Wild woman by nature.

Photo essay #3

Photo Essays: a series I share once a month of photos that tell a cohesive visual story—client work or personal work. All photos: © Olivia Marie Olszewski. Please reach out to license or order prints.

Last week I shared about a transformative women’s retreat I attended in Bali, Indonesia. What I didn’t mention was that I was also the resident boudoir photographer (for the past 3 years).

People always ask me what my favorite thing to photograph is. My answer: women moving in their embodied power. Truly, it never gets old.

Pussified Retreats has allowed me to capture every single woman who has attend this retreat since 2021 (around 60 total), resulting in some of the most incredible photographs I’ve ever taken. I will slowly post a photo story of each woman who has consented to have their photos shared.

Enjoy these photos of an incredibly evocative woman, Olivia, with the most delicious embodied movement.

“Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.”

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

The wild woman is not a myth; she is a force of nature, a divine essence within every woman."Bone by bone, hair by hair, Wild Woman comes back. Through night dreams, through events half understood and half remembered...”

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

With wild nature,

Olivia