The creative process. Is it usually the same for you each time you create, or is it different? Maybe even drastically different? Do you know what to expect or is it a surprise?

I work from routine best, so my shoots usually go to plan, or at least follow very similar steps. Here are most common steps for my shooting process, as you’ll see from start to finish in this in-depth video:

1. Brainstorm
2. Sketch
3. Write
4. Costume/Props
5. Set the camera
6. Test shot
7. Shoot
8. Cull images
9. Edit image
10. Share!

I often wish I was different so that I could embody more of a traditional artist spirit. For example possessing any of the following traits would be kind of great: wanderlust, spontaneity, or fits of inspiration.

Well, that third one does happen sometimes. But in general, I am predictable and even-keeled. That doesn’t mean that I don’t surprise myself, that I am not wildly inspired, or that I don’t enjoy a big adventure. Simply, that I don’t thrive under those conditions all the time. I love to work with a list, an itinerary, and a closely monitored clock.

I actually attribute these characteristics in myself to success. Because of my frighteningly equal split of Type A and Type B personalities, I can focus, understand my tasks, and get work done efficiently. But, because I am naturally creative, I have lofty dreams, big ambitions, and a wild imagination. They work in really good unison and harmony to create steadfast creativity.

Steadfast creativity. What is it?

It is the knowledge that creativity will always be there.

It means not relying on inspiration to strike like lightning.

It’s cultivating what inspires you to draw upon that any time.

I don’t like uncertainty. But I especially don’t like it when it comes to my imagination. I want to know that it is a muscle I have worked so much that it remembers what to do in a pinch.

I think that is why I’ve taken such a step by step approach to photography. It helps me to understand my job, which frees up my mind to focus on more creative tasks. If I’m confused by my process, I can’t focus on my creativity. Plain and simple.

So, that’s my creative process! What is yours? How do you work best?

Although the name of this post is a literal representation of what our video shows today (because I’m an early bird and I am constantly early to everything, including the sunrise)…it is also a metaphorical nod at what I really want to dig into.

Working alone.

And I don’t just mean physically. In this new video we take a look at how I work 100% alone when I go out on shoots. That means using myself as a model while thinking about everything a photographer must consider: light quality/direction, background, lens choice, angle, wardrobe, props, pose, exposure settings, etc.

You work alone. I work alone. At some point, we find ourselves utterly alone.

Even if not literally – maybe you work in an office with people or have a loving partner or friends – but eventually, you will find yourself with a dream that only you has, and you won’t know how to achieve it. Your friends will think you’re a little nuts, the internet won’t give you any great answers, and you’re left alone.

That is the darkness I’m talking about. The want-it-so-bad-but-can’t-find-help kind of darkness. What to do? I think I’ve made a game out of working alone, or at least that’s how it feels. I’ve done it for so long and in so many ways.

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs
and developing our wings on the way down.”
– Kurt Vonnegut

I’ve put together a list of what I’ve learned from being a professional loner.

1. Your mistakes will not break you.

The first time I wrote to galleries I was 22 years old. I put 100 gallery emails, after a ton of research, in the TO line of my email. Not the BCC line…And I hit send. It was a terrible move, the kind that many less optimistic people would give up at after receiving some very harsh emails back, such as I did.

Here’s the point in my telling you this. Nothing really matters. If you mess up trying to walk through one door, the world doesn’t close all other doors. I messed up a lot. I did stupid things like that mass email. I made prints and dented and scratched them. I misprinted. I broke frames in transit. I didn’t insure my pieces and they got damaged. I didn’t know how to talk to galleries. I wrote unprofessional emails. And despite making a TERRIBLE impression on a LOT of people, I still managed a career.

Please, please, I’m begging you: stop believing that one mistake will lead to your downfall. In my experience, the easiest way to fail at your goal is to stop trying because you made a mistake, not because of the mistake itself.

2. No one knows anything.

People look like they know a lot. People want you to think they know a lot. And some people do. About their industry, about their journey, but not about yours.

You know how we’re all adults pretending to be grown up but we’re not really grown up, we’re just pretending? What’s that? You don’t know what I’m talking about, and you really are a grown up and an adult at the same time? Well then, I misjudged you. But for the vast majority of us, we’re guessing. We’re playing this game where we look like adults and so we try to do things that make us adults, but really we’re children inside navigating a giant and scary world.

