Every great artist has an origin story, and for Saige Ryen, the visionary behind Virtue + Venom Boudoir & Portrait Studio, it started on the hiking trails of the Carolinas. Twelve years after moving from the tri-state area, the COVID-19 pandemic inspired Saige to start capturing the beauty of local waterfalls and nature with nothing more than her iPhone. She felt an immediate, magnetic connection to creating art.
However, the path to finding her true focus wasn’t entirely a walk in the park. A bout of impostor syndrome, combined with the frustration of learning a new Nikon DSLR camera, led to a four-year hiatus. During this time, Saige worked as a software engineer and became a mother, eventually returning to the camera to shoot baby and family portraits under the name “Heartfelt Captures”. But she quickly realized that family photography wasn’t allowing her to fully express her artistic vision.
Finding Her Calling in Boudoir
The real magic happened when a friend requested a boudoir session. Saige instantly fell in love with the experience, discovering a beautiful, non-competitive environment to connect with and uplift other adult women. This pivot didn’t just transform her art; it was a deeply healing experience that helped her overcome her own past emotional trauma surrounding relationships with other women.
At Virtue + Venom, the focus is never just about staging a photograph—it is about creating a “window for a reality”. Saige has seen pure magic unfold during group sessions where women who arrive as complete strangers quickly transform into vulnerable, fierce hype-women for one another. Her unique approach validates her clients, resulting in emotional breakthroughs and beautifully candid moments that simply cannot be staged.
The true power of these sessions goes far beyond a beautiful image. Saige allows her clients to see themselves as whole, powerful people, rather than focusing on their perceived flaws. This shift in perspective is profoundly transformative; her work has helped women heal trauma, reclaim their bodies, and even make lasting, life-changing decisions like setting healthy boundaries and ending toxic relationships.
A “Best Friend” and Confidence Coach
What truly sets a Virtue + Venom experience apart is the deep level of support Saige offers. She understands that clients come to her because they inherently desire to feel pretty, validated, powerful, divine, and sensual. To help them get there, she leverages her background as a mental health professional to provide confidence coaching, addressing the inevitable doubts—what she playfully calls the “butt”—that creep into a client’s mind.
To ensure her studio is a safe haven, the client is always in complete control. Saige strictly asks for consent before any physical touch and ensures that empowerment, healing, or celebrating a milestone is the driving force behind every single booking. Saige considers her clients her “best friends” throughout the entire process. In one powerful instance, a client tried to cancel her session due to overwhelming self-doubt. Instead of just accepting the cancellation, Saige gently encouraged her to confront those underlying fears. The client ended up going through with the shoot and walked away experiencing a profound sense of empowerment!
A Tiny Hiccup in Inman
Every hero’s journey has a dragon to slay, and for Saige, that dragon took the form of outdated city zoning laws. After excitedly renting and building out a beautiful booth space in Inman, the city unexpectedly shut her doors after just 48 hours. The culprit? Baffling, outdated zoning language that mistakenly classified her private, artistic photography studio as a “sexually oriented business” or a “nude model studio”.
Despite explaining that her private photography exchange was not for public consumption like a strip club, and that most of her clients did not even involve nudity, the city wouldn’t budge. It was a devastating blow that forced her to cancel $3,000 in bookings and pack up all her equipment.
But Saige is nothing if not resilient. Instead of getting bogged down in a lengthy legal battle, she relocated to Greenville, South Carolina, a city with a much more welcoming business environment. Proving her unstoppable spirit, Saige reopened her brand-new studio in just a week and a half, despite the lingering public perception that she might have made a mistake.
Looking to the Future & Building a Community
With her Greenville studio thriving, Saige’s plans for the future of Virtue + Venom are as vibrant as her photography. Over the next three to five years, she dreams of expanding into a larger space complete with a cozy lounge and a dedicated office. She also plans to dial up the fun and community spirit by hosting “Boudie Bashes”—small, lively parties designed for women to reconnect with their bodies and their divine feminine energy.
Because she firmly believes in community over competition, Saige’s studio space is now available for other photographers to rent—putting an end to industry gatekeeping. She is also launching collaborations with local businesses to host evening “studio takeovers”, giving small brands a beautiful space to host pop-up events.
Artistically, Virtue + Venom is continuing to evolve. Saige is progressing into couples boudoir, maternity boudoir, and other artistic and sensual styles of photography, including bodyscaping and shibari.
Most importantly, her dedication to holistic empowerment is growing. Saige is now offering her signature Confidence Coaching as its own independent service. Women can book sessions specifically to get help growing into their power, without any pressure to book a photoshoot.
To bring this ultimate vision of self-care to life, Saige is currently building The V+V Collective. This incredible, in-house team already includes two licensed professional makeup artists, a hair stylist, a couples and sex therapist, and a nanny service. Having these resources on deck ensures that her clients are fully taken care of—inside and out—and that they finally get the dedicated time to focus entirely on themselves.
Ultimately, Saige is building much more than just a photography studio; she is creating a movement. Virtue + Venom is built on the beautiful premise that women can fully embrace the duality of being both “soft and powerful,” a message she captures perfectly, one stunning photograph at a time.
Keep up to date with Saige and Virtue + Venom by following them on Instagram , Twitter, Facebook, & TikTok
