Today we’d like to introduce you to Argentina Leyva.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Argentina. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I came to US in 1994 to pursue my master’s degree in Engineering at Georgia Tech. I was working as an engineer when in 2001 I picked up a camera as a hobby to keep me sane and focused on me during my divorce.
It was then that I discovered my talent as a photographer and for years I had a side business as a wedding photographer. I never saw myself becoming a full time photographer, for me it was just a good side business but never felt I was passionate enough about doing weddings to quit my job as a photographer.
It was until 2007 when boudoir photography found me. My own brides started to ask me to create sensual images to gift their future husbands on their wedding day and that was the moment I fell in love with boudoir photography.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
When I started to do boudoir photography in 2007 I had never considered quitting my job as an engineer to do photography full time. I was happy doing it just on the side and having the security of my engineering job.
Underneath a facade of success and contentment with my life, I was hiding my own unfulfillment of meaning and purpose. I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do as a woman. I was engaged to be married for the third time in a last attempt to have a family of my own because at that time, I defined my worth by my looks and my marital status.
I was 37 years old when I started to do boudoir photography for beautiful, young brides. Working with these beautiful women brought to the surface my own insecurities and lack of self-esteem about who I was and my physical appearance, feelings that I had managed to hide for years from others.
Photographing these beautiful women made me feel old and couldn’t keep hiding my own feelings of never feeling I was pretty or skinny enough to be attractive. I blamed my own looks on the type of men that I attracted so I married way below my own standards because I thought I wasn’t good enough or pretty enough to get a good man in my life.
I was emotionally struggling more than ever because I felt it was too late for me to get what I wanted in life and my youth and only chance to be and feel beautiful was coming to an end, I was getting old.
But then something very unexpected happened. I started to get in the studio women just like me; in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. All with stories that I identified with. Stories of not feeling beautiful after having kids, gaining weight or after a devastating divorce. I realized that I was not alone and that many women struggled with confidence and body image just like me. When they came to me to do a boudoir session, they all wanted one thing: feel beautiful.
And they did! After I photograph them and saw themselves looking so good in those images, they couldn’t believe it was them. I saw regular women transform right in front of my eyes and walk out of the studio feeling the best they had felt about themselves in a long time. When I saw how they felt I wanted that for me and wondered if I could look as good as them.
Now I had a standard, I didn’t have to be 25 and skinny to be beautiful, I saw women my age or older look absolutely beautiful and I wanted that!
But I had a big barrier to overcome for myself first. I was terrified of looking at my images and “not liking what I saw”. What would I tell my clients then? How could I continue doing boudoir photography if I couldn’t see my own beauty?
My own clients were the ones to inspire me to gather all my courage and do my own boudoir session.
I was not prepared for what I saw in those images. The woman looking back at me in those pictures looked nothing like the woman that had lived in my head for the last 20 years! She was so beautiful, she could not possibly be me! For the first time in my life, I saw how beautiful I was. Despite my size 14, I saw I was beautiful just as I was and I didn’t need to change anything about me. I didn’t need to lose weight or have a smaller waist.
This was a turning point in my life, not just about my own confidence and self-esteem, but because this new found pride about who I was spilled into every aspect of my life in a positive way. I realized that the true power of boudoir photography lies on the ability to change how women feel about themselves. And when we feel good about ourselves, we suddenly change how we approach life. We feel worthy, capable and deserving of everything we want. Suddenly, we have the courage to overcome our fears, do things different and take risks.
This was the moment I found my purpose in life, to help women change how they feel about themselves and transform their lives by discovering their own unique beauty. Not long after that I left my job and have dedicated my life ever since to inspire women to find their own beauty, not only through boudoir photography but also through self-esteem workshops and retreats to beautiful world destinations where they can focus on themselves, sometimes for the first time on their life.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Art Of Seduction Boudoir Photography story. Tell us more about the business.
Because of what I do, women who do a boudoir session transform their lives and how they feel about themselves. I use boudoir photography to help women embrace their bodies and their unique beauty.
To be able to do this, I coach women through a self-searching process that allows them to find their own true struggles so that when they decide to do a boudoir session, they are doing it for the right reason and are mentally and emotionally prepared to transform their lives. They see this experience as an investment in themselves and absolutely necessary for their well-being.
Boudoir photography for me is not sexy pictures of women in lingerie. Boudoir photography is more of a therapeutic experience for any woman who wants to change her life. And the key of any change starts by how we feel about us. We can go through years of personal therapy and it will never compare to the massive emotional shift of one day spent being photographed this way. Boudoir photography has a transformative power because it has everything to do with body image and this is the number one source of shame for women. Boudoir attacks the root cause of low self-esteem in women because it changes how we perceive ourselves, the source of our worthiness.
The last thing a woman struggling with self-esteem needs is bad pictures of her. That is why I personally coach every one of my clients to prepare for this experience and I have a professional hair and makeup artist to enhance her natural beauty.
Not only that, posing a woman’s body is an art. I have women of all shapes and sizes and they all have body insecurities. It is one thing to photograph a young, beautiful model, and a very different thing to photograph a plus size woman, in her 50’s and body stiffness.
What I do is a transformative experience for every woman that requires a lot of privacy, understanding and kindness. Women reach out to me because they know I understand how they feel after going through my online coaching. When we finally connect, they know this experience is what they want and need and know I can make it happen.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
What seemed as failures, turned out to be my biggest blessings in disguise that took me to where I am now.
My devastating divorce led me to take up photography as a hobby that developed into a business.
The inevitable downsizing I saw coming up in my engineering job took me to take the leap into full time boudoir photography.
The difficulty of marketing boudoir photography as sexy photos in lingerie led me to think outside the box and reach out to women with a very powerful message that lead me to have a business that focuses on helping women discover their own beauty and reclaim their confidence and self-esteem.
Every challenge and failure has made me realize that those things needed to happen to take me to where I wanted to be, living a life with a purpose helping others.
By overcoming my own fears and insecurities, body image issues and low self-esteem, I discovered a powerful experience that changes women’s lives for the best.
Contact Info:
- Address: 721 S Western Ave
- Website: www.artofseductionchicago.com
- Phone: 6306674633
- Email: info@artofseductionchicago.com
- Instagram: @artofseductionboudoir
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArtOfSeductionBoudoir/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/argentinaleyva
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/art-of-seduction-boudoir-photography-chicago-chicago-2
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/ArtOfSeductionBoudoir/
Image Credit:
All images by Argentina Leyva, Art of Seduction Boudoir
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