camera

We made it on CTV!

Let us tell you a powerful story. A story full of dreams, love, and connections, that started 6 years ago when we opened Scandaleuse. Opening our business in a new country and in a new language was already a success for us, but wanted more.

We wanted to create a safe space for our clients to be their most magnificent-self, and also create meaningful and long-lasting connections between our Scandals and us. We were dreaming of being interviewed at the radio, on newspaper, and even one day making an appearance on national tv to really spread the word about all the great benefits from doing a boudoir shoot.

 
Photographer posing woman wearing only a white gown on a yellow couch indoors
 

You can guess that those dreams don’t happened magically over night! We pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone so many times! Between going to tons of events and start conversations with strangers (if you are wondering how to network with someone without sounding too salesy, always start with an honest compliment on something they wear. This works every time 😉), making videos even though we felt so frustrated and uncomfortable talking in front of a camera, or all the new things we had to learn… We worked hard to meet people, create useful content, and build our brand! Not that we are done achieving everything on our list, but so far all of this hard worked payed off: we build a beautiful community and great reputation, we can pay ourselves a good salary, and we have the freedom to create.

We don’t just believe in ourselves

There is also something important to know about Juliette and I, we both are spiritual. We believe that everything happens for a reason and always try to manifest the things we want. Why are we mentioning that? Well, do you remember those interviews we mentioned previously? Every time we wrote down in our journals that we wanted to be interviewed, it happened!

The only one that was hard to manifest was the national TV appearance 😬. We were dreaming of it for a long time but it is possible that, deep down, we thought it was just a dream. Until it happens… We finally made it on TV 🎉

And you know, it is probably for the best it took 6 years to happen because even if it was a fabulous experience it was also nerve-wracking! The idea of speaking in another language live on national TV, made us feel really nervous. If there is something we learnt in our spiritual journey is that things don’t happen if you are not ready for them.

 
Two women posing nude indoor in a see-through gown under fake clouds
 

It was meant to be

During Covid we did a bunch of shoots in order to raise money to save one of our loft. This is when we met Aakriti (she did one of the shoots) who is a segment producer for the live show called The Social on CTV. She also posed for us last year for an exhibit we did against domestic abuse. She really loved those two boudoir experience that she decided to pitch the topic to the channel and they accepted! We are so grateful for her ❤️

On our side we were able to talk to her about Michelle Osbourne who is a body activist and a past client, as they wanted to have another speaker during the show. What a pleasure it was to share another amazing conversation with Michelle!

We were also very pleased to have Cai and Hallae with us during the shoot so they could have the opportunity to talk about their experience and how boudoir photography impacted their life!

Cherry on top of the cake, we did not know that one of our friend, Marny (that we met during a mastermind) would be the audience coordinator that day, and Jam Gamble (another past client) will be there as well.

Everything came in full circle!

What was it all about?

The concept was for the channel to follow us on a shoot to see the all process of a boudoir shoot, from the prepping of the client to the selection of the final photographs, with the shoot in between. And have some interviews from two past clients as well as Sarah who was our client for the day:

 
 

Then a few weeks later we were invited for one of The Social show’s segment to talk more about sensuality and empowerment for women:

 
 

You cannot see it in the video but we were all nervous when we sat down. Then we started to talk with the hosts and everything became so natural. The energy in the room was so positive, and the public was really receptive. It really helped us to feel at ease! We hope to be able to do it again in the future.

Doing some public speaking to give our opinion about sensuality and body empowerment is part of our mission. The more we can talk about how boudoir photography is an amazing way to reconnect with your body and how therapeutic it can be for a lot of people, the happiest we feel!

 
 

Sign up to our newsletter below to keep an eye on all the cool content we are creating!

* indicates required

Work for me but for free - Part 1

We all love to get things for free, right? Such a great feeling! And with Juliette, we hope (in a close future) we will have enough income to be able to accept no-budget projects, but in the meantime we do need to make a living out of photography.

Photography services can look pricey, especially when you are not aware of the amount of work and expenses involved in taking a simple picture. While we love when our clients don’t try to lower our rates, we can also understand when they do. Let us explain:

 
scandaleuse-photography-toronto-boudoir-blog-canada.jpg
 

Photography gear is our biggest investment.

Camera, lenses and studio lights all together can cost the same price as a car:

Cameras = $3000 to $5000
Lense= $600 to $2000
External flash= $600 to $1000
Studio lights= $2000

This is just an average, you can find even more expensive material such as Hasselblad cameras who can be around $15000 (oh the ultimate goal!). You can also add more money for all of the other little accessories such as hard drives, memory cards, filters, tripods, extra batteries…

On top of this, you need to include the repair cost. I fixed my camera and two lenses 6 months ago and the total cost was over $1500.

Don't forget the computer stuff.

Computers are a very important investment for photographers. Except the photoshoot itself, everything happens digitally nowadays: editing, pictures delivery, payment and even customer service. Unfortunately you cannot be a professional photographer without a computer anymore. In order to provide a wonderful and artistic work, we have to invest in great equipment. Since Juliette and I travel a lot (Hello from Rome & Paris!), we needed to invest in a light laptop and each of us paid around $1300.

Let’s not forget about internet. It's a must in our industry and it needs to be fast, so boom, more $$$!

We have to get around.

As photographers, we love to shoot in different places so we need an easy way to travel. When we do not have to carry a lot of equipment and we are not going far, we use public transportation, otherwise we drive. It is more expenses to add on our side: cost of the car, gas, repairs, insurance + the time we spend on the road.

Where we shoot also needs $$$.

As you may already know, a part of our boudoir experience is to shoot in beautiful lofts in Toronto and GTA and we do not rend those places for free. The cost for those type of location can be expensive for us: $100/200 per hour. The price to pay to offer the variety and the quality we do.

Let's not forget...

There is a very simple fact that applies to any person who work for her/himself: if you don’t work you are not paid! Which means, we can’t afford to be sick or take a day off for example. We both work every single day because every little actions we make leads to find new customers and develop our businesses (did you know we do weddings too?), especially since we opened less than a year ago. This hard work also has a cost we need to cover in our pricing.

We are sparing you the taxes and insurance involved in this whole bill too, but yep, there are here too.

 
scandaleuse-photography-toronto-boudoir-blog-jpg.jpg
 

This is only the material side of our investment, see you in January for the creative one. Yes our awesomeness has a price too (big smiley face).

With Love.

 
scandaleuse-photography-toronto-boudoir-blog.png
 

Keep in touch! Subscribe to our mailing list