Although they are a lot of work, I always start daydreaming about another photo shoot as soon as I get home from one. I had a session this past weekend and one of the outfits I wore is for an upcoming… thing that I am not sure if I can talk about yet but girl, as soon as I can I will, lol.
Here is a peek at most of the outfits I wore. I had so much fun and I felt so pretty. I hope you like these photos and I can’t wait to see the final pictures!
Love, Hannah
…smiled more.
Since I live the majority of my life presenting as a boy most of my experiences with the world are a reflection of that presentation.
In male mode, I am aware of when I say something the person I am speaking to not only listens to what I am saying but they are also considering that a masculine presenting person is saying it to them. If I am describing something to a feminine presenting person I choose my words very carefully so she hopefully doesn’t feel I am manspaining it to them.
Another example. A female colleague can compliment another colleague on her cute dress and if I were to say the exact same words as she used, it may very well come off as, well, creepy.
When I am tempted to compliment a girl on her makeup or her outfit, I am doing it from the perspective of Hannah, even if I am in male mode. As a t-girl, I absolutely appreciate and admire amazing lipstick shades BUT in male mode the girl I am speaking to doesn’t know about my other gender identity. For all she knows I am just a creep staring too long at her winged eyeliner.
I don’t want anyone to be uncomfortable around me… in either of my gender presentations. In male mode I know I can come off as looking unfriendly and intimidating. I am over six feet tall and I look strong. If I haven’t slept well or haven’t shaven in a few days I come off as a little scary looking. When I am out walking my dog (also rather large) and I see a young woman out for a run I am well aware she has looked at both of us and likely registered us a potential threat to her.
And for understandable reasons. I don’t take this personally and the reality is that every woman I know is always aware of where they are and who is nearby. The last thing I would ever do is intentionally harm someone and I regret that I LOOK like a threat. I work for a college and almost every female student I work with asks about campus security and campus safety. Not a single guy asks about this.
Another thing I’ve learned is never, ever tell a woman to smile. That realization came hand-in-hand with learning that presenting as a cis male there are things I should never say to a woman.
And I know there are a lot of guys who defend their comments as compliments or insisting they would be flattered if a girl said they looked handsome. I mean, that’s great that’s how YOU would feel and you might think it’s a double standard but still, keep your thoughts to yourself.
When I am en femme I experience the world through a different set of heavily eyelinered eyes. I am hyper aware of my surroundings and who is in the room or in the store. I look for potential threats.
Interactions on social media are also different. I get a lot of guys hitting on me through comments and emails and messages. This is not humble bragging, mind you. I am not necessarily flattered by this. Most of these comments are… ah, very specific and almost all of them cross a line with me. There’s a difference between “you look really beautiful” and “I would love to be naked with you and caress your face as I gently kiss your lips”.
Ick.
The smile thing? I totally get it when girls get annoyed when a man tells them to smile. I post (a LOT of) photos and I am not always smiling in them. It’s not a surprise when someone messages me about a specific picture and telling me that it would be a better photo if I smiled. I mean for one, don’t tell me what to do, lol.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I looked over the pictures from my most recent photo shoot. I don’t smile in every photo because I am trying to look… seductive? Or trying to convey a certain emotion?
I love this photo and I think it would hit different if I was smiling.
Sometimes the outfit vibes differently with a certain facial expression.
Sometimes I choose a resting facial expression to leave one’s interpretation of what I am thinking or feeling up to someone else. It’s not uncommon in lingerie photos.
I like all three of these photos a lot. And I think they would be very different if I was smiley in them.
But the last photo shoot taught me that yes, some photos look really good with a more neutral expression but almost every one of those pictures are completely entwined with what I am wearing. Lingerie, leather… outfits that convey domination or seduction tend to work without a smile but a pretty floral bodycon dress or a gown? Mmmm… not so much.
Look at these two photos.
Hate the photo on the left. HAAAAAATE it. And if I wasn’t using this photo to prove a point it would never see the light of day. My shoulders looked hunched for one, but the neutral expression just doesn’t work with this dress. The dress is cute, it’s flirty… I love wearing it. My facial expression, my body language should reflect that… similar to how my facial expression and body language reflects leather or lingerie.
