ELMphotos2019, Ottawa, ON (2026)

06/16/2026

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been sharing images and stories from our Waterfall Empowerment Sessions.

Today marks the final post from this series.

To every woman who stepped in front of our camera, thank you. Thank you for your courage, your vulnerability, your trust, and your willingness to be seen exactly as you are. To everyone who followed along, shared these posts, left kind comments, and supported these incredible women, thank you. Your encouragement has meant more than you know.

This is Samantha Madill

Like so many women, Sam has experienced significant changes in her body throughout her life and motherhood. Over the last while, she has dedicated herself to building a healthier lifestyle, not out of punishment, but out of love and respect for the body that has carried her through every season.

What we admire most is that her journey isn’t rooted in chasing perfection. It’s rooted in appreciation. In recognizing the strength, resilience, and beauty that already exists within her.

These images aren’t about who she used to be or who she hopes to become. They’re about honouring who she is right now.

Thank you, Sam, for being part of this experience and for helping us close out this series with such grace.

06/15/2026

Over the next little while, we’ll be sharing individual images and stories from the incredible women who participated in our Waterfall Empowerment Sessions.

Originally, we planned to share these images together in collective posts. But as the sessions unfolded, some of the women chose to share pieces of their journeys with their bodies, healing, growth, and resilience. We wanted to give those words space to exist on their own.

These words are from RaQuelle Small .

“Every mark, every curve, and every change tells a story.

After five children, I’ve learned that perfection isn’t found in a body, it’s found in accepting and loving the one you have.”

06/13/2026

Over the next little while, we’ll be sharing individual images and stories from the incredible women who participated in our Waterfall Empowerment Sessions.

Originally, we planned to share these images together in collective posts. But as the sessions unfolded, some of the women chose to share pieces of their journeys with their bodies, healing, growth, self discovery, and resilience. We wanted to give those words the space to exist on their own. These words are from Kate.

“This experience was not like any I had done in the past.

I have always taken ‘sexy’ photos of myself. When I saw these images, I was taken aback. I didn’t recognize myself.

My immediate thought was, what a beautiful picture.

Not sexy.

Beautiful.

That disconnect was unexpected.

I am so grateful for and proud of this body, even though I’m still learning to recognize it again. As it continues to change through the many seasons to come, I know I’ll look back at these images and be blown away by how courageous I was for doing something different.

For showing myself that I love me.

Do the little things that bring you joy, for no one else but yourself. 💜🙏”

06/11/2026

As part of our Waterfall Empowerment Sessions, participants were invited to share their stories in their own words. This is Briar Cate Hemlocke

“My relationship with my body is complicated.

It’s built equally on gratefulness and contempt.

My body is riddled with autoimmune diseases, but it’s also carried me through hospital stays, ICU visits, trauma, heartbreak, weight gain, weight loss, and more than a few near-death experiences. Through it all, I keep waking up and putting my feet on the floor.

I’ve always been proud of my body in its many forms, but this last year was a wild ride.

After losing my first pregnancy 10 years ago, carrying our daughter felt both terrifying and miraculous. I was constantly sick, in and out of the hospital, and harder on myself than I’ve ever been.

When childbirth became an emergency and recovery brought even more challenges, all I could think about was how my body was still failing me.

Failing to look the way it once did.

Failing to breastfeed the way I hoped.

Failing to be the body I thought I should have.

But the truth is this body grew my daughter.

This body brought her safely into the world.

This body is still here.

I signed up for this session because I wanted to see women simply existing in their bodies. Their scars. Their folds. Their laugh lines. Their stories.

What I found was women showing up for each other in ways only women can. Helping each other through fear. Reminding each other how beautiful they are. Creating a space where nobody had to earn belonging.

My relationship with my body is still a work in progress, but this session started a healing process I didn’t know I needed.

And for the first time in a very long time, I looked at these images and didn’t immediately criticize myself.

I didn’t notice a roll.

I didn’t wish I had posed differently.

I just saw myself.

And that feels like a victory worth celebrating.”

06/10/2026

This soul is .
As part of our Waterfall Empowerment Sessions, participants were invited to share their stories in their own words. This is hers.

“I’ve spent most of my life at war with my body.

