Over 40 & Fabulous · A Fox & Vixen Portrait Project
You've been told you're beautiful for years. This is where you see it yourself.
More than 200 women over 40 have already done this
A fully guided portrait session with professional makeup, at our Pearland studio. Each woman's chosen portrait then appears in a printed magazine and a gallery exhibition.
The project
Twice a year, Fox & Vixen opens a new round of Over 40 & Fabulous, a portrait project with one job: put real women over 40 in print and on a gallery wall, where everyone can see what this age actually looks like.
Each participant has a full portrait session with professional makeup. At her ordering appointment she chooses the one image that will represent her in the project's printed magazine and at the exhibition. Everything else from her session stays private unless she decides otherwise.
It starts with a phone call rather than a booking button. The application takes a minute, you pick a time, and everything begins with a conversation: the process, the costs, your questions, before any date is booked. And every woman who joins makes it easier for the next one to believe this is for her too.
Most women arrive nervous and years late.
Here's what they say afterward.
“I was more insecure than I realized. Since doing the photo shoot I’ve been more comfortable and confident in my own skin.”
“I was recently divorced and felt empowered doing something just for me - to feel beautiful and sexy!”
“When I saw the photos, I really was shocked. I was like ‘who is this woman?!’”
“It was like the me that was there all along, hiding behind the insecurities and self-doubt, was finally free to shine.”
A few of the women of Over 40 & Fabulous.
How it works
Apply
The form below takes a minute: your name, how to reach you, and why this project speaks to you.
Book your consultation call
As soon as you submit, the calendar comes up. Pick whatever time works for you.
We talk
A 15 to 20 minute call that walks through the whole process, including the costs, and answers anything you want to ask. If it sounds right, we book your date before we hang up, and the session fee is what reserves it.
Session day
About 3 hours at the studio: an hour in the makeup chair, then a fully directed shoot. You never have to know what to do.
The ordering appointment
Ten to fourteen days later you come back and see a slideshow of your 40 to 60 fully retouched images, then we walk you through a process to help you choose what you take home. This is also where you pick your one project image.
What it costs
To reserve your date: $149
It covers your session and your professional makeup artist. The same session outside the project is $399.
The artwork is a separate decision you make at your ordering appointment, after you've seen your finished images. Collections start at $1,600, and the average client spends around $2,500. Payment plans are available.
If you purchase a collection, your $149 session fee is added to your package's print credit, additional credit for wall art and add-ons, on top of what your collection already includes.
As a participant you also receive an 11×14 matted print of your chosen portrait, your copy of the participant magazine, and two tickets to the exhibition.
“This did wonders for me. Sitting there with my fiancé, looking at all the pictures… seeing the look on his face! It made me feel something I haven’t felt in years.”
What the session is actually like
Every pose is directed. Hand placement, the angle of your chin, where to look. When a pose is easier seen than described, Angi shows you. Both of them are in the room the whole time, and there's no need to practice anything.
Nerves usually fade 15 or 20 minutes in.
“The whole experience was amazing from beginning to end. The funny part was it started off a little awkward, then by the end I was feeling overly confident.”
Throughout, Mike hands Angi the camera so you can see what's already working. And retouching enhances, never distorts: we soften what's temporary and never change your body's shape or proportions. You will still look like you.
What stays public, what stays private
One image appears publicly, and you choose it. No other image ever has to be released, but many of our clients choose to release more, some choose all of their purchased images. Everything else stays private unless you decide otherwise: we don't tag clients or use full names online, and your image release is where you set your limits on what's eligible for use.
Apply here
Applications are open. The form takes a minute, and it brings you straight to the calendar to pick a time for your call.
Please mark mike@mikefoxphotography.com as safe in your email, so you don't miss your confirmation and reminders.
Why this project exists
Mike and Angi Fox are boudoir photographers in their late 50s, and this project comes out of something they kept watching happen: the world deciding that women over 40 were finished being sexy. An actor in his 50s still gets cast as the romantic lead, opposite a woman half his age. A woman in her 50s gets cast as his mother.
Part of what turned the studio toward women over 40 in the first place was something they saw online. Paulina Porizkova, one of the most famous models of her generation, described what happened when she posted vacation photos in a bathing suit: people told her she was too old for pictures like that.
If a supermodel hears that, she’s not the only one. Other women are hearing it as well.
Mike and Angi think it's a lie worth challenging. Many of the women who come through this studio have lost themselves to their roles, their situations, their adversities. They have been told, one way or another, that the sexy, sensual, powerful part of them expired. It didn't.
Twice a year, the project puts the proof in print and on a gallery wall: a magazine and an exhibition full of women in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond, so the next woman has proof this is for her too.
It's also why the project's session fee is lower than sessions outside the project. Many women over 40 come to us unsure whether boudoir photography is still for them. We keep the cost of finding out low, because we believe in what their photographs will show them.
More than 200 women have joined so far. Many will tell you they did it as much for their daughters, and for the women watching, as for themselves.
