Lingerie, lace & lure: Boudoir photography highlights Alaska women’s beauty – KTVA.com

Tucked away in the corner of Elisa Ivers’photography studio is a bed. On it are white sheets, a white comforter and an array of decorative pillows. Tucked away in the corner, light from the summer sun shines directly onto the ceiling-high wooden headboard.

But the bed’s not for sleeping. It’s for boudoir, the genre of photography to which Ivers’ midtown studio, Meringue, is dedicated.

Sitting on the bed is 21-year-old Shelby Turner, wearing an off-white nightie with sheer lace inserts. Pinned into her hair is a flower crown, a staple of the more romantic boudoir shoot. Turner is taking direction from Ivers, to look directly into the camera and smile softly – just as the shutter sounds.

“Gorgeous,” Ivers says.

Beauty, however, isn’t something women always see when they look at themselves in the mirror, the 27-year-old photographer notes.

“A lot of times we see ourselves without make-up, with make-up on,” Ivers said, adding that a pep talk is often necessary. “And I almost feel as if we go, ‘OK, we’re doing today. And we got it. And we’re doing our best.’”

Ivers says even when women do feel beautiful, in a world of instant gratification, they capture it on a roll of selfies.

“I feel like women don’t exist in photos anymore,” she said. “They exist on their iPhones — and these poorly taken pictures that other people take of them. And we’ve kind of started just nitpicking at ourselves so much that I feel like a really well thought out portrait professionally taken is just worth so much in this life, because we forget how beautiful we are.”

Women and the way they look – it’s the topic of self-help books and seminars, blog posts and documentaries. And it’s essentially what boudoir is all about – capturing the essence of femininity on film. It’s even become a trend for brides-to-be to gift their future husbands with boudoir lookbooks, similar to Turner’s reason for contacting Ivers – initially, at least.

“It’s always been an interest to me,” said Turner of boudoir photography. “A couple of times I have said, ‘Oh, I’m doing this for my boyfriend.’”

But now, having finished an entire shoot at Meringue and having come away with a whole album of stunning portraits, Turner says her outlook has changed.

“I look at them every day,” she said of the photos. “And I love the way they make me feel. I feel beautiful. And I think it’s really important for a female to feel that way.”

Ivers has been capturing that feeling for the women of Alaska since she opened her doors in January. Across town in Eagle River, Samantha Gawrys says she’s been taking the “brutal” out of beauty for about five years now.

In fact, her first boudoir client cried tears of joy.

Gawrys says her average clients for boudoir shoots at Sugar Six Photography are “40-year-old moms with kids.” The inspiration to tap into the boudoir photography market arose from her specialty in family photography.

“I was so tired of moms hating themselves in the pictures,” said Gawrys. “They’d buy the kid ones and buy the ones with dad and the kids, and then they just would cringe at the family ones.”

Gawrys says she’s noticed that boudoir is a way to downplay what her older clientele sees as acquired imperfections — boudoir, like life, is all about perception.

“It’s kind of fun to take a woman and light her very intentionally and pose her very intentionally in ways that I know are going to be way more flattering than if she looks in a mirror,” she said. “And kind of see her be like, ‘Oh my God, that’s me.”

Not only are more women exploring the world of boudoir solely for their own gain, but the trend of boudoir as taboo is diminishing, Gawrys says. Most clients have either shared their photos with other moms on their children’s play dates or while sitting side-by-side at PTA meetings.

Turner says she’s shared her photos on social media already.

“I do get that reaction when I share my photos – ‘Oh, you’re so brave. Oh, I could never do that,” Turner said.

But Turner says every woman can be brave enough to bare it all — because sometimes beauty is vain, and other times, it’s necessary.

Contact Sierra Starks at sstarks@ktva.com and @bdwpdotcom