Don’t count on anyone to guide you. Don’t count on anyone to know your path. Just guess at it, like we do everything else.

Let’s get that straight right from the get-go. Yes, some people have been successful. Maybe even in what you’re looking to do. Yes, some people make a lot of money. Maybe even in what you’re looking to do. But if you try to pursue the same avenue they did, it won’t work. The more creative your endeavor, the more solidly you can expect that to be true.

Let’s take my journey as a fine art photographer. My dream was to exhibit in galleries. I asked around and couldn’t find any consistent advice.

“Make a ton of prints at once and then try to sell those over a few years,” one person told me. “Make prints as they are ordered and don’t waste your money,” another person said. “Number your prints out of 200” versus “number your prints out of 5″…and so on.

And yet, it worked out.

3. Could you please commit to being weird already?!

The most successful people (and I’m using successful not only to mean monetarily, but also through innovation and creativity) are people who did things differently. They thought differently, created differently, and dreamed differently.

You are an artist. You are already different – other, unusual, outside – so you know what it means to think differently. If someone said to you, “Your art is the same as everyone else’s art,” you would take that as an insult. But if someone said, “Your business is the same as everyone else’s business,” you might feel relief that you’re doing it “right”.

Something is broken in how we work. Artists should embrace the unknown in every aspect of what they do.

4. Stop searching the internet. Search your brain instead.

This will sound harsh, but think about it before you judge me:

How often do you reach for the closest search engine when you have a question, be it the never ending wait, what is that actor’s name?! to how do I become a professional artist?!, or some variation thereof?

Classes, workshops, mentors, Google searches, emails to professionals…it never stops.

What if you gave yourself a challenge that for one month you had to make every decision based on really and truly thinking it through with no outside aid, not even running it past a friend, coupled with a little help from your guts – your intuition?

Could you get through a month like that? I don’t think I know many people who are willing to make big decisions, especially about their creativity and business, without looking up something comparable.

I think this is severely hurting our ability to take risks and be confident in ourselves. We are so constantly looking for validation in our choices that it has become part of our habitual process. This needs to stop.

5. Failure to Fail.

I believe that because we are so unwilling to fail at so many things, we have developed an ironic failure to fail. Call it F to F syndrome. It happens when we are so afraid of messing up that we a) do nothing at all, or b) look for an exact roadmap until we start becoming someone else.

The shoe doesn’t fit. Stagnation does not become us. And the only way out is to make time to fail, and recognize that we will also, most likely, find the time to succeed.

I am most proud of my willingness to fail.

I fail at photo shoots about once ever 2 weeks or more. I fail at business attempts a few times a week. I receive rejection emails, I am told no often. I hear silence most of the time when I send an email out into the void.

Sometimes I end up covered in molasses half naked in the woods with no one around to help me and a picture that looks like crap.

You know, normal stuff.

And despite that…

No, because of that…

I feel that I am more successful than I have ever been, and certainly more so than I ever expected.

Listen, a lot goes into success. It isn’t just trying hard and trying often, trusting yourself and making mistakes. It is about producing great work. It is about developing a great work ethic. It is about learning and education – yes, take those workshops, put in those hours. But don’t let it be a crutch. Be great in your own right, not in someone else’s.

Today for White Wall Wednesday I celebrate this unique, personal, fulfilling and difficult journey we are all on. Today is another day. A day to say:

Screw this, I’m making choices for myself and by myself.
My failures will not end me and my successes will buoy me.

How will you proudly push
forward in your own darkness?

Leave a comment.

I’ve been pretty quiet on the video front even though it’s my favorite way of connecting. Travel, working through my art, you know, the usual! But I’m back and creating with you and I can’t wait for you to see this one!

The spirit of White Wall Wednesday is being creative in the space that you have. There are three main ways of doing this:

1. Move your subject to a new background by learning compositing.
2. Transform your wall into a different space rather than cutting your subject. Maybe use set design or composite elements in to make it more interesting.
3. Use an interesting prop or costume so that the blank white wall feels appropriately minimalist.