I was taught from a young age that being fat meant being less than. I was bullied for my weight, handed detox pills (laxatives) as a teenager, and learned very quickly that the smaller I became, the more praise I received.

For years I chased smaller. Smaller hips. Smaller stomach. Smaller thighs. Smaller space.

No matter how much weight I lost, it was never enough.

When I left an incredibly toxic relationship in 2017, my body changed. Despite eating well and exercising excessively, I gained weight, a lot of it rapidly. Later came diagnoses, chronic pain, hormonal issues, blood clots, another pregnancy, trauma, healing, survival.

My body was no longer something I could control.

So I had a choice.

I could spend the rest of my life hating myself, or I could learn to live alongside the body that had carried me through every single chapter of my life.

Do I love my body every day?
No.

Some days I feel powerful. Some days I hide in oversized pajamas because I don’t want to look at myself.

What’s changed is that I no longer believe my worth is tied to my weight.

My body has carried children. It has survived trauma. It has endured illness, heartbreak, grief, joy, growth, and healing. It has kept me alive through every single version of myself.

I’ve also learned something society doesn’t like to acknowledge… health and body size are not always the same thing. People make assumptions about fat bodies every day. They assume laziness, poor health, poor choices, lack of discipline. They don’t see the whole story.

This body is not a before photo.
It is not a warning.
It is not a failure.
It is simply my body.

While I may still have complicated feelings about it, I refuse to spend my life waiting until I’m smaller to deserve being seen. I am worthy of existing exactly as I am, and so are you.g

06/08/2026

Over the next little while, we’ll be sharing individual images and stories from the incredible women who participated in our Waterfall Empowerment Sessions. While many women chose to share stories of healing, growth, and resilience, not every story is about overcoming struggles with your body.

Sometimes the story is something entirely different.

This beautiful soul is .

She’s been a client and friend of ours since 2020, and when we asked each participant in this project if there was anything they’d like to share about their body or their journey, she privately messaged me and said she didn’t know what to write.

Not because she didn’t care. Not because she didn’t have a story…but because she’d never really struggled with her body image.

I remember reading that message and just sitting with it for a moment and realizing that there is something incredibly beautiful and rare about that.

We live in a world that constantly tells people they should hate parts of themselves. That they should be smaller, younger, smoother, thinner, curvier in different places, less visible, less loud, less themselves.

Yet somehow, through all of that noise, she has remained unapologetically herself.

She has embraced her curves. She has taken up space. She has existed in her body without constantly searching for ways to change it.

While that may sound simple, it really isn’t. For so many women, self acceptance is something we spend years fighting for.

For her, it has always been there.

Somewhere along the way she learned something many of us are still trying to figure out:

That her worth was never tied to the size, shape, or appearance of her body.

These images aren’t about overcoming self hatred. They’re about celebrating self acceptance.

Empowerment isn’t always found in healing old wounds, sometimes it’s found in protecting the parts of yourself the world tried to convince you to question.

That story deserves to be celebrated too.

- Bex 📸

06/01/2026

Over the next little while, we’ll be sharing individual images and stories from the incredible women who participated in our waterfall empowerment sessions.

Today, we’re sharing story.

“I’ve always had a disconnected relationship to my body since I was a kid. By my late 20s, I was at a crossroads; could I stand aging as a man?

I looked at my thinning hair in the mirror and my beard. I was getting older in this vessel and the reflection in the mirror was distressing. I was left with the vision that what was happening to me wasn’t natural and I was in someone else’s skin. I didn’t choose to be a man and it was killing me. The answer was ultimately no. I couldn’t stand the idea of waking up one day as an old man and I had to make a choice or die.

I chose to transition from man to woman, pursuing hormone replacement therapy and gender-confirming surgeries. Little by little, the reflection in the mirror was less alien to me and more aligned with my spirit.

Receiving the photos was shocking. I looked comfortable. I looked feminine and beautiful. I had just turned 30 and I felt amazing!

Choosing to transition was a choice for myself, to give the prospect of being myself and aging in a more aligned body a shot, and it’s working.

The chaos of medical consultations and fighting insurance companies is being replaced by a new journey of enjoying the quieter moments, putting down roots in my community, supporting my friends and loved ones, feeling natural and effortless in my femininity, and the powerful contentment of waking up every day being me in this imperfect but beautiful vessel.

