Today we’d like to introduce you to Candace Perry.
Candace, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Back in 2010, I was a graphic designer/marketer dealing with being in & out of work due to the Recession. On a whim, I thought I might have an eye for photography & be able to make an income on that, so I purchased a half-broken DSLR off Craigslist. That very same year I shot a photo of my two younger brothers, both Marines, marching up a hill together which helped me win a professional-level camera from a national photography contest.
By 2011, I had gotten into fashion photography, and wanting to have the same experience my models got, decided to set up a shoot for myself. I booked the makeup artists & hair stylists I’d worked with set up a backdrop & lights in one of their living rooms, & asked a friend who was also an aspiring fashion photographer to click the button. When I saw the pictures I got back, my life was forever changed. I was nearly 30 and my self-esteem went from feeling ugly (I was bullied about my looks as a child & wasn’t asked out on a date until I was 26), to feeling beautiful for the first time in my life, literally overnight.
Having a professional, Hollywood-level artistry team who knows how to work with your natural beauty & to celebrate it rather than cover it makes a WORLD of difference. I’d done Glamour Shots when I was 16, but looking back at those photos had made me feel more insecure. Their team didn’t know how to work with Black hair & made it extra poofy, and their makeup artist covered all my freckles with a thick foundation.
I realized that providing this same type of experience for other women was what my legacy should be & FashionShots was born. Eventually, I grew tired of photographing models who just traded for time & discovered that paying clients weren’t booking, they thought it was only for models, so we re-branded to Beautiful You Studios around 2015 I think. It’s really hard to say. All I know is that we were the first ones on the planet, but other companies copied the name later on.
Fast forward a few years & I was still just doing photography on the side while doing marketing in corporate America. Wanting a change of scenery from Savannah, Georgia, I moved to Dallas, Texas, in 2016 and took a job as an associate photographer at a local boudoir studio. Unfortunately, that studio had many financial issues & I was let go after only a month so I took a year off from photography & returned to the marketing world.
In 2017, I began shooting seniors, glamour, branding, & boudoir on the side, and in 2019 I decided to niche down & specialize in boudoir photography. I think it was my choice to specialize that finally helped me grow my business into a full-time income source and I left corporate America for good on September 20th, 2019!
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Beautiful You Studios story. Tell us more about the business.
Besides the Hollywood-quality experience we provide at our luxury studio located in Highland Park, I think what sets me apart from other boudoir photographers in the area is that I’m not only an award-winning & internationally-published photographer (most notably, I was voted into the Top 10% of Shoot & Share’s worldwide photography contest by 6 million voters in 2019 & my work has been in 20+ fashion magazines), I also have a background in modeling & used to teach at a modeling school. These skills give me a unique perspective when it comes to providing detailed instructions on how to pose. I show my clients exactly what to do with every inch of their body & even how to get sexy facial expressions. This is how I can take literally any woman of any age, size, or color who walks into my studio & turn her into a model – yes, ANY woman!! I love showing smaller women that they can have curves too & plus-sized women that they can look just as beautiful as anyone they’ve ever envied in a magazine. Watching women gain confidence in their own skin right before my eyes & having them come back a whole 2 years later to thank me for changing their lives, is such an empowering experience for us BOTH. I truly love what I do & it feels really great knowing that what I’m doing is making a difference – this is why I chose to specialize in boudoir!
Being on both sides of the camera has also helped me learn what NOT to do. I’ve been photographed a lot and what I’ve noticed is that most photographers are really awkward & just stand there silently clicking the button, not saying a word while you’re just kinda floundering around hoping you look sexy. They mostly just tell you “go stand/sit/lay over there” but don’t show you how to pose, what to do with your face, or the back of the camera throughout the entire shoot, I think because they’re worried you won’t like their work without Photoshop. Out of the hundreds of photographers I’ve been photographed by, less than a handful did any of those things, and only a couple have done all three. What most photographers don’t realize is that not doing all three things leads to a lot of anxiety for the subject. Most photographers however, either don’t care or don’t know because they haven’t been photographed before. Either way, it’s a disservice to the client to just wildly shoot hundreds of photographs hoping for a magical unicorn shot. We have the power to make or break a woman’s confidence, much like those Glamour Shots artists broke mine in my youth, and people aren’t paying for 1 or 2 great photos. They’re paying to feel more beautiful than they ever have before.
There’s simply nothing more fulfilling for me than watching my clients’ eyes light up & tears of joy stream down their face as they realize they’re beautiful for the first time. It also never gets old hearing a client say she’s never liked a photo anyone else has taken of her in her entire life – not even her wedding photos – but loves every single photo I shot of her, all just because I took the time to do the work it takes to make sure my clients are comfortable throughout the entire session by showing them exactly what to do. 🙂
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Luck plays a small factor – I feel like if I’d been lucky enough to not go through the Recession, I would’ve found success earlier because it takes a lot of money to build a business. However, everything happens for a reason. I’m sure that one day I’ll understand the reason for going through those hard times! 🙂
Pricing:
- Sessions start at $350 which includes hair, makeup, & the session itself. Collections that include digital images, wall art, albums, & more are additional. Visit our website to set up your free phone consultation today!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.beautifulyoustudios.com
- Email: hello@beautifulyoustudios.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beautifulyoustudios
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/beautifulyoustudios
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