How to Prepare for Your Boudoir Photo Shoot. A thoughtful and extensive Boudoir Guide for wardrobe, lingerie, skin, hair nails, grooming, beauty appointments, emotional preparation, posing, privacy, what to bring, what to avoid, and everything you should know before stepping in front of the camera.

A practical fall garden tending guide for Maine perennials, hydrangeas, hostas, peonies, iris, ornamental grasses, evergreens, shrubs, lawns, bulbs, and established gardens, beginning with what your property needs right now.

Beyond the pastries, coffee, breads, and familiar blue sign on Ocean Point Road, Farm 23 has created a thoughtfully curated gift shop filled with Maine made goods, small business finds, useful objects, beautiful little luxuries, and the kinds of gifts that make shopping locally in Boothbay Harbor feel like part of the experience of being here.

Located at 102 Ocean Point Road in Boothbay Harbor, just a short distance from the intersection of Route 27 and Route 96, Farm 23 is a small batch bakery, café, farmette, and gift shop created by owners Laura and Josh Puchalski, who moved to Boothbay Harbor in 2019 after more than a decade of operating their first bakery in Massachusetts. Farm 23 now occupies a property centered around an 1850 farmhouse and bakery barn, where the couple has combined baking, farming, coffee, local ingredients, gifts, and the wonderfully personal character of an independent Maine business into something that feels much larger than the word bakery suggests.

I am not simply arriving to complete a list of outdoor chores.

I am learning what you planted, what you inherited, what you love, what you want to change, what you want protected, how you use the property, when your family arrives, where you sit in the evening, which flowers you cut for the house, and what you hope this place will become over the next several years.

I am not simply arriving to complete a list of outdoor chores.

I am learning what you planted, what you inherited, what you love, what you want to change, what you want protected, how you use the property, when your family arrives, where you sit in the evening, which flowers you cut for the house, and what you hope this place will become over the next several years.

A visitor may have come to the Boothbay region for the harbor, a sailing trip, a summer house, a wedding, a garden visit, dinner, a weekend away, or a family vacation. Somewhere between breakfast and getting back on the boat, they begin deciding where to wander, which streets to explore, which businesses look interesting enough to enter, and which places they want to remember before leaving Maine.

An owner adjusting a display, arranging flowers, unpacking new merchandise, helping a customer, wrapping a purchase, standing outside the storefront, or simply moving naturally through the space can communicate considerably more about the business.

The person who created the store is often one of its most compelling stories.

A headshot can show your face clearly, introduce you professionally, and provide the polished photograph required for a company website or LinkedIn profile, but many people have careers, businesses, creative practices, and public identities that require considerably more visual information than a photograph from the shoulders up can provide.

They may have found you through LinkedIn, opened the leadership page on your company's website, read an article in which you were quoted, received a proposal containing your biography, searched your name after a referral, reviewed the speakers for an upcoming conference, or simply looked you up before deciding whether to make contact. In all of those situations, your photograph becomes part of the introduction, whether you deliberately planned for it to or not.

There is something distinctly different about photographs made during the holidays because Christmas already carries so much visual memory with it. The front porch covered in cedar garland, the tree glowing in the living room, children bundled into wool coats, the annual trip to choose a Christmas tree, downtown storefronts illuminated after dark, grandparents arriving, familiar ornaments appearing from their boxes, and the particular warmth of a house when everyone finally comes inside from the cold all become part of how we remember a season of family life.

There is direction and structure throughout the session, but there is also movement, conversation, play, snuggling, walking, exploring, and enough flexibility to recognize when a child needs something different. My existing fall sessions are deliberately designed around children's attention spans and personalities rather than expecting children to perform continuously for the camera.

An elopement gives you permission to remove almost everything except the marriage itself and then thoughtfully add back only the pieces that matter to you.

For some couples, that means two people standing beside the Atlantic.

For others, it means ten people gathered at a family home, a ceremony in the White Mountains followed by dinner at an inn, or vows beside a Maine lake with their children standing beside them.

Sometimes the right location is dramatic, while other times it is the porch where you drink coffee every morning, the town where you met, the beach where you spend your summers, the family property where generations before you have gathered, or simply somewhere beautiful that reflects the life you hope to create together.

…And sometimes, what you really need is one highly capable person who can walk into a situation, understand the larger objective, and figure out what needs to happen next.

…And sometimes, what you really need is one highly capable person who can walk into a situation, understand the larger objective, and figure out what needs to happen next.

Whether you envision a romantic meadow, classic New England foliage, old stone walls, an autumn orchard, or a windswept coastal Maine portrait, your wardrobe can be designed around the environment and the way you want the finished photographs to feel.

So what is a personal stylist?

She is part visual strategist, part cultural interpreter, part emotional editor. She works with fabric, yes. But she is really working with perception. With transition. With identity under construction. She builds alignment between who you are internally and how you are read externally. And that alignment, when achieved, feels less like fashion and more like relief.

Eleanor and James chose to elope along the Schoodic Peninsula not to escape tradition, but to refine it. In late October, as the Atlantic deepened and the crowds thinned, their Maine elopement unfolded slowly, guided by land, weather, and intention rather than expectation. This extended editorial explores what it means to marry quietly, thoughtfully, and fully present along the coast of Maine.

A winter elopement in Acadia National Park is not about spectacle; it is about intention. In February, the cliffs quiet, the Atlantic deepens, and space opens for something honest to take shape. This extended feature follows Dan and Lilly’s intimate Maine elopement—from early planning and thoughtful logistics to vows exchanged at Otter Cliffs—documented with care by a seasoned Acadia elopement photographer who understands the land, the season, and the significance of choosing less.