The waterfall empowerment session is my chance to come into my middle age being in my most authentic form, feeling natural and connected to myself and the world around me.

Like the rush of the water above us, there is so much power in embracing our unique authenticity.”

05/28/2026

Over the next little while, we’ll be sharing individual images and stories from the incredible women who participated in our waterfall empowerment sessions.

Originally, we planned to share these images together in collective posts. But as the sessions unfolded, some of the women chose to share pieces of their journeys with their bodies, healing, growth, and resilience. We wanted to give those words space to exist on their own.

These words are from our model who’d like to remain anonymous/untagged:

“I didn’t think I cared much about how my body looked. When my doctor told me 10 years ago that SSRIs could cause weight gain, I waved her off because I didn’t mind- I didn’t think I cared about how my body looked. A slower metabolism didn’t cause much weight gain at all, I was active, and after all- I didn’t think I cared.

I got tattoos, all of them intended to represent a part of me. Even if I outgrew Batman comics, or anti-depressants, they still would have a hand in who I’d become. I would never regret them. I wouldn’t care about how my body art looked.

Over the years, add in mobility issues from a recurring bone tumor, a (still) slow metabolism, tattoo aesthetic changes, stretch marks from carrying children, breasts that have been chewed on and depleted— I certainly do care about how my body looks.

I think I started really acknowledging caring about how my body looked once other people made comments. From pig noises from family members, to “wow you lost so much weight- you look so good [now]”. I do care, and it was easy to pretend I didn’t when my body wasn’t a conversation piece I’m faced with daily.

I’m trying to change that conversation, though. I am grateful for this body. Stretched, chewed on, and drilled into. It is resilient. It has given new life. It is mine.

And years from now, my body will still be resilient. I will care about how my body looks, but only because it is an album of my life’s history. I will flip through the pages with love, fighting the conversations, and appreciating the journey this body has been through with me.”

05/25/2026

Five years ago, we created waterfall images that have stayed with us ever since. This spring, we returned.

Not to recreate them… but to honour the women standing in front of our cameras now, the stories carried in their bodies, and the years that have passed in between. To celebrate the versions of ourselves that exist across time, and the quiet power in continuing on.

Bodies change.
Bodies carry babies.
Bodies survive trauma.
Bodies heal.
Bodies grow softer.
Bodies become stronger.
Bodies age.
Bodies experience loss, grief, joy, illness, pleasure, survival, celebration, and everything in between.

We talk a lot about body positivity, but the truth is… some days loving your body feels impossible. Some days your body feels unfamiliar. Some days it feels heavy with everything it has carried.

Your body does not have to be loved every moment to be worthy of respect.
It does not have to fit beauty standards to deserve celebration.
It does not have to be small, smooth, young, healed, or unchanged to be honoured.

Your body has kept you alive through every chapter.

That alone deserves acknowledgment.

These images weren’t about perfection. They were about existing.

Taking up space.
Witnessing one another.
Allowing softness.
Allowing strength.
Honouring our bodies, exactly as they are.

Some bodies in these images have created life.
Some have survived things they never should have had to.
Some are carrying grief.
Some are carrying joy.
Some are still learning how to exist inside themselves gently.

All of them deserve to be witnessed.

Models:

02/10/2026

🔥 For the first time in six years, we didn’t host Valentine’s boudie sessions. ❤️‍🔥

No studio.
No red sets.
No heart props.
No marathon magic.

And if we’re honest? It hurt our hearts 💔.

So we’re throwing it back today to last years Valentines boudie box sets and reminding you of something important…❣️

We have ✨ THREE ✨ spots left for our March bo***ir sessions.

And trust us, you do not want to miss these.

These sessions are currently being offered for the price of just our session fee…$499+hst
but they include:

✨ Professional makeup
✨ 10 edited digital images
✨ Full guided posing
✨ A Bombass boutique suite
✨ That “holy sh*t that’s me?” confidence boost

That’s huge savings.

March is about to be unreal.

If you’ve been waiting… this is your sign.

DM us and claim your spot before they’re gone. 🔥

ELMphotos2019

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