for use.

• I will be maintaining as much social distancing as possible during our shoot and will utilize long lenses that allow me to photograph you from farther away.

• Your contract will now include an additional COVID Liability Waiver. Please don’t be alarmed. This is to protect both of us from liability if we have unknown germs.

• Please note this is a fluid situation and may change based upon governmental directives, CDC recommendations, and legal advisement.

  Whew… that was a lot! Are you still with me? If so, let’s talk about some exciting news!

  I am ITCHING to travel - how about you?? So, I will be planning a destination boudoir shoot for 2021! I’m still hashing out the details but it will be a tropical destination not too far from NYC. I will be offering both a boudoir workshop for fellow photographers AND individual beachy boudoir shoots for clients. I’m also HOPING to host a past client event at what I consider to be the best hotel suite in Brooklyn. More on that as the city continues to reopen. Exciting stuff!

  Ready to book/rebook your session?

  I’m so excited to see you! I know many of you had sessions scheduled when we had to shut down.Let’s get those rescheduled and new sessions booked! Shoot me an email and we’ll get you on the calendar. Please remember that session availability will be limited. The sooner you are on the books, the more likely you’ll be able to get your preferred date!

xoxo, Stephanie

Phenomenal Woman | Birthday Boudoir | Brooklyn New York

My semi-failed attempt at a birthday self-portrait.

Well, I've officially taken another trip around the sun.

After turning 40 last year, and celebrating in Paris, I thought this year’s birthday would be more or less forgettable. I also thought I’d be celebrating at Le CouCou but neither of those things is happening given the current state of the world (shrugs).

Aging has never been scary to me - I’ve always strongly felt that age is mental. But this is an existential time to be having a birthday - four weeks into our pandemic self-quarantine, schools clothed, homeschooling our little ones, trying to keep businesses afloat, the idea that New York City will be irreversibly changed after this all passes … it’s a lot.

And yet, always a Pollyanna, I can’t help but try to think of the bright side. It’s probably the only time in my life I’ll be able to spend this kind of (semi) uninterrupted time with my kids. Without my usual shoots each week, I’m thinking of new ways to help my clients and keep the business going. I’m not wearing makeup or nail polish to give my skin a break. Many days I feel cooped up and anxious but other days this mandatory break feels full of potential.

This past year went insanely fast - I feel like I was just in Paris. I blame the baby - at 40, I had my second daughter. Now, I don’t have to pump before and after shoots. In fact, a lot of ways this time of COVID-19 feel like maternity leave - before it happens you can’t imagine having the luxury of so much time, you imagine how you are going to learn another language in “all” the time you will have… and then three months goes by and you can count how many times you’ve washed your hair on your fingers.

All I wanted for my birthday was to get a good photo of my new 4 person family together. I don’t know that I succeeded in a “good” photo… but sometimes it’s the outtakes that are the best part. I ate mac and cheese, brownies, burrata, birthday cake and wine. My parents did a surprise drive-by to sign happy birthday. And my incredible girlfriends made me a video of them reciting Maya Angelou’s Phenmonical Woman. I burst into tears several times over the course of the day. It all helped me remember that we don’t need to go out to have connections, we don’t need to make a show to celebrate and be celebrated. The things that are most meaningful are the people you love, and being able to look in the mirror and say, there are ups and there are downs, but hey, I’m doing ok.

But I digress. I still believe that, while I may have aged ten years in the past one year, age really is just a number. I'm really happy with what I've accomplished in my 41 years on earth, while simultaneously wondering how on earth I've gotten this far into adulthood. I love my family, love my friends and am pretty proud of the world I’ve created for myself.

Thank you as always for all of the support and for allowing me to share a bit of my personal life with those who allow me into theirs. Those clients and followers who have sent gifts and greetings::: I genuinely appreciate it more than I can put into words. Making women feel amazing is what makes my job so amazing, and I’m touched when you all return the favor. It makes me feel so special and fulfilled!  

And now, the poem Phenomenal Woman, by Maya Angelou, followed by my brilliant friends’ interpretation.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size   

But when I start to tell them,

They think I’m telling lies.

I say,

It’s in the reach of my arms,

The span of my hips,   

The stride of my step,   

The curl of my lips.   

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,   

That’s me.

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,   

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.   

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.   

I say,

It’s the fire in my eyes,   

And the flash of my teeth,   

The swing in my waist,   

And the joy in my feet.   

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered   

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can’t touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them,   

They say they still can’t see.   

I say,

It’s in the arch of my back,   

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

Now you understand

Just why my head’s not bowed.   

I don’t shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.   

When you see me passing,

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It’s in the click of my heels,   

The bend of my hair,   

the palm of my hand,   

The need for my care.   

’Cause I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

XOXO, Stephanie

Staying Sane during COVID-19 Self-Quarantine | Brooklyn New York Photographer

Friends! How are you holding up during this insanely crazy time? What are you eating? What are you watching? I’m so curious about how everyone is coping.

If you are like me, you are a working mom who is suddenly thrust into the role of teacher, and stay at home mom, and trying to find ways to help right now, and try to keep her business afloat and try to keep up with the news and not lose her mind. It is, in a word, reallyreallyhard.