I post a LOT of photos and the reality is that I upload just a fraction of what is taken and what I have saved on my hard drive. There are some really great pictures in terms of lighting, composition, outfits… but the picture is spoiled by my face. Er, facial expression.
I am not saying that all the men who tell me that I would look cuter if I smiled are correct. It’s not that simple. What I am realizing is that like a color of a dress or the style of an outfit some things, including facial expressions, work for some girls and not so much for others. Very, very, VERY few pictures (in a relative sense) where I am not smiling WORK compared to photos where I am expressing how happy I really am when I am wearing a cute dress and feeling like a supermodel for a few hours.
Love, Hannah
I THINK it’s Judas Priest that has a song called ‘Hellbent on Leather’ but I am too lazy and disinterested to Google it to find out.
I heart leather but I also love anything tight and shiny and leatherish. This can include latex and vegan leather and, like this sexy number from En Femme, a blend of polyester and lycra.
It sounds so… unsexy to describe a dress like this with the word ‘polyester’ but it is what it is, lol.
This is the final outfit I am posting from my most recent photo shoot… just in time for the NEXT one this Saturday.
I hope you like this dress and these photos!
Love, Hannah
I absolutely believe that t-girls and non-binary people EVOLVE. I have a love/hate relationship with the term JOURNEY… it’s cliched and makes it sound the challenges and bliss that we experience are almost trivial and naïve. I suppose it’s probably one of the more appropriate terms for our lives, though.. But like a stiletto that is a half-inch too small, it doesn’t quite fit right.
Maybe evolution is a better term? I mean, we start with this longing in our heart for pretty clothes or we become aware that the gender everyone says we are isn’t quite right. As time passes and as we experience, uh, experiences we start to realize that the world is bigger than black and white… and pink and blue.
We go from wondering what it would be like to wear a dress to being conflicted by this desire… and then we go from looking at them at the store or online to plucking up the courage to buying it… sooner or later we are wearing it… perhaps in our living room with the curtains pulled… and then maybe one day we are rocking it at the mall.
Evolution, baby.
I was thinking about this as I was looking at pictures from my most recent photo shoot. A girl needs outfits for a shoot and although it sounded impossible at one point in my life I chose a little lingerie for the shoot.
Evolution, baby.
I heart lingerie and I’ve gotten past any reservation and shyness when it comes to showing off my, ah, intimate apparel (as the department stores call it). A big part of why I love lingerie shots is because of what they represent to me.
Not only are they a reflection of confidence (I mean, I think it’s pretty brave to do this) but it’s also (at least to me), the ultimate final strut of my personal journey/evolution when it comes to how I feel about my body.
Dysphoria is a bitch and over the years I have hid my shoulders or have been too terrified to leave the house because I didn’t “pass”. I went through (and still do) periods where I believed that certain parts of me were too masculine to wear ANYTHING, especially if it was a dress with thin straps.
But thankfully I have moved past that. Of all the things I’ve accomplished or will accomplish in my life, getting over the invalid thoughts that held me back will always be my biggest victory.
Someone dressed in lingerie is showing the WORLD (or just their partner) their body. Every beautiful “flaw” and every beautiful imperfection.
Complete vulnerability. Letting your guard down is intimate and courageous.
When I was growing up it was the scariest and bravest thing in the world to let my eyes linger a little tooooo long at the pretty dress the mannequin at the department store was modeling. Over time I found the courage to follow my heart when it came to beautiful clothes, especially when it comes to what we wear that only we ourselves see. Eventually I found myself (trembling all the while) wandering around the lingerie sections feeling completely giddy and overwhelmed and terrified. It felt like it took forever to take the step when it came to buying panties. And then a bra. And then stockings. And then everything else.
It was braver still to wear them, even in the quiet privacy of my own apartment. It felt like conquering a mountain the first time I underdressed outside my home or slept in a nightgown.
But I did these things. I did more than these things.
Everything about me had to evolve. How I felt about crossdressing itself to how I felt about my body to finding the courage to learn my measurements and how sizing in femme clothes worked.
