You don’t need to lose weight. You don’t need to change your skin, your hair, your body, or anything else about yourself before this session. The work is built for who you are right now.
What follows is practical — what to bring, what to wear in, what to do the day before, what to expect the day of. None of it is about preparing yourself emotionally. That part takes care of itself once you’re in the studio.
What to Bring
Bring around ten outfits. We’ll use four or five of them, but the extras give us options once we see what’s working in the studio that day.
Lead with the meaningful pieces. A jersey from a team you care about. Your partner’s button-down. A coat that’s part of your life. A piece of jewelry with a story behind it. The session works best when it’s about you — not generic lingerie on a generic body in a generic room.
Lingerie has its place too, and most sessions include some. Bring what you already feel good in, plus one or two pieces you bought specifically for this. If you’ve never bought lingerie for yourself before, that’s fine — there’s a guide below to help.
[Email capture for clothing guide goes here — Mailchimp form to be added during integration.]
What to wear to the studio
Wear loose, comfortable clothing on the way in. No jeans, no tight waistbands, no underwire bras. Anything tight or constricting can leave marks on your skin that take an hour or two to fade — and that’s an hour or two we lose during the session.
Loose joggers, a soft sweater, a loose dress, slip-on shoes. The goal is to walk into the studio with skin that’s smooth and unmarked.
On jewelry: keep on the pieces that matter — your wedding ring, anything you wear every day, anything with meaning. Take off watches, fitness trackers, and anything that’s going to leave a tan line or pressure mark. We can always put meaningful pieces back on during the shoot.
Hair and makeup
Hair and makeup is included with every session. Kitty handles the chair — she’s been doing this work for years and knows how to build a look that translates to camera, not just to the mirror.
You’ll spend about ninety minutes with her at the start of the session. Come in with clean, product-free hair and a clean face. Bring reference images if you have a specific look in mind, or trust her to read the day and build something that works.
A fuller guide from Kitty — on prep, skincare leading up to your session, and what to expect in the chair — is coming soon.
A day or two before
Skincare. Don’t try anything new in the week leading up to the session. No new products, no new treatments, no first-time facials. Stick with what your skin already knows.
Spray tans. If you usually do them, get it done two to three days before — not the day before. Fresh spray tans are too orange and too uneven on camera. If you don’t usually do them, this isn’t the time to start.
Shaving or waxing. If you wax, schedule it three to five days before so any redness has time to settle. If you shave, do it the morning of, not the night before — closer to the session means smoother skin in the images.
Nails. Manicured nails photograph well. If you’re getting them done, do it a day or two before. Neutral colors and clean shapes tend to age better in the album than anything trendy.
The night before. Get sleep. Hydrate. Skip the salty dinner and the late drinks. Your skin and your eyes will show the difference.
The morning of. Eat something. The session runs four hours and you don’t want to be hungry by the second look. Keep it light — fruit, eggs, toast — not a heavy meal.
Bringing someone with you
You are welcome to bring a friend, a partner, a sister — whoever makes you feel grounded walking into the studio.
One thing to know up front: whoever you bring is there for support, not direction. Once the session starts, I’m the one running it. Friends and partners watching from the side often want to chime in with poses, with suggestions, with feedback on whether something looks good. That dynamic tends to slow the session down and pull your attention in too many directions.
The best version: bring someone, let them be there at the start, let them help you settle in. Once we’re shooting, they can read a book, scroll their phone, or step out for coffee. The work goes better when it’s just you and the camera.
The day of
Plan for about four hours at the studio, plus the ninety minutes in the hair and makeup chair at the start.
When you arrive, we’ll do a quick walkthrough of the studio — where you’ll change, where we’ll shoot, where Kitty’s set up. We’ll go through the outfits you brought and lay them out roughly in the order we’ll shoot them.
Then you’re in the chair with Kitty for hair and makeup. While you’re there, I’m setting up the first look — getting the lighting where it needs to be, choosing the music we talked about, prepping the space.
Once you’re out of the chair, we shoot. We’ll move through the outfits at the pace that feels right — sometimes we move quickly because something’s clicking, sometimes we slow down because a particular setup is producing the best images of the day.
When we’re done, we’re done. You change back into what you came in. We talk briefly about what’s next — the reveal appointment timeline, what to expect in the next few weeks. You go home.
After
Within two to three weeks of your session, you’ll hear from me — either to set up your reveal appointment or with a quick update on where things stand. Either way, you won’t go more than three weeks without hearing from me.
The reveal happens at the studio. You’ll see the finished images on a screen for the first time, and we’ll go through them together. By the end of the reveal, you’ll have chosen which collection makes sense for you and which specific images go into the album, on the wall, and into the digital files.
From there, it takes a few months for the album and any wall pieces to be made, finished, and shipped. Albums and prints are hand-bound and hand-finished, so the timeline isn’t fast — but the work that comes back is worth the wait.
If you’ve read this far, you’ve already done more thinking about this session than most people who book it. The next step is the same as it’s been on every other page — a short conversation, no pressure, no sales pitch.