Perhaps this has been particularly difficult for New Yorkers, not only because we are at the epicenter of the pandemic but that New Yorkers are notoriously out and about. We don’t live here for the sprawling real estate after all. We go out to eat and order take out WAY more than we cook. (Remember when Carrie Bradshaw admitted she used her oven for storage?) Our apartments are small and we often have roommates… so sheltering at home is not easy!

Always a Pollyanna, I am trying to see the bright side to all of this: how rare is it that I can have this kind of uninterrupted (read: forced) time at home with our families? I don’t have to pump at work! I can nap on those days that the baby keeps me up at night. At the same time, I can’t help but fantasize about being unattached and on my own during this time - surely I would have learned Mandarin by now and my business would be booked up though 2121. The grass is always greener, I guess.

I think the hardest part about all of this is that it’s not something we signed up for — our expectations for the next few months we one thing and this f*ing virus changed it all, without much warning and without our consent. But just because things have changed, doesn’t mean they have to be bad. Here are some ways I’ve been coping with this new normal:

Get dressed in the morning … eventually

The hardest part of “the old days” for me was getting my 4 year old out of the house to get to school in time. The amount of times I ask, “ did you brush your teeth?” nearly puts me over the edge before it’s even 8am. For the past few weeks, instead of waking up early to get my own sh*t together, I’ve allowed my 4 year old to wake me up, climb into bed and snuggle for a few minutes before we get our day going. I feed the baby in bed, and I drink coffee in my robe. Yes, I do get dressed eventually - I’m a firm believer that the way we look & present ourselves affects the way we feel and vice versa, so I don’t want to get TOO lethargic BUT, as a woman who loves a good robe, I am reveling in taking my mornings a little bit slower.

Draw some bouderies for yourself.

This is sooo hard for me to do. However, this week I have realzied that it’s better for me to “go to work” in another room for a few hours rather than try to work half-heartedly around my four year old, who then feels she needs to vie for my attention. Then I end up frustrated, she ends up feeling alone, even though we are together and everyone feels grumpy and over it come the end of the day. Instead, I try to get my work done a few hours at a time and then spend some time in a concentrated effort with my daughters. Live alone? Give yourself blocks of time to work and be sure to schedule in breaks for fresh air, change of pace, movement, whatever you need to do. And be sure you “go home” after work for the day. I always have a hard time letting my work day spill into the evening hours when I work from home. Give yourself a time that you are leaving the office and then do just that (even if it’s just by stepping away from the laptop).

Connect with those you love.

Photo courtesy of Keturah Bishop

A zoom happy hour? Not my style. I’ve always been more of a one on one kind of girl. Real conversations - sure, on Zoom or facetime or whatever - with those friends I don’t get to speak with on a regular basis have given me life these past few weeks. I miss my friends, and now that we all have a more open social calendar, it’s been really rewarding catching up with them in a meaningful way. Quarentined with your honey? That doesn’t mean you can’t still have a date night - get dressed up, eat dinner at a normal hour after the kids have gone to bed, make an adult beverage and watch a movie.

Interesting also is that whatever stage of life you are in at the moment, and wherever you are in the world, EVERYONE is dealing with this pandemic in one way or another. It’s something everyone has in common - how often does that happen?? So even though it’s for a difficult reason, it feels good to reconnect with those who we’ve maybe lost touch with during the usual daily grind of life.

Help someone who needs it.

It can be in a big or small way. Call a friend who is feeling isolated. Reach out to someone elderly to see if they need something. Use whatever skills you have to make someone’s day brighter. Professionally, I’ll be gifting a medical professional a shoot just to say thank you and give them some much deserved pampering once this is all over. Personally, I kondo’d my kids’ clothes and made hand me down care packages for 2 friends who just had babies. Even something small can be meaningful for all involved.

Schedule something to look forward to when this passes

I had a birthday boudoir session planned for myself with my mentor Kara Marie Trombetta this March, which of course, got postponed. I was super sad about missing it but then remembered, I’m not going to miss it! It’s still going to happen when the self-quarentine regulations ease up and for that I am really excited. And have you seen how cheap airfares are?? The family trip I was planning for Greece may not happen this July but it WILL happen and hopefully will be a little easier on the pocketbook. Whatever it is — big or small — having something to lookforward to and spend energy working towards will help keep your eye on that light at the end of the tunnel, instead of getting lost in the dark. Interested in a Brooklyn Boudoir Shoot? Let’s chat - my schedule is wide open for the fall!

Learn something new or revisit something old

After we’ve all cleaned and Kondo’d what are you going to do? I have had such a long list of projects that maybe I’ll actually get to — creating family albums in print with all the old digitals I have stored, re-editing old shoots of mine now that I’ve got better retouching skills and a more defined style, keeping my website fresh with new images, learning various new retouching techniques, restarting a photo a day self portrait project… there’s so much to do and learn! Now if only I could find the time…

Give yourself a break.

This is a tough time no matter what your circumstances. Give yourself permission to indulge in your favorite guilty pleasures (Tiger King, anyone?) Take advantage of the time at home - nest, Kondo, do all the projects you never have time to do Or don’t! If you didn’t spring clean your house, or write that novel, or organzie your photos or start that online class… that’s just fine! Hang in there and remember that this won’t last forever. You are tougher than you think you are. You can handle this.

Sending love and looking fowrard to the day we can hug again!

xoxo, Stephanie