Kaitlin Kelly

I’m a Los Angeles-based photographer.

I first became interested in shooting boudoir a few years ago, when my aunt asked me to do a series of sexy photos for her. She’d just had her third child, and her body felt alien and unattractive. The boudoir shoot was a way for her to recapture the sexiness she felt she’d lost in having three hard pregnancies. Seeing her face as she looked at the finished photos, finally feeling sexy, looking at her post-pregnancy body that she didn’t love and suddenly loving it, was priceless. I knew I had to keep doing it, especially for people who didn’t have the luxury, for whatever reason, of feeling sexy.

As a queer, disabled woman myself, I’ve often felt a little “left out” by much of boudoir, and I imagined many of my friends did, too. I began shooting with my friends who were all super-hot in their own way, but who didn’t necessarily feel hot for whatever reason. Maybe they’re not thin. Maybe they’re not abled. Maybe they’re not white. Maybe they fall outside the traditional gender binary. Or maybe they just suffer from all of the same insecurities we all do.

There’s no better feeling that making somebody who you’ve thought is sexy all along finally believe it.

To see my non-sexy work (though who says mountains aren’t sexy?), visit my sister site, Kaitlin Kelly Photography.