📸FIELD GUIDE 23: Beauty filters

None needed here

Name

Taylor Stoianoff

Habitat

Hutto, TX

Occupation

Boudoir photographer

Soundtrack

What is boudoir?

Boudoir can easily be confused for “nudes” or “sexual images” but it is not that; it is so much more.

Boudoir is a woman being brave enough to take that step in embracing herself, her flaws and the parts of her she is learning to love. Boudoir is a woman saying “I’m enough” and wanting to truly see herself through someone else’s eyes.

That’s what I’m here for, to show you how truly beautiful you are through someone else’s eyes (aka my lens) and to be your professional hype woman.

I’ve wanted to be a photographer since I was in middle school. I had dreams of going to a big photography school up north but life had other plans for me.

When I was 16 I found out I was pregnant. Being a teen mom turned my life into trying to graduate high school, learning to be a single mom and focusing on my daughter. Therefore, my photography passion was put on the back burner, but I knew I would never give up on the dream fully.

As years passed, I married my middle school crush Zachary, had another little girl, and we settled down in a little house in Hutto, Texas. I told my husband that I had this passion and wanted to somehow make it work. That same year he went and got me everything I’d need to start from a laptop to the camera itself.

I spent any free time I had learning to use my new camera between working full time, being a mom to two girls, and having a husband who was often traveling with the military. I used lunch breaks at my medical job to edit images and try to network. I also networked at night when my girls went to sleep. I knew failure would not be an option for me because I wouldn’t let it.

I am passionate about building up other women in a world full of people tearing each other down. If I can inspire at least one woman to love herself a little more, I feel fulfilled. Reminding women they are enough, they are worthy, and they are loved is what I am truly passionate about.

I have a women’s only group where I post my boudoir session openings but mostly use it as a platform for women to uplift other women, for women to share their struggles and to learn to love their flaws.

I have seen so many women grow from sharing their stories and their self love journey. But it isn’t just them learning to love themselves and grow. I am on this journey with them. It is a group of women all learning to love themselves a little more and in turn I am learning to do the same.

Isn’t it crazy how women uplifting each other can make this big of a difference? Our flaws make up who we are, they tell our story and learning to love those things, to love your story is such a beautiful thing.

The best parts about my job are sending a woman her gallery and her responding with, “I didn’t expect to like seeing myself but I feel beautiful” and the incredible women I can call friends through this journey. And now they hype up other women because they’ve learned to love themselves enough to do so.

There are so many beautiful parts to my job that keep me motivated and help me thrive, but the biggest is watching my girls not only watch me love myself but help other women do the same for themselves and their daughters. It has become my drive, I am on a journey to help every woman feel empowered, and there’s no stopping me.

Learn more

You can follow Taylor’s photography pages on Instagram: boudoir and not boudoir.

To close out our conversation, I asked Taylor if there was anything she did to learn how to use her camera to improve her skills. She said the best way she learned was trial and error. We learn by doing, we all start somewhere!