Not Ashamed Boudoir: Joshua and Jennifer Nielson

As it says on their website, there’s a difference between a cool picture, a great photo, and a striking image. Striking Images and Not Ashamed Boudoir is made up of Josh and Jennifer, a Utah couple that lives in Saratoga Springs.

Josh says that he originally got into photography as an excuse to get outside and “hunt” wildlife. And by hunt, he means photograph. Starting out with some pointers from a friend and a desire to pursue photography, Josh became dedicated to the artform. “Whatever the genre, we are dedicated to being artists,” Josh says. “What we try to create is something that you wouldn’t see every day. We work to find the exceptional.” About 90% of photoshoots are done together. Having both of them there means that while Josh is behind the camera, looking at lighting, focus, and framing, Jen is able to see all of the details that make a photograph great.

After learning more about what boudoir photography was all about, a little later down the road, Josh and Jen spoke about how they could use boudoir as a means to help women step away from the shame that so often surrounds their self image and the ways they view their bodies – thus, Not Ashamed Boudoir was born nearly 3 years ago.

“We started Not Ashamed as a way to help me love myself,” says Jen. Having struggled with eating disorders and low self-esteem for most of her life, she was all too aware of the toxic thought patterns that women can fall into. “I wanted to learn to stop being ashamed of my own body and love who I am now.” And what began as a project geared towards self-love and acceptance, blossomed into a passion and a journey to help the clients and models they worked with take steps towards self-love and away from shame.

You can find Josh and Jennifer on Instagram: @not.ashamed.boudoir and @striking.images.
You can also find their websites by clicking here: Striking Images // Not Ashamed Boudoir.

This photoshoot features model, Ida May, who is a published model, an artist, and an HST Girl featured on the cover of the Summer 2020 Horror Sleaze Trash Quarterly.

Shot By Baker: Rope Muse

Model: @ropemuse
Photographer: @shotbybaker

Model: @ropemuse
Photographer: @shotbybaker

Shot By Baker: Rope Muse

Model: @ropemuse
Photographer: @shotbybaker

Model: @ropemuse
Photographer: @shotbybaker

Stranger Than Kindness, By Nick Cave

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Canongate Books, 276 pages

Nick Cave changed my life when I first discovered him, sometime back in the mid-90s, by which point he’d already built a career spanning decades and the musical landscape I perceived at the time was growing ever more bleaker by the second. Personally, I’m still with him where he stated, “I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?’ And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.” Still, the younger, saltier Cave of that era now seems a far cry removed from the older, more mellowed version of today, and the two of them finally chance to meet within the pages and on the cover of this gorgeously intimate book.

Cataloguing a lifetime’s worth of writing, artwork, and various other artifacts from Cave’s childhood through this present day, Stranger Than Kindness represents a selection of pieces from the exhibit of the same name, which finally opened last month at the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen. For those unable to attend, I would highly recommend this book for the insights it provides into the life and works of its subject.

—Arthur Graham, Editor in Chief

BUY A COPY HERE

Introducing Miss Ginger

HST introduces the lovely and talented Miss Ginger

FULL SET HERE

Shot By Baker: NotYourPrettyBitch

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Model: @NotYourPrettyBitch
Photog: @shotbybaker

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https://www.instagram.com/notyourprettybitch/

https://www.instagram.com/shotbybaker/

Shot By Baker: May Pow Pow

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Ahegao: The Overwhelming Urge to Cum
Photographer: @shotbybaker
Model: @maypowpow

The female orgasm is the holy grail of sexual experience. Women’s partners have sought it out for as long as we know, worshiped it and tried every combination of rubbing, touching, licking, and sucking to behold its magic that some describe as a momentous earthquake of tension release that sends waves of ecstasy from the solar plexus to every part of the body and lasts several moments, leaving the woman to resemble a starfish having a heart attack, depleted of all energy and yet… satisfied. All a woman can do in that state simply just experience it.

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Have you ever observed your partners facial expression when she starts to reach that moment when the sudden but slow warming sensation starts in the centre of her body, spreading like waves caused by a casual yet romantic wind as it extends throughout her body increasing in intensity? Did you notice her protruding tongue, flushed cheeks, and crossed eyes that roll so far back into her head that all you can see is the crescent of an iris? This expression, or better put, loss of musculoskeletal control of facial organs, in the erotic world is referred to as ahegao… the overwhelming urge to cum.

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Ahegao, a term created by men but embraced by women.

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According to experts in the Manga and Asian Studies, the original purpose of ahegao was to exaggerate the orgasmic facial expression to show that the character is receiving an orgasm beyond normative notions of pleasure.

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There are three things that make for a memorable ahegao face:

Her mouth must be wide open and her tongue should dangle out.
Various bodily liquids are to emerge from her face, ranging from tears, drool, sweat and even snot
Her eyes must be rolled back so far that the pupils are barely visible.

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There are those who find this act to be sexist and degrading, but there is a growing female community who have taken deliberate strides to achieve the ahegao expression in modern adult films stars and cam girls. In so doing, they merely accentuate the natural loss of facial control inherent in the orgasm, emphasizing how these women experience the overwhelming pleasure.

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For the HST community, in this shoot featuring the captivating Japanese model, May Pow Pow, we aimed to mimic and pay homage to the historical ahegao expression that has emerged in the Western world in recent times. Enjoy!

https://onlyfans.com/maypowpow

HST Classic

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Shot By Baker: Juri Billy Doll

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Photographer: @shotbybaker
Model: @juribillydoll

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Tell us about yourself Juri?

Hi, I’m Juri Billy Doll! I’m a model from Japan.

What have you been up to since our shoot?

I am back in Japan now. I am still a model and I have shoots as well!

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What motivates you?

I think that’s when I get to see the results of each shoots. That makes me so happy and gives me so much motivation and inspiration of “I want to do this more” and “I want to do that next time.”

What’s the biggest learning experience you’ve had?

I think I have had a lot of it and they are all biggest learning experience.

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