We recently connected with Julie Socher and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Julie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, let’s start with trends – what are some of the largest or more impactful trends you are seeing in the industry?
When I started specializing in Boudoir Photography 12.5 years ago, the main reason for doing a boudoir photo shoot was to create the ultimate wedding gift for their partner. To surprise them on the wedding day with an album full of bridal boudoir photos sprinkled with little touches of things that were special to their partner. Like their favorite sports team jersey, or wearing a piece of their work uniform, their tie, etc. Women were leading with the wedding/ special occasion gift in mind for their reason to experience a boudoir session.
Lately, however, the boudoir industry has shifted focus on women doing the shoot for themselves as an empowering experience where women celebrate themselves, explore their sensuality, and reclaim their femininity. I think a lot of women who lead with the gift in mind, soon realize in the planning process, that doing something like this is actually so much more for themselves than it is for someone else. Women from all backgrounds find so much healing and confidence in doing a shoot like this, that they quickly realize they don’t need a special occasion anymore to do this. They ARE the occasion.
My studio focuses on the woman to celebrate herself as she is in this moment because that is the perfect time to do a shoot. Most of my clients have their first shoot with me and then come back for a second, third and fourth shoot over the years to celebrate new life milestones or simply “just because.” I’m so proud to have created a space for women to learn to love themselves over and over again!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I’m Julie Socher and I own Julie Socher Photography, LLC that focuses on boudoir photography for everyday women. I’ve designed a studio that celebrates women as they are with with a premium boudoir photography session where women step out of their comfort zones and leave feeling empowered, revealing their strength and reclaiming their womanhood and individuality.
I started my business 12.5 years ago after first discovering boudoir through a local photographers community and immediately knew this was something I wanted to specialize. The first 7 years of my business I built part time while I worked full time as a government contractor. I spent a lot of time on educating myself on my gear, my style, lighting, posing for all body types and the business of photography from some of the industries best mentors. I then realized my little side hustle was making more income than my full time job, so I had to make a decision. And here we are! I’m now a full time boudoir photographer with my commercial studio located in Northern Virginia.
One of the main things that set my studio apart is I help my clients prepare from our first call all the way to picking up their photos. My studio is a full service studio. That means every shoot starts with a boudoir make over from some of DC’s best hair and makeup artists and guidance on what to wear. I partner with a couple of top lingerie boutiques that help my clients get styled and fitted for their shoot so they go into their session feeling prepared and beautiful while I help guide them in all the posing during their experience. We offer a variety of photo albums with lots of customization and wall art options for every taste. We design everything together and I love that my clients are apart of every process.
We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.
I’ve always been into a lot of things creatively from painting, ceramics, drawing, but photography was something I kept coming back to over the yers. In high school, I thought I was going to go to some art college and learn photography because what really inspired me was flipping through print magazines and seeing all the fashion photography in there. My art teachers talked me out of it as I think they just wanted to point me to something “safe” so I majored in graphic design. While I was working as a graphic designer, I remember sitting at my desk one day feeling uninspired and needed a creative hobby to pick up on the weekends maybe.
So I followed that curiosity and I got a digital SLR camera and taught myself photography all over again and found myself photographing everything: families, portraits, babies, weddings, pets. And then I discovered boudoir photography and that’s when I decided to specialize. There weren’t a lot of boudoir photographers in the area at that time so being super niched, it was effortless (at least it seemed that way in the beginning) to gain a following and clientele. The interesting thing about this is I had no intention in starting a business or do this full time. I simply just wanted something creative to look forward to and was super excited that people were paying me to photograph their life milestones.
To fund my new expensive hobby, I started by creating a separate bank account that was only for my side hustle because in order to get more gear or pay for mentorships, I had to pay for it with the money I made from photography – a rule I made for myself. I had another strict rule about not paying myself with that money, it was all to be used for supporting my side hustle. Over the next 7 years, my side hustle grew pretty quickly where I was in a place to rent studio space, then eventually lease my own commercial space. All the while, I was still working full time and having my full time job taking care of my personal expenses was what helped me build the capital for my photography business (since it was all separate) that when I was ready to go full time, I had built a nest egg for my business and about a year and half’s worth of emergency funds to feel confident about taking my side hustle to my full time gig.
Some key milestones are starting with the curiosity of wanting to do photography again and diving into all the education about my gear, lighting and learning everything I could about photography. Then realizing 5 years later, that this side hustle was quickly growing and I should be treating this more like a second job and perhaps learn to run a profitable business. The major milestone was seeing the numbers at year 7 and making the difficult and scary decision to go full time!
Today, it’s now been 12.5 years and I’m now running a multiple 6 figure boudoir photography business in the Northern VA and Washington DC area. We’re an all female studio and pride in being the top boudoir studio in the DMV area.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
Thinking on this, I believe I have two. One being the most important is creating an experience that my clients rave about and giving them top notch service. I’ve worked previous jobs in customer service and learned that when a customer has a really good experience, they tell their friends about it. I mean, I do the same thing. If I have a really good experience with a business, I tell my friends about it to! Also, giving my clients the best service. I want my clients to feel prepared, I want them to trust me, and I want them to know they are in the best hands when it comes to their boudoir experience. Arming my clients with what to expect throughout the whole process, and feel good through every step is what had helped me grow because word of mouth marketing is super powerful.
Secondly, hiring a marketing team has helped me with growing my clientele as well. As a small business owner, I had to learn that I can’t do everything and marketing is more than just having a cool website and a social media presence. When I outsourced my marketing team to help me do all things google, optimize my website, and organize my business automations this has also helped in me growing my clientele outside of word of mouth.
Contact Info:
- Website: juliesocherboudoir.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boudoirbyjuliesocher/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/juliesocherphotography
Image Credits
Action shots by The Branding Babe