"I would like for my daughters to see that even at my age a woman can still be seen as beautiful." — Bobbie
The women who join
Jade runs a cleaning business and raised three daughters mostly on her own. When the last one grew up, she realized she'd spent twenty years being what everyone else needed. "I was more insecure than I realized," she said afterward. "Since doing the photo shoot I've been more comfortable and confident in my own skin." Her daughters noticed the change before she named it.
Candi works in healthcare, ponytail and scrubs most days. She spent years before losing weight, and getting into shape, and the portraits were the printed proof. "When I saw the photos, I really was shocked. I was like 'who is this woman?!' … I look at the photos often and am still in awe how amazing they came out."
She's not the only one. "I recently lost over 100 pounds and changed my whole perspective on life. This was another step in my journey." - Kimberly
Shawn had always wanted portraits like these and was always too nervous. Then came a breast cancer diagnosis and a mastectomy. "After my surgery, I didn't see myself as sexy anymore — I saw myself as disfigured and thought this is how I'd always feel. But after doing the photo shoot, it really changed my outlook." And the sentence that struck home was "It was the first time since my mastectomy that I felt like a woman again."
Tiffiny is a biotech scientist, and most of her life spent in hiking boots and lab coats. "It wasn't about 'posing' or pretending to be something I'm not. It was about showing up fully as me — and seeing myself reflected back in a way I hadn't in a long time. Looking at the images afterward, I saw myself not just as the scientist or the tomboy, but as someone who is undeniably strong, sensual, and feminine, too."
Who these women are
The project's participants are ER and labor-and-delivery nurses, teachers and professors, controllers and CFOs, paralegals, executive assistants, realtors, small business owners, a biotech scientist, an industrial fire chief, and more than a few grandmothers. Roughly half are married or partnered. They come from Pearland, League City, Katy, the Woodlands, and all over the greater Houston area.
The youngest are 40, and the oldest is in her 80s.
Session day, in detail
Sessions run weekday evenings at the studio in Pearland, about a mile off 288. If weekday evenings aren't possible for you (a job that has you working at those times, or a drive of several hours to reach us), we can make a weekend session available.
You arrive with your hair done and a clean face. Makeup takes about an hour with our professional artist, natural to full glam, your call, and there's a glass of wine if you want one. When makeup finishes, Mike and Angi review the outfits you brought (bring 6 to 8; you'll use 5 or 6), help you narrow them down, and pair them with sets.
Then 2 to 2.5 hours of photography, every pose directed, previews along the way. You can bring a supportive female friend if that would make you more comfortable.
Before your session
Once your date is set, two things happen. You get a private Pinterest board, visible only to you, Mike, and Angi, where you pin 10 to 15 images that show what "beautiful" means to you. And you get a short series of prep emails that covers everything else: where to shop for lingerie locally and online, what to pack, hair and skin prep, and what to expect on the day. You're never left guessing.
The retouching promise
Mike and Angi select the 40 to 60 strongest images from your session, and every image you're shown has been fully retouched by a professional. Retouching covers blemishes, strap marks, position creases, flyaway hair — things that are temporary and not really you. Scars and stretch marks get removed as well, unless they mean something to you. Tell us, and they stay. Retouching never alters your body's shape or proportions. The woman in the photographs is you, on a day everything was working in your favor.
The magazine and the exhibition
Every participant appears in the project's printed magazine: her chosen portrait and her story, professionally designed. She gets her copy of the magazine at the exhibition, a one-night exhibition with wine and appetizers. Participants get two tickets; additional tickets are sold to the public. Proceeds go to Bay Area Turning Point, an organization dedicatedto ending domestic and sexual violence, and supporting survivors.
Two rounds a year. Spring sessions run January through June with the magazine and exhibition in August; fall sessions run July through December, with theirs the following February. You can apply any time; your session date decides your round.
The money, in full
The session fee is $149 and covers the session and your makeup artist. The same session outside the project is $399.
Artwork is chosen at your ordering appointment, never sight unseen. Collections start at $1,600 and include your fine art album, a display piece, digital files of your album images, and a print credit. The average client spends around $2,500. Two payment plans are available: third-party financing, or a more flexible in-house plan.
And if you purchase a collection, your $149 session fee is added to your package's print credit, on top of the credit your collection already includes.
Your image, your limits
One image, chosen by you at your ordering appointment, appears in the magazine, at the exhibition, and on Fox & Vixen social media.
Everything else stays private unless you decide otherwise. We don't tag clients, we don't use full names online, and your image release includes a section where you set limits on what can be shown: no nudity, specific looks only, whatever you choose. Women who want a completely private experience book a standard session instead, and that's a fine choice too.
From the women who almost didn't
"Do it now! Please! You can thank me later … I have insecurities just like the next gal. The shoot was so fun from start to finish and I was comfortable the entire time." — Andrea
"Don't overthink it — just do it. Seriously, stop waiting for the 'perfect time,' because the perfect time doesn't exist." — Tiffiny
"Do it for you. Don't wait until you feel ready or until you've lost the weight or fixed what you think needs fixing. You are already worthy of being seen, celebrated, and captured exactly as you are right now." — Lashonda
See more of the work
See more of the work in the full gallery. It's password protected, and the password is fabulous.
FOX AND VIXEN BOUDOIR
Pearland, Texas
