Is Sensual the same as Sexy?

Short answer - no.

Long answer - here we go…

Sensual is about engaging the senses - touch, sight, smell, taste, and sound. As engaged they evoke pleasure, intimacy, or deep emotional connection. It’s more about feeling and atmosphere, often subtle, soft, and intimate. Sensuality doesn’t have to be explicitly sexual; it can be present in the way someone moves, the textures of fabrics, or the lighting in a photograph.

Sexy is more direct and overtly appealing to desire and attraction. It’s about being physically alluring and evoking a reaction based on attraction or seduction. Something sexy often has a more explicit intent to arouse or entice.

In photography, a sensual image might focus on soft lighting, gentle curves, and an intimate mood, while a sexy image might include bolder expressions, provocative poses, or revealing clothing. Sensuality can be more about suggestion and feeling, whereas sexiness tends to be more about direct attraction.

More clear now?

This is what I stand for and this is what I offer to my clients - a visual experience where they feel seen, acknowledged and heard, not just photographed with or without they intimate clothing.

Photography is 2 demential form to visualise reality, moments, people. It has power hold by the photographer and inevitably being their responsibility to what and how is captured and shown.

Sex sells, yes, for a lot. But how much would you pay to be fully seen and valued?

20th of February 2025

A special day for me. A day about him. A day that brings even tighter the memory of my beloved Father.

Time flies quicker than we notice. Day after day, year after year. Everything changes little by little and only by looking back we can see the all of the puzzle pieces into a picture. How interesting this is!

Another year has passed. It feels like nothing has changed although it’s all different. I’m different because of him, times are different without him. How would it be if you were still here? Would I still become the person I am today? One thing I know for certain - I would have shared all I know with you, we would’ve fall into even deeper conversations and do even crazier hand-made things.

My Dad made his transition 14 years ago and today is his birthday. A day I remember him even more than the dailies. A day that turned out to give me some sort of gifts - physical or fulfilling a dream/goal.

This year I haven’t planned to buy or experience anything, yet let’s see how the day goes. I’m simply grateful for the year, for being able to be here and now - in my first studio in Barcelona, sharing life with such an amazing souls. I still have my pains, still learning how to be a better human, still fighting old patterns. But while on my way I feel alive. I FEEL and this is the most important thing for me.

I’ve been sent here to feel and create. All the pain, challenges and struggles I went through have made me stronger, more certain of exactly this - we’re most alive when we’re able to fully feel and express ourselves.

Happy Birthday, Dad! Thank you for everything you thought me. Thank you for helping me become the person I’m becoming. Thank you for showing me my light. Thank you for always being next to me. Thank you!

Close to midnight deep thoughts

Still amazes me how Life has navigated me to here. Working on subjects I used to feel uncomfortable with - being around women, speaking my mind, using my body and skin as a light torch in service for helping others like me, like the girl that needed it back there.

“Who am I and what I am supposed to actually do?” are questions regularly passing my mind. “But if not this, then what?!”, a voice replies and encourages me to make just another step forward…

It’s like we pass diferent stages in our life - the pure, authentic soul that come in, to get lost in the externally molded persona supposed to fit in, to get back to that authenticity as the only sane way to live and to be.

Currently reading, observing and feeling a lot about women. Can you tell? About me as part of them. About them as subject of investigation and inspiration. About us as the creative, nurturing force through which that little thing called Life happens.

We’re not talking enough real talks if we’re in such state of constantly seeking it. Thirsty to sense it, hungry to be it. We ignore universal laws, ways of functioning, of being, reasons why things are the way they are.

Our creativity has the capacity to bring to physical form the yet unseen, however the laws of Life, of the purpose of duality will never change. The essential, the core remains. Swimming against the tide is pointless. What you are, who you are, why you’re here is what matters. Rest is societal dust.

The most important Love?

Does February remind you of an obligation to show your love through physical gifts and heart shaped items, or rather makes you roll your eyes up in the air - “love is to be celebrated every day!”.

I agree - Love is to be celebrated and shown every day. Love, the feeling that has many shapes, goes to different faces, but at the core is always the same - incredibly liberating feeling we live for, the one through which we exist.

What is the most important love of all? Love towards your parents or your children? Love towards your partner or friends? Love towards your mission in life or the mindful activities you lean on to keep yourself sane? What is the Love that truly matters no matter what? Where do you find it and how’s it look?

The answer is simple - it’s You. The love you most need is the love you have to give yourself. The same enormous feeling of liberation and fulfilment that vibrates in your chest, expands outwards and sweeps everything on its way. The love you long for to feel complete, to feel happy, to feel content is the pure love that you need to give yourself.

But… How come? Isn’t this selfish?

No.

It’s not selfish, it’s self care. Your capacity to love unconditionally must start from within and expand outwards. The relationship you most need is the one you need to build with yourself in order to share a loving partnership with someone else. Because you can only give what you already have and not the other way around. The more compassionate and loving you are to the person you are most critical towards (yourself) is the key to building a deep, meaningful relationship with anyone else.

During celebrations like Valentine’s day we often put ourselves in a certain group of people, depending on our marital status. If we’re single - we root for self-love. If we’re in a relationship - towards romantic love. I’ve seen people change and take sides depending on the year. I’ve been one of them too - choosing a certain side depending on the moment. But what we all really must understand and accept is ourselves and the love we must give ourselves first.

Nobody else is you, nobody knows what’s inside of you. Nobody will ever be as close as your own Self, nobody can feel your emotions like you do. So let’s start there first. Not just once a year pumped up by the bombarding marketing from all directions, but every day in privacy. For you from you. Because you deserve Love and Love is all you need to allow yourself to give yourself in order to receive. Rest will follow.

With Love and Gratitude,
Mariya

Would you still be you if you could choose?

In an ideal world, where you ca be anyone you wish, where money weren’t a factor and you would do anything you want, would you still do what you’re doing now? If you could choose, would you still be the person you are today?

Pain is inevitable, however it offers us a queue jump ticket to the growth we actually need. Happiness is great, yet for every achievement a certain discomfort is required. If things were all well all the time nobody would’ve move, make a difference or accomplish anything else. It is not necessary to wait for the extreme pain to force you to take a different road ahead, but it is necessary to decide to make the change.

And so, if you’re truly being honest with yourself, could you say you are being the most authentic representation of yourself right now? Do you spent your time working just to pay the bills or dedicating your time on something you care deeply about that you would do even if you weren’t paid for it?

It’s uncomfortable to go against the commodity, yet more painful on the long run if you haven’t. Life goes by and what we do affects us. Big shifts are easy to see but all of them are result of a small steps. Drop after drop. Step after step. Only at the end we can connect the dots and see the whole picture.

Are you doing something today that will help you get where you want to to keep you staying in the familiar reality?