The Boudoir Journey with Jonatan Diniz
“Boudoir is a way for a woman to discover her own body and how beautiful and sexy she is or can naturally become.”
Online friendships are fun to make from time to time especially in the social media world we live in today. I recently connected with Brazilian born boudoir photographer Jonatan Diniz of The Boudoir Journey. Super impressed by the way he explores a city and country he visits through his IG stories to these gorgeous portrayal of the female body in his boudoir photography work. I asked Jonatan if I could do a Q&A piece on him to learn more about his story, what boudoir photography is and more! Promise, you are in for a treat!
Curito:
Hi Jonatan! Could you introduce yourself to our readers?
Jonatan:
I am Jonatan from Brazil, a backpacker since Jan 2016 traveling 31 different countries in the world (often re-visiting some of them 😅). I already lived in Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Mexico, USA, UK, Indonesia. I love to explore and meet new people and new cultures, beaches, mountains and volcanos. My main reasons to travel are to understand life and myself better by different experiences and learnings.
Curito:
What do you do professionally?
Jonatan:
I am Boudoir photographer, this kind of photography focuses on body curves, lights, poses and facial expressions to make photos more romantic, beautiful, sensual and even wild, separately or all at once. Totally different then “nudes” or “porn”, the boudoir focuses on empowering women's beauty not by exposing the women, but respecting and honoring them in their daily intimate activities. It’s a way for a woman to discover her own body and how beautiful and sexy she is or can naturally become.
Curito:
What is "Boudoir" photography and how did you become a boudoir photographer?
Jonatan:
I was doing photography for NPO’s in 2017 for awhile in Venezuela philanthropic projects and random travel pictures too, so I kind of knew I love taking pictures already. But the boudoir came to my life totally suddenly when a friend invited me to do a shooting in Costa Rica right before I left the country in 2019. After that I totally fell in love for this kind of picture and started to study more about it and practice more and more. It started as a hobby and with time it became my profession as random people started to ask me to do it more often. In 2020 I decided that it was time I take a risk and focus 100% in what I love to do, even knowing all the challenges for a male photographer to survive in this niche career path.
Curito:
What are some of the misconceptions of boudoir photography that you wish to educate more people about?
Jonatan:
One of them was already mentioned before “Totally different than nudes or porn, the boudoir focuses on empowering women's beauty not by exposing the women, but respecting and honoring them in their daily intimate activities.”
Til today some people still don’t know the difference.
Second is to let people understand that beauty has no pattern, everybody has unique beauty and that boudoir is open for all of them, as the main focus of boudoir is not about you being perfect, but it’s about accepting and loving who you already are.
Third is to break this idea that being nude is wrong, shameful or anything related to that, we should accept nude as normal, this is what we are, our body is our home, if we can’t at least see at it in the mirror and appreciate who we are, it means something is wrong.
As a backpacker I know that exploring the world is amazing but I also discovered something even more important : "Explore our own beauty is as important as exploring the beauty of the world".
Totally different then “nudes” or “porn”, the boudoir focuses on empowering women's beauty not by exposing the women, but respecting and honoring them in their daily intimate activities.
Curito:
What were some of the challenges you faced when you first started your boudoir photography business?
Jonatan:
Prejudice, prejudice and prejudice, not just in the start, but prejudice is everywhere, all the time, specially when you are a man doing in this profession.
If you can’t understand that, you will need to face prejudice constantly, you can’t survive in this career for long.
Second was to be able to survive just with a phone in my hands, for a long time I just worked basically with one iPhone, it means, even knowing the skills, poses, lights, I couldn’t charge as much as someone with a professional camera, I needed to have more clients to survive and a long way to be able to save money to finally buy a professional camera. But I am proud to see this journey from literally nothing to now, it reminds me that we can do whatever we want to, with the tools that we have in hands, all we need is energy, sympathy and creativity to call people’s attention.
Curito:
How do you find your clients and what kind of transformation do your clients tell you they've had once they've finished a boudoir shoot with you?
Jonatan:
Usually on the internet, I have my website, boudoir Instagram and personal Instagram where people usually see my works, sometimes I advertise by apps and Instagram featuring and some others come from referrals of last clients. My social networkers count with over 20.000 followers which makes it easier nowadays for people to see me and ask for sessions.
The transformations are amazing, people finish sessions without believe how sexy they look in the pictures, it makes them proud of themselves, more confident and happy. Many of them even create new instagrams to keep their favorites new pics and share with friends meanwhile others prefer to keep the sessions 100% private.
Curito:
What is usually the intention for individuals to want to do a boudoir shoot?
Jonatan:
To become more confident.
To have a great memory in the future.
To give a surprise to the partner.
To see themselves from a different perspective.
For fun and an unique experience, doing a boudoir photo shoot can be a lot more fun than people might think.
To accept themselves & their bodies.
To get out of your comfort zone.
Curito:
You mention in 2014 that you got into a life threatening accident, what were some of the things that helped you overcome this incident?
Jonatan:
Universe, GOD or as you like most to call it, my mind after accident changed a lot, I think this question would guide us to a really deep spiritual conversation that would take hours or days to finish, I will have to skip this answer for now! We can come back to it another time!
Curito:
How has traveling around the world even during the pandemic changed your view of the world and yourself?
Jonatan:
Traveling the world, specially alone make us realize and understand ourselves better. Who we are, our issues and qualities, it doesn’t necessarily make us a better person, but more awake about ourselves. Because human race love to repeat same mistakes over and over again, even knowing the lesson very well.
The world is full of incredible different kind of minds, religions, beliefs and dreams, every nationality has its own behaviors, traditions and daily life.
The more we travel the more we realize that there isn’t always a right and wrong, just different ways to live this reality.
Curito:
Who are some of your inspirations, mentors in life? What keeps you motivated and inspired?
Jonatan:
Not sure if this questions is about photography or myself, but about myself to be honest I don’t put anyone in a pedestal to praise and blindly follow because in the end everyone is human with mistakes and good actions.
Eclesiastes 7:20 “Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins”.
I really like to read sometimes, books by spiritual teachers that reminds me that life is just a trip, and that all we have is now. Some of my favorites are The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle it is an amazing book, especially if you have the chance to experience the feelings described in the book. If you are unable to relate or reach the feeling of what the book illustrates, it will just be another book to you. If you are able to relate and reach these feelings describe, the book become an amazing referral to explain the other sensations!
Another favorite is The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra. This book is amazing because Deepak Chopra teaches simple ways to apply these spiritual laws of success into our everyday lives, it reminds me a little bit about how simple the 7 Hermetism’s laws try to explain our reality.
Curito:
Thanks for sharing your journey Jonatan and for educating us on what boudoir photography is! For those who are interested you can follow Jonatan on IG, his website and reach out to him directly for your own boudoir photoshoot!