But I did it! And everyone reading this evolved in some way. Whether you are wearing panties under your boy clothes or you strut out the door en femme every day or have simply and quietly acknowledged that you WANT to explore this side of you… you’ve made progress.
I hope you can relate to these words.
And I hope you like these photos!
Love, Hannah
I am new to your blog so pardon my question that may have already been answered. My question is what service do you use for your pictures? Do they do all you make up? Do they supply clothes, or are you on your own for that?
I don’t use a service for my shoots. My photo shoots are very similar to putting together an outfit. Your heels might be from one store, your skirt might be from one designer and your blouse might be from a different brand… but somehow it all comes together.
I have worked with the same photographer for almost six years now and we’ve become really good friends. When I am feeling self-indulgent or when I am asked to review/model an outfit I reach out to her and schedule a shoot.
Similar to my photographer, I get my makeup done by an artist that I have been working with for about two years.
Studios and locations for shoots are almost always found and booked by my photographer. Typically all costs associated with my shoots are paid for by me, whether it’s hiring my photographer, paying for my makeover, or booking a studio.
The outfits I wear for my shoots are either from my own wardrobe or are provided to me for the purposes or writing a review or for modeling… typically for En Femme.
If you are looking for a transformation service in the Twin Cities, I recommend La Femme Mystique. I visited Rebecca a few years ago and had a fabulous time!
Love, Hannah
Have a question for me? Oh yes you do. Ask me here!
I had a little time to kill between my makeover and my last photo shoot so guess what I did? I went SHOPPING.
There a couple of thrift stores somewhere in-betweenish of where I had my makeup done and the photo studio and sometimes I get lucky and sometimes I don’t.
I had my outfits packed for the shoot and I seem to be running out of dresses in my wardrobe that I like enough to wear for photos but there was one dress that I selected that I wasn’t sure would fit right. It was a bodycon dress that I found at another thrift store (I be thriftin’) and it was meant to be tight (God knows that’s what I look for in a dress) aaaand it fit fairly well.
The problem was that it was a larger size than what I normally wear. Prior to COVID I was consistently a size 12. When lockdowns kicked in I wasn’t able to hit the gym. Like, at all. I started to gain a little weight (I be snackin’) and it was… well, frustrating to see some of my favorite outfits didn’t fit the way they used to.
As things reopened I was able to go back to working out but had a hard time getting back into a daily routine. I was able to maintain my weight but wasn’t losing what I had gained.
In June I worked hard to get back into the mindset of going to the gym every morning no matter how tired I was. It wasn’t easy (and still isn’t) but with hard work, both physical and mental, I was able to lose every pound I gained and got back to my normal size.
Yay me!
Anyway, as I was killing time I started to doubt that the aforementioned dress wouldn’t look quite right. It was a perfect excuse (not that I needed one) to find something new. I saw another bodycon dress and it checked all my boxes. It was my size, it was short, it was cute. AND! It was ten dollars.
It was a STEAL.
BUT! I hemmed and hawed. I took it off the rack… I put it back. I wandered around the store and took it off the rack AGAIN and once more, returned it. And this cycle repeated itself.
It’s not that I’m cheap but sometimes I feel conflicted about buying something that I might only wear once… especially if that one time is just for a photo shoot.
Eventually I (spoiler alert) bought it.
It was the last dress I wore for the shoot and I absolutely fell in love with it. It fit like a dream and I loved how I looked in it. It felt like a reward for all the hard work I put in at the gym, the early morning workouts, and passing up desserts.
Written out like this, it sounds so easy. It’s not. Losing weight is never easy. What works for one person doesn’t mean it will work for someone else. If you decide to make changes to your life, whether it is diet or physical activity, please consult your physician first.
I hope you like this dress. I love it. Best ten dollars I’ll ever spend.
