Nicola | Hillsborough Boudoir Photography

Here's a quasi-Choose Your Own Adventure blog post, since I can't decide whether to keep it simple or descend into sentimentality. For the simple and straightforward, read section A; for the more sentimental take, read section B. (And if you're not up for either, just scroll and check out the relaxed-feeling gorgeousness that is Nicol's boudoir session)

A: Straightforward
My dear friend Nicola told me, sometime earlier this year, that she wanted to schedule a boudoir session to celebrate her 35th birthday. I'm always excited for boudoir, and I love making photos for my friends. (Plus, rather than mentioning it in our regular text thread, Nicola very considerately sent me an Officially Official Work Email in case I was low-key ignoring work things due to, you know, having just had a baby.) Even more so, this is what I think boudoir should be more frequently: for YOU, for the love of your own body and yourself, for a personal milestone or just because. Boudoir as a gift for your partner is great, and always fun, but I can't think of a better reason for it other than because you wanted to.

B: Sentimental
When I was in college, I had a writing group with two of my close friends, Ross and (obviously!) Nicola. We'd meet regularly, share and talk about our work and our lives; the hours upon hours we spent in the Forbes Avenue Caribou are some of my favorite college memories. As often happens, Nicola and I mostly fell out of touch after college—we went to each other's weddings, stayed social media friends, but nothing too deep.

Until we were pregnant at the same time in 2015 - 2016. I don't remember the starting point—one of us posted something on Facebook and the other responded, possibly—but Nicola called me one night to talk about pregnancy weirdness, challenges, and fears, and we just haven't stopped talking since then. Having someone to share all the socio-emotional and psychological dichotomies and difficulties of motherhood has both eased and enriched the last few years of mothering: Nicola and I have texted in many wee small hours while up nursing our babies, met up periodically to see each other and introduce our kids, shared parenting resources, validated each other's choices, and just provided sounding boards for whatever has been going on. I'm incredibly grateful for a friend like her.

As I always am with friends who want me to photograph them, I was, of course, quite excited when she mentioned wanting to schedule a boudoir session to celebrate her 35th birthday. Living in different states several hours' drive apart made it challenging, but the challenge is half the fun of planning.

Reconvene
So that's what we did! We scheduled a session for a weekday when Nicola's two boys would be at school, she drove down from Virginia, and we kicked it in this adorable Efland AirBnB while listening to Jenny Lewis. I'm grateful to her for trusting me with these, and am very excited to share them—enjoy a selection of my favorites from the session below!

Wedding and portrait photographers. Husband and wife. All-purpose nerds. Extremely enthusiastic. Durham, NC.

Nicola | Hillsborough Boudoir Photography

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