Why Did I Start You At Yours?

Hey, how's it going? 

Welcome to You At Yours. So good to see you here!

Why did I start You at Yours?

This is a topic that I love talking about. It's a topic of conversation that I tend to have a lot, and so I figured, once more couldn't hurt!

In all seriousness, I don't mind answering it. It's an important one. 

So, when I get this question I sense that sometimes there's an underlying question, which is "What do you get exactly, Mervyn, out of taking photos of women with their clothes off?" And I understand, I fully understand. As a woman, you have to be careful. You have to trust the people that you're going into these spaces with and I respect that. 

And in fact, I encourage it. I say to my clients, go off and read reviews, go off and watch the testimonial videos that are on my website. Go off and speak to them. Some of them you might even find who are following me and commenting on my posts online on Instagram. Just reach out to them, "Hey, I see you had a session with Merv, what was it like?"

I can't stress that enough. Go and do your research. It's important that you feel safe, okay? 

So, why did I start You At Yours? 

Well, let me be honest with you. I, like you, I'm sure, have a plethora of women in my life who tell me so many times that they're not enough of this and not enough of that. I'm too big, I'm too small. My hair's not long enough, my hair's too short. My face is awful. My bum, my boobs, my toes, especially my pinky toe. I'm making it up as I go along, you get the point. And no words of compliment or no words of affirmation, no words of encouragement are enough to change that person's mind, right? We all know someone like this.

And I got to a point where I was like, I wish I could do something.

Meanwhile, I was shooting weddings and events, right? So, you've been to a wedding. And when someone comes along with this huge camera and points in your face, you're like, I am suddenly very uncomfortable. And some people will go even further, especially if you're from this wonderful island of ours, Britain, and will say some real awful things about themselves, frankly. You know, if you point that thing at me my face will break your lens 'cause I'm so ugly. You might need to stand back a mile to get all of me in your frame, mate. And so on. Awful things to hear if I'm honest with you. 

I found myself leaving these venues drained not from the physical exertion but from the mental one, I'm an empath. So, when someone tells me these things, I'm like, no, I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna prove to you that you are better than you think. Do you see where I'm going?

So one of my wedding clients, this couple who I've got on well with still get on with them now, like we go to parties and stuff. We have a great time. I was shooting their wedding. Well, they had booked me to shoot their wedding. And she had approached me, privately, to do a boudoir shoot for her as a gift for him. 

Now I'd never done it before. And she said to me, I don't mind, you know, I trust you. I just wanna do it, I think it'd be fun. Let's just do it. And so we did it and she said to me, Merv, I don't know what it is, but you have this thing about you that just makes people feel good, like, and I feel amazing. And the photos are also incredible.

So, jump forward. I decided I was gonna utilise this skill not in weddings and events but in taking photographs of women. I'm going to show women, I'm going to put up a picture, a mirror of them, that they cannot argue with. I'm going to show you how incredible you look. 

And then I realized, whilst the photos are magical I've not had a single person, touch wood, tell me they don't like their images. Over time, I have realized that the photos have nothing to do with it at all, and it's the experience. It's like body confidence therapy in a way.

So, the focus became the experience. The focus isn't, okay, stand against this wall, poke your butt out. Snap, snap, snap, pay me. 

My goal is to get you to feel as comfortable as possible during this experience, all right? The next step is to help you get to a place where you feel as confident as possible so that your truth can be seen so that you feel wild and free. 

I've had people say to me, Merv, I went for that job interview. Merv, we're having sex with the lights on, Merv, I dumped that guy. I get so many little snippets of feedback like that after the sessions. I've had people say to me, I don't even need to see my photographs. Like, I feel like a new person, and that's beautiful. 

So you get the gist. And that's why I do it. I wake up every morning, every single morning even on my day off and I think to myself, who am I helping today? And I can't tell you enough how passionate I am. I've got people, I'll be honest with you, I've got loved ones around me who are constantly making sure that I am doing other things outside of You At Yours because I have a life outside of this amazing business that I run. 

And you know, sometimes because of the work I do, it can take up all my energy and all my power, but I love it. I can't tell you that enough, I can't tell you how amazing it is. 

So, that's why I do it. I hope that answers your question. Any more questions, send me an email, drop me a line and we'll go from there. 

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