Love, Hannah
She is benediction
She is addicted to thee
She is the root connection
She is connecting with he
Here I go and I don’t know why
I fell so ceaselessly
Could it be he’s taking over me
I’m dancing barefoot
Heading for a spin
Some strange music draws me in
Makes me come on like some heroine
She is sublimation
She is the essence of thee
She is concentrating on he
Chosen by she
Here I go and I don’t know why
I spin so ceaselessly
Could it be he’s taking over me
I’m dancing barefoot
Heading for a spin
Some strange music draws me in
Makes me come on like some heroine
She is re-creation
She, intoxicated by Thee
She has the slow sensation that
He is levitating with she
Here I go and I don’t know why
I spin so ceaselessly
Till I lose my sense of gravity
I’m dancing barefoot
Heading for a spin
Some strange music draws me in
Makes me come on like some heroine
Oh God, I fell for You
The plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face
The mystery of childbirth, of childhood itself
Grave visitations
What is it that calls to us?
Why must we pray screaming?
Why must not death be redefined?
We shut our eyes, we stretch out our arms
And whirl on a pane of glass
An affixation, a fix on anything
The line of life, the limb of a tree
The hands of he and the promise that she
Is blessed among women
Oh God, I fell for You
Oh God, I fell for You
Oh God, I fell for You
-Patti Smith
God knows I heart heels but when I wore this gown for my most recent photo shoot I couldn’t resist dancing and twirling in my bare feet.
I found this amazing gown on Queenly and I wrote a little about it previously but I just received the pictures from my last shoot and I am so excited to start sharing them.
I hope you like them!
Love, Hannah
Last year I strutted out of my comfort zone (and honestly? The more I do this, the more I love it) and reviewed and modeled a swimsuit for En Femme.
I hit another milestone recently when I modeled a new suit, also from En Femme. This time? A two–piece.
When I opened the package I was… well, excited and a little intimidated. Which was kind of silly as I’ve modeled and reviewed lingerie before and a swimsuit is similar in what it reveals, but a swimsuit is meant to be worn in public. And a two-piece is meant to, well, reveal more than a tank suit.
But like most things that scare me when it comes to clothes, I wore it anyway.
When I think of femme clothes I have to consider how they will fit my body. If a top has a plunging neckline, I have to think about how it will look when it comes to wearing breast forms. If a skirt is tight I have to think about tucking and which gaff I will wear.
Simply put, a bikini designed for a cis girl body won’t flatter me.
However, like everything else I’ve ever worn for En Femme, this suit fit perfectly. The measurements were spot on, there is enough stretch where needed, and it compliments my body and proportions.
The top fits like a typical sports bra but is made of a Lycra/Nylon blend. The fabric creates a subtle shine and draws attention to the suit. And! The top has pockets for breast forms. The suit can also be worn without forms but it doesn’t look baggy without them. I was a little concerned if my forms were tooooo big for the suit and would show off more cleavage than I would like but this wasn’t an issue at all. I mean, I like showing a little skin but I don’t like a top or a neckline that reveals my forms.
The bottoms also fit very nicely. The back is wide enough for my, well, bottom and the gusset is wide enough for my body parts. No gaff is needed with this suit has it has built-in compression. Worn properly, it will create a nice, smooth front. No matter how much I moved everything remained in place.
A similar product to the bottoms is the Carmen Liu White Lace Classy Thong, also by En Femme. Both of these items are not QUITE a gaff but will flatten and smooth your front.
Sizing with En Femme is rarely an issue and I will advise you take their recommendation to heart and know your measurements and select the appropriate size. The suit is available in black or pink but obvs I HAD to have the pink.
New clothes can lead to new adventures. Wearing beautiful gowns make me want to attend a glamourous event. This suit is pushing me to the beach… a place I never thought I would be comfortable to go to. I felt beautiful and confident.
Thank you En Femme for designing clothes for my body and for this sexy and practical suit.
Love, Hannah
I recently received some preview pictures from my most recent photo shoot.
This was such a fun day and looking at these shots I am realizing how… random the outfits were that I wore. A gown, minidress, lingerie, leather, bikini…
I can’t wait to show you all the fun we had.
Love, Hannah
I had a very, very fun photo shoot this past weekend. Shannonlee is always on the lookout for new studios to book and this space did not disappoint. I love old warehousey buildings and I the juxtaposition of old, exposed brick next to pretty clothes so this studio was pretty much perfect.
Here are four of the six outfits I wore for the shoot. Absolutely cannot wait to show you the finished pictures!
Love, Hannah
Hannah McKnight 