Boudoir photography is not about vanity or perfection — it is about confidence, self-expression, and reclaiming your power.

Liz Hansen is the owner and photographer at Chicago Boudoir Photography, a boutique studio dedicated to helping women feel confident in their bodies, relationships, and lives. Since opening her studio in 2018, Liz has grown it into the Chicago area’s premier boudoir photography studio. She has been featured on the TEDx stage, on National Public Radio, and by the Association of International Boudoir Photographers.

In this episode, we explore how stepping outside their comfort zone through a boudoir experience can shift how women see themselves, show up in their businesses, and lead with greater confidence.

What you will learn from this episode:

  • Why boudoir photography can be a powerful catalyst for confidence and personal transformation.
  • How stepping outside your comfort zone can unlock leadership presence and bold decision-making.
  • Why confidence gained through self-expression often carries directly into business and career growth.

“That one boudoir experience gave me the confidence to open my own business and apply for a TEDx talk.”

– Liz Hansen

Topics Covered:

00:00 – How boudoir photography becomes a confidence-building transformation, not just a photo session.

04:08 – Why boudoir photography is a powerful tool for female empowerment and self-expression.

08:27 – Building a thriving small business by creating community, not just selling a service.

12:53 – Finding your deeper “why” and letting it guide business growth and decision-making.

Key Takeaways:

“Boudoir is not about being sexy. It’s about feeling powerful and truly seen.” — Liz Hansen

“You don’t have to be ready or perfect to take action — you just have to start.” — Liz Hansen

“The most magnetic brands are real, human, and sometimes a little messy.” — Liz Hansen

“Success comes from the relationship and the mission, not just the transaction.” — Liz Hansen

Ways to Connect with Liz Hansen:

Ways to Connect with Sarah E. Brown:

 

Full Episode Transcript:

(AI helped us put this together, so if you see any weird grammar or missed words—just know we nailed it during the actual chat.)

Liz Hansen

The first boudoir photo shoot I did was absolutely transformational for me. I came out of that experience and felt bolder and ready to step into new roles and had this newfound confidence that I didn’t know I needed.

Sarah E. Brown 

Hello everyone. Welcome to the KTS Success Factor Podcast for Women, where we talk about challenges senior female leaders face in being happy and successful at work. I’m your host, Dr. Sarah E. Brown. 

My guest today is Liz Hanson. She is the owner and photographer at Chicago Boudoir Photography, a boutique studio that empowers women to feel confident in their bodies, relationships, and lives. Liz opened her business in 2018 and grew it quickly to be the Chicago area’s premier boudoir studio. 

She has been featured on the TEDx stage, and it’s an excellent talk by the way, on national public radio and with the Association of International Boudoir Photographers. Liz holds a B.A. in art and an M.A. in education. She lives in the Chicago area with her husband and two teenage daughters. So welcome, Liz. 

Liz Hansen

Thank you so much for having me. 

Sarah E. Brown

Oh, it’s a pleasure. So how did you get into this business?

Liz Hansen

Yeah, so boudoir or boudoir is a Victoria’s Secret style photo shoot experience for the everyday woman. And I was a professional photographer for a while before I kind of fell into boudoir by accident. I got a job at a studio here in Chicago as an assistant. They did some boudoir there and I’d never heard of it. I’d never seen it. And I was like, wow, what is this? 

And I saw women coming into these shoots and I saw the confidence that they got from the photo shoot. I saw something shift in them from when they walked into the studio and when they walked out. And I just kept thinking, this is what I’m meant to do. I want to help women, especially moms, leaders, caretakers. 

People who go through life feeling disconnected from their bodies, I wanted to change that and I wanted to create a space where women could feel really powerful, beautiful, and truly seen. So I opened up my own studio and have specialized in that for the last seven plus years. 

Sarah E. Brown 

Wow. So have you done it yourself? 

Liz Hansen

Of course. Way too many times. In fact, I’ve done it so much that the last time I gave my husband some photos, he was like, I’ve already seen these. And I was like, no, these are different. He’s like, well, it’s hard to tell them apart when you give me so many. 

Sarah E. Brown

Do you feel different after you do it? 

Liz Hansen

Absolutely. The first boudoir photo shoot I did was absolutely transformational for me. I came out of that experience and felt bolder and ready to step into new roles and had this newfound confidence that I didn’t know I needed. And that One boudoir photoshoot experience gave me the energy and the confidence, I’m not exaggerating, to open up my own business, to apply to be a TEDx speaker, a lot of things that I wouldn’t have done before. 

Sarah E. Brown

Well, very interesting. What do your kids say about this? 

