ONCE AGAIN, Rachael and I started recording an episode thinking it would be kind of cute and quaint and silly. And then it ended up getting kind of deep. #onbrand

In this episode, we pass the mic back and forth and hand out radical permission slips for y'all. Wanna exist in photos without changing a damn thing about yourself first? Permission granted. Wanna wear bigger pants that actually fit? Dare ya. Wanna look silly on the dance floor, take a nap instead of muscling through, or just show up as today’s version of you? You're allowed!!

DM me at @empowermentstudio__ to tell me which permission slip you are snagging (or if there's another specific one you found yourself hoping we'd say next).

🤳🏼 Get our FREE selfie guide: https://empowermentphotographer.com/selfie

🔗 Sign up for the #SelfietoSelfLove Challenge: selfietoselflove.com

📸 Follow us on Instagram: @empowermentstudio__

🌐 Learn more about our boudoir sessions and Empowerment Experience: empowermentphotographer.com

👥 Join our Facebook Group: The Empowerment Studio

We’re back, baby! After two months apart, Rachael and I are finally in the studio together again -- new haircuts, big stories, and a whole lot of laughs (Rachael and I love a good chat!).

Rachael spent the summer on a cruise ship that was still being built -- which means she’s got wild tales about isolation, construction zones, and how a ship gets lifted out of the ocean. She also shared about feeling out of sync with her clothes and vibe, and what it’s like to have this feeling that it's time to step into a whole new version of yourself (but to not necessarily know what version of yourself that is).

Meanwhile, my summer was its own whirlwind -- parenting, travel, and running the Empowerment Studio (and our EPIC Selfie Challenge + Model Call!) -- so it felt extra good to land back in this creative space together.

This episode is a mix of reunion joy, transformation vibes, and a little cruise-ship nerdery. Come hang out with us -- it feels so good to be back.

🤳🏼 Get our FREE selfie guide: https://empowermentphotographer.com/selfie

🔗 Sign up for the #SelfietoSelfLove Challenge: selfietoselflove.com

📸 Follow us on Instagram: @empowermentstudio__

🌐 Learn more about our boudoir sessions and Empowerment Experience: empowermentphotographer.com

👥 Join our Facebook Group: The Empowerment Studio

Throwback episode! This interview with my client Sarah from 2023 was too good to not share with y'all over here on the podcast. But the funny thing is, at the start of the interview, I told you that we’re having a half-off session fee sale (2023 edition) and so we’re doing a half-off session fee sale (2025 edition)! Hehe. Our repurposing is your gain, as the saying goes! 

And now... onto the episode!

"I wanna live here forever. I just wanna live in these wings. I want to live as this superhuman forever. It was just so empowering and so FUN!"

Sarah and I had the best time talking together! We talked about how a boudoir session is a chance to PLAY! They told me how good it felt to tap into an incredibly empowered version of themself.... and now they get to take that vibe home with them, and have photos to look back on to help them come back to that version of themself. 

Sarah also told me how comfortable they felt the whole time, showing up as the fullest version of themself. 

"Be ready to have a great time. It's an investment, and it's worth every single penny. Do it for you, don't do it for anyone else. This going to be something you remember for the rest of your life, and you're not gonna regret a single moment."

This was such a great conversation. Enjoy!!

🤳🏼 Get our FREE selfie guide: https://empowermentphotographer.com/selfie

🔗 Sign up for the #SelfietoSelfLove Challenge: selfietoselflove.com

📸 Follow us on Instagram: @empowermentstudio__

🌐 Learn more about our boudoir sessions and Empowerment Experience: empowermentphotographer.com

👥 Join our Facebook Group: The Empowerment Studio

Heyyyy y'all, I just got back from Hinterland Music Festival in Iowa and it was SUCH a good weekend. Perfect weather, rad neighbors, queer vibes all around.

I am now newly obsessed with Rebecca Black (she was hot and gay during her daytime set -- and vibey and magnetic at her midnight DJ set) and may or may not have cut my bangs while peering into a 3" camping mirror a couple days after seeing her perform (this decision was premeditated, but seeing hot perfect her bangs were during her DJ set late at night was absolutely the catalyst for making it happen WHILE I was camping, lol).