Liz Hansen

So I’ve been doing this for a long time. They’ve grown up knowing that I do this. I think early on they were, first off, I don’t share any client images with my kids. So I’m not coming home and showing my kids sexy photos, right? But of course they know what I do. And I say, hey, I help women feel confident in their own skin. 

And they’re like, all right, cool, mom. That’s cool. Of course, my kids are still too young to have their own boudoir photo shoots done of themselves. Honestly, I hope when they grow up to be young women that they will have this own experience for themselves.

Sarah E. Brown 

So the primary reason, if I’m hearing you correctly, the primary reason that a female in business might want to do this is to increase her confidence, is that it?

Liz Hansen

Absolutely. I think there’s something really untapped in our world about female power. I think a lot of women have been socialized to play small, to think small. And stepping out of sight of your comfort zone and doing something like a boudoir photo shoot can open up in you, maybe, if you’re willing to open yourself up to the experience, a strength and a power and a confidence. You can tap into that by doing something kind of scary like a boudoir photo shoot.

Sarah E. Brown 

So how did you go about building your business and building a brand around it?

Liz Hansen

So the most important thing for my business and my brand is not just sexy photos, right? I mean, sexy photos are fun. OK. But what I do in my brand is something a little bit bigger. I want this to be a form of self-care, a form of self-expression, personal reclamation. So everything that I put out in my social media, on my website, is about that broader mission. 

I want women to feel empowered in all areas of their lives. I want them to feel confident in their own skin. I want them to play big, think big, do bigger things. So my brand is about expansiveness. And I hope that everything I create is about that and not just, hey, let’s take some sexy photos.

Sarah E. Brown 

And if I recall looking at your website and researching your business a bit, you’re building a community around this as well. How do you go about doing that?

Liz Hansen

Absolutely. So one of the most important parts of my business is this Facebook group that I’ve created, this community. I have 10,000 local women in this group. We sometimes get together in person. We chat online. And the whole purpose of this group is to bring women together to create this like-minded community. It’s free to join. I don’t charge for it. But what it has created is a larger conversation around my mission that I can pull women into. 

So this group is not just me going in and saying every day like, hey, buy my product, buy my product, buy my product. I do occasionally advertise in there, but it’s more about creating a conversation around this empowerment mission. I create a lot of content, free downloads, videos, things people can do, and that draws people in to want to talk and have a conversation, and I’m not just selling to them.

Sarah E. Brown 

All right. And so tell people where they would find this Facebook group. I assume you don’t have to be in Chicago to join it.

Liz Hansen

Of course not. I’d love you to have to join wherever you’re at. If you go to Facebook and type in a VIP Group for Empowered Women of Chicago, it will come up. If you go to my website as well, there’s a big button on there to join the group. My website’s chicagoboudoir.com. Yeah. Anyone who wants to join my mission to help women feel empowered and uplifted is welcome to join. We’d love to have you.

Sarah E. Brown 

And tell me if I am an entrepreneurial woman running a small business, why would I think about doing this? 

Advertisement

Hi, this is Sarah Brown again, the host of the KTS Success Factor podcast for women. I hope you are enjoying this episode and gaining some tips and inspiration on how you can be happier, more successful, and experience less stress at work. If you would like to learn more about how you can take control of your career and do it your way, visit sarahebrown.com. 

There you will be able to download a free chapter from my book, Let Your Personality Be Your Career Guide. It contains information and exercises on how you can identify your unique interests, strengths, and needs, and translate that into career goals that are just right for you. Now back to this informative episode.

Liz Hansen

I think small businesses in particular are all about people getting to know you, like you, and trust you, right? Like shopping at a big box store, whatever. But small businesses, it’s when people really want to connect with you. There’s a reason they’re coming to you locally as opposed to going to a big box or going to do something else, right? 

So building a community that’s around your mission, that’s around something a little bit bigger than what you do, can draw people in. So for example, let’s say I wasn’t a boudoir photographer, but instead I was a pet photographer and I took pictures of dogs. I could create a community around adoption or a pet rescue mission, right? 

So that brings my mission a little bigger than just taking pictures of a pet. It shows how I care about animals and the bigger mission, right? Let’s say I wasn’t a boudoir photographer, but instead I was a wedding photographer. Maybe I could create a community around reselling wedding items in my area. 

So you have 27 mason jars that you used for your wedding and you want to resell them. Maybe I could create a sustainable wedding community that was a little bit bigger than just what I was selling, right? 

I think whatever you do, whatever you sell in your small business, you can create a mission that’s bigger than just the product you sell. You just need to think about it. And once you can expand what you are offering your audience, not just the product you sell, but your bigger mission, you’ll reach more people and keep more people engaged.

Sarah E. Brown 

OK, I get that. And that’s really good advice. But let’s suppose that I am a pet photographer, for example, and I have built a community around, I don’t know, rescuing pets, unloved pets. And I come to you and get a photo shoot of me. What do I do with those pictures that helps me in my business? How would I use it?

Liz Hansen

What does the client do with the pictures or the business owner?

Sarah E. Brown

Well, your client, who’s getting the boudoir photographer, is the entrepreneur who’s taking pet pictures. So what does she do with those pictures?

Liz Hansen

So photos in particular, I mean, photos last forever, right? 

Sarah E. Brown

So that’s what I’m afraid of. 

Liz Hansen

Oh, well, that’s a bonus for me, not a negative. For example, someone comes to me and takes boudoir photos. They have purchased, first off, the experience to come in and have the pictures. Then they have the pictures to enjoy for a lifetime, right? Now, a lot of women come into my Facebook group and share those pictures and talk about the experience that they’ve had. 

And that’s great word-of-mouth marketing, right? So I love it when people come in and share a picture of them holding their album, share their pictures, talk about their experience in my community. That generates more conversation about what I’ve done. 

And that encourages other people to come and book too. So with the pet example, maybe you have people sharing pictures of their pets. Maybe you donate a certain amount of money from each session to pet rescue. I mean, there’s just a lot of ways that this can continue on beyond the purchase moment.

Sarah E. Brown 

But if I am the pet photographer, to go back to that example, and I have come to you and I have all of these pictures of me in my Victoria’s Secret intimate wear, I wouldn’t necessarily share them with my business, would I?

Liz Hansen

It depends. There are people in my business, for example, there’s some people, of course, who want to keep their pictures private, and there’s some people who want them shared. So I actually have what I call team privacy and team share at my studio, and some people are strongly on one or the other. 

There are some people who come to my boudoir studio specifically because they want to share their boudoir photos. Now, yes, I mean there are people who use their boudoir photos in their business because their business has a sexy side to it. 

This obviously does not apply to every woman, but there are some women who use their boudoir photos in their marketing to say, look who I am and what I did. I’ve had hairstylists use their pictures. I’ve had dancers, actors, these kinds of people. So, I mean, it depends. Obviously, schoolteachers do not share their boudoir photos. They do not, right? 

Because being a schoolteacher and sharing your boudoir photos does not mix. But you’d be surprised at the number of business owners who do want to use these kinds of photos in an Instagram post to share with their audience to say, look, I did something. I stepped out of my comfort zone, and I’m proud of it.

Sarah E. Brown 

Very interesting. So what would you say is the takeaway message for other entrepreneurs that you want to leave them with?

Liz Hansen

I have three tips I’d like to give. The first is finding your why and knowing that that is everything. So if you’re really clear on the deeper reason why you’re running your business, it will show up in everything that you do in your business. So you’re not just selling a product, you’re selling a feeling, an experience, a solution. 

If you don’t know what that deeper mission or why is, dig deeper and find it. Because success comes not from the transaction of the business, but the relationship, the bigger meaning, the grander mission that you’re promoting. 

Second, I would say don’t wait to be ready. A lot of people tell me they’re not ready for a boudoir photo shoot. They need to lose weight. They’re not ready. They’re not perfect. You’re never going to be perfect or ready. 

And in business, we just need to step in and take action. I think some of the most magnetic brands that I know are the most real, the most human, and sometimes even a little bit messy. So you don’t have to be ready to take action, and you don’t have to be perfect to take action. 

And then the third thing I would say is to build a business and a product that feels really good to you and not just what industry is saying, what the world is saying. You will avoid burnout and build something that actually lasts if it is authentic to you. And in Boudoir, that’s what I’m really trying to do is help people connect with their authentic selves.

Sarah E. Brown 

Well, those are three great takeaway messages. Liz, where can people find you?

Liz Hansen

I’m at ChicagoBoudoir.com. Boudoir can be a little bit of a tricky word to spell. It’s B-O-U-D-O-I-R, ChicagoBoudoir.com.

Sarah E. Brown 

And that’s Chicago-Boudoir.com, right? 

Liz Hansen

I have it with and without the dash. 

Sarah E. Brown

OK, great. Well, you’ve got it covered then. Liz, thank you so much for being with me today. 

Liz Hansen

Thank you so much for having me. I sure appreciate it. 

Outro

Thanks for listening to the KTS Success Factor Podcast for Women. If you like what you are hearing, please go to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave a review. And if you would like more information on how we can help women in your organization to thrive, then go to www.sarahebrown.com. You can sign up for our newsletter, read show notes and learn more about our podcast guests, read my blog, browse through the books, or contact us for a chat. Goodbye for now.

Sarah E. Brown
Sarah E. Brown