Tyler the Creator's set was also so potent and I'm very inspired by his merch. I love a weird and all-in creative concept.

There's lots more about Hinterland in this episode, but also a lot of Empowerment Studio future-dreaming out loud (you’ll have to listen to find out what that's all about). I always come back so inspired and I have a feeling the Hinter-magic is really just beginning to unfold. Lots of tiny moments cracked something open in me -- and I'm so curious how it's all going to shake out.

🤳🏼 Get our FREE selfie guide: https://empowermentphotographer.com/selfie

🔗 Sign up for the #SelfietoSelfLove Challenge: selfietoselflove.com

📸 Follow us on Instagram: @empowermentstudio__

🌐 Learn more about our boudoir sessions and Empowerment Experience: empowermentphotographer.com

👥 Join our Facebook Group: The Empowerment Studio

Y’all loved her before -- and guess what? She’s back!!

Gramma Iris returns to the pod, and this time it’s pure JOY. We’re talking recipes, stories, advice, favorite outfits, and everything in between. She’s 90 years old, fabulous as can be, and somehow even more iconic than last time.

We recorded this one in person with my amazing co-host (hi, Rachael!), and it felt like a cozy kitchen table hangout full of laughter, memories, and a whole lot of love.

You’ll hear:

-- our favorite family recipes

-- how Gramma Iris makes friends literally everywhere

-- her go-to outfit for Target trips (recorded before we started boycotting Target, just to be clear!)

-- her thoughts on aging, joy, and staying curious

-- and the questions she wished we’d asked her last time!

Honestly, this episode feels like a hug in audio form -- and it’s a reminder that it’s never too late to be playful, connected, and fully yourself.

(I love you, Gramma! Thank you for being here!!)

🤳🏼 Get our FREE selfie guide: https://empowermentphotographer.com/selfie

🔗 Sign up for the #SelfietoSelfLove Challenge: selfietoselflove.com

📸 Follow us on Instagram: @empowermentstudio__

🌐 Learn more about our boudoir sessions and Empowerment Experience: empowermentphotographer.com

👥 Join our Facebook Group: The Empowerment Studio

The more polished title for this episode might be something like Audy Avery on Being Gray Ace, Gray Romantic, and Deeply Human -- but the one we landed on is probably more apt for this particular episode's vibe.

One of our favorite podcast guests is back! I got to sit down with one of my dearest humans, Audy Avery (they/them), and talk about something we don’t hear nearly enough about: asexuality and aromanticism, in all their layered, nuanced, and beautifully fluid forms. Rachael (she/her) popped in too (as she does), and honestly, it felt like a big warm return to the Empowerment Studio After Dark days -- the vibe was cozy, intimate, campfire-y. My favorite kind.

Audy shared their unfolding journey of realizing they’re on the ace and aro spectrums, and how that discovery has reshaped how they understand their body, their relationships, and their own self-consent. We talked about sex, the differences between libido and attraction, and the subtle but powerful ways we can show up more honestly in our desire -- or lack of it. I especially loved the part where Audy talked about being “romantic with life” and inviting others into that energy without needing to call it something traditional.

This conversation made space for a kind of radical softness -- for people who experience attraction differently, for those of us still unpacking purity culture, and for anyone exploring embodiment on their own timeline.

Whether you identify as ace or not, there’s something here for everyone -- a reminder that attraction, desire, and romance don’t need to follow a script. They can just be yours.

🤳🏼 Get our FREE selfie guide: https://empowermentphotographer.com/selfie

🔗 Sign up for the #SelfietoSelfLove Challenge: selfietoselflove.com

📸 Follow us on Instagram: @empowermentstudio__

🌐 Learn more about our boudoir sessions and Empowerment Experience: empowermentphotographer.com

👥 Join our Facebook Group: The Empowerment Studio

Heyyyyy babes, we're back! It's been a couple of extra busy weeks in the Empowerment Studio what with Pride month (aka Gay Busy Season™) and the Selfie Challenge and the Model Call. So I guess we took an inadvertent summer break. And now it's time for a new episode! And oh my, what a treat this one is.

This week on the Empowerment Studio Podcast, I sit down with my co-host, friend, and longtime Empowerment Studio member Rachael Cady to talk about her transition journey. Rachael shares the deeply personal, powerful story of coming out as a trans woman in her 50s -- including the first time she let herself imagine a different life, and her coming-out moment at work (which is a really fun and beautiful story!).

We talk about permission, identity, hormones, vulnerability, second puberty, joy, and the long arc of becoming more fully yourself. I’m so honored to hold space for this story -- and I hope you love it as much as I do.

🤳🏼 Get our FREE selfie guide: https://empowermentphotographer.com/selfie

🔗 Sign up for the #SelfietoSelfLove Challenge: selfietoselflove.com

📸 Follow us on Instagram: @empowermentstudio__

🌐 Learn more about our boudoir sessions and Empowerment Experience: empowermentphotographer.com

👥 Join our Facebook Group: The Empowerment Studio

Our annual Model Call is OPEN! Come hang out with us in the Empowerment Studio, do a boudoir session, and feel just how much it can change your life.

You don’t have to feel confident to do a boudoir session -- honestly, I usually find that my clients need the session in order to become confident. (Wild, right? We have it all backwards!)

In this episode, I’m joined by happiness coach Jessica Lyonford (she/her) for a really powerful conversation about confidence, body image, and how our brains are actually wired to change. We talk about neuroplasticity -- how our brains create new pathways over time -- and how intentional experiences (like a boudoir shoot!) can become anchors that help shift the way we see ourselves.

Jessica shared so many beautiful insights about building trust with yourself, releasing perfectionism, and why confidence isn’t something you have to have before you start -- it’s something that can grow through action.

✨ And if this conversation speaks to you: the Empowerment Studio’s Model Call is open now through Friday, July 11 at 11:59 PM central. Come apply if you’re ready to take that first brave, beautiful step: https://empowermentphotographer.com/apply

You can find Jessica Lyonford at:

www.jessicalyonford.com

https://www.instagram.com/themorehappycoach

https://www.facebook.com/projectmorehappy

🤳🏼 Get our FREE selfie guide: https://empowermentphotographer.com/selfie

🔗 Sign up for the #SelfietoSelfLove Challenge: selfietoselflove.com

📸 Follow us on Instagram: @empowermentstudio__

🌐 Learn more about our boudoir sessions and Empowerment Experience: empowermentphotographer.com

👥 Join our Facebook Group: The Empowerment Studio

What a week. Today we’re celebrating everything you’ve created during this challenge -- the selfies, the compliments, the courage. I also introduced our Model Call for folks who feel ready to take this to the next level. And as a bonus, I’m bringing back one of the very first recordings I ever made: a guided Flow Pose to ground and connect with your body before your final selfie.

✨ “You are on a really big journey right now, learning your body in new ways... and that’s a really big deal.”

Thank you for being here -- you are so beautiful.

APPLY FOR OUR MODEL CALL HERE!

🤳🏼 Get our FREE selfie guide: https://empowermentphotographer.com/selfie

🔗 Sign up for the #SelfietoSelfLove Challenge: selfietoselflove.com

📸 Follow us on Instagram: @empowermentstudio__

🌐 Learn more about our boudoir sessions and Empowerment Experience: empowermentphotographer.com

👥 Join our Facebook Group: The Empowerment Studio

We’re really in the flow now. Today, I invite everyone to take an intentional moment with the compliments you’ve been receiving -- to let them land, even if just a little. There’s no pressure to fully believe them yet -- just practice staying open.

✨ “Maybe instead you say, thank you. You appreciate the curve of my hips. I can receive that.”

Give a compliment, receive a compliment, and let yourself take one tiny step further into that magic today.

And for fun, here's a blog post with some Empowerment Studio compliment tips! https://empowermentphotographer.com/blog/compliments-101-intersectional-empowerment-style

🤳🏼 Get our FREE selfie guide: https://empowermentphotographer.com/selfie

🔗 Sign up for the #SelfietoSelfLove Challenge: selfietoselflove.com

📸 Follow us on Instagram: @empowermentstudio__

🌐 Learn more about our boudoir sessions and Empowerment Experience: empowermentphotographer.com

👥 Join our Facebook Group: The Empowerment Studio