I went with approach #3 today, and I hope you like the result. But it’s not finished! This is part one of a two part WWW series. I’ve gone ahead and printed this image, and next week I’ll share some experimenting (really, really experimenting because I’ve never done anything like this before!) of how we could further transform the image without any digital techniques. We’re diving into alternative processes!

Share links with me here, or tag them on social media with #WhiteWallWednesday.

For a while there (and I mean the past year and a half), I found it really difficult to create. My ideas seem half-formed, and every time I thought I should be shooting, I just didn’t want to. It was a tough period of time. Last week, after I got home from Promoting Passion, something changed. I took a few days for myself, but then my desire and drive came back. I did an impromptu photo shoot for my new series and I loved it. I shot this yarn image and loved it. I ran outside chasing the fog and had such an amazing time. I edited a couple of photos I had left sitting.

Suddenly I had the energy and excitement for the things I’ve always loved but had put aside. And I realized that my problem was not actually energy or excitement, it was fear.

Isn’t it always?

I’m hesitant to use the word fear because of how flamboyantly it gets tossed around. I didn’t have a direct fear of failure or fear of wasting my time. It was more of a subtle, very-difficult-to-notice fear; a culmination of shoots gone wrong, money wasted, time not spent wisely, laziness with my techniques…and that all built up into an anxiety over creating.

I mentioned in my PPC post that something in me broke. And it was a really, really good kind of breaking. A necessary snap to put me back where I was, but better and more self-aware.

Shooting feels fun again. I want to create. I want to fail. I want to wake up before the sun and run barefoot in a field. I want to shoot on my white wall and take back the power that comes from that.

The power that comes from a white wall. That’s why I do these videos. There is a certain power that comes from shooting with what you have and making it work. Even more power from making it amazing. And even more power from doing it no matter how it turns out. White Wall Wednesday is a taking back of creativity and telling roadblocks to move out of the way, politely, because we’re here to create.

So friends, I hope you embrace your white wall this week. Get some yarn and create whatever it is you want to create. There are no expectations here, except to make something. The very act of creating is where inspiration comes from. The finished product is such a small percentage of the process that we can’t put so much stock in it. What if we only aimed to have a great experience making something? Think of how your art would change.

Happy White Wall Wednesday.

A couple of years ago I started a video series called White Wall Wednesday.

The mission: Prove that you can create beautiful imagery with no budget.

The motivation: I started with no budget and no resources. I wanted to go back to basics.

The result: Lots of messages from people saying that they were inspired to create with what little they had.

What is accessible creativity, and why promote it?

Artists kind of have a bad rep. And, I sort of get it. Artists are known for being mysterious and keeping a tight lock on their secrets. Why would we want creativity to be accessible if that’s how we make our money?

If that’s your opinion, you are entirely entitled to it. And I am entitled to disagree, respectfully.

I believe that, while it can be intimidating to give tools to create art for fear of copying or putting yourself out of business, I don’t think that is usually what ends up happening.

When we give more tools to more people to be more creative, we build a more interesting, inclusive, and ingenious world. What if the building blocks of our interactions and experiences was creativity, and what if more people felt they could express themselves emotionally through art? I personally think it would make for a much richer experience.

But that’s just me. And well, this blog is me. So, queue White Wall Wednesday.

If I can create a video series that promotes accessible creativity, I’m all for that.

White Wall Wednesday gives ideas and concrete tips about how to create with less, plus a big splash of joy in every episode. Because I love what I do, and I love it so much that I want to infect you with my happiness.

In a nice way, of course.

I also offer up White Wall Wednesday as a challenge. Follow along, and create your own White Wall Wednesday. If you want to show this community what you’re making, you can do so in a couple ways.

First, share a link in the comments of my blog or in the comments on YouTube.

Second, use the hashtag #WhiteWallWednesday and I’ll be sure to give that search a go once a week to check out the creations.

And finally, I’d really appreciate you sharing this video and this series. As time goes on I’ll share more and more about my process, how creating simply can be impactful, and give you weekly doses of encouragement to keep going in your craft, no matter what seems to be stacked against you.

This video is more of an introduction. The following weeks will get juicier.

Slurp.

I often feel that art is most interesting when it is most inconvenient; when you have no money, no location, nothing to spruce it up. It really comes from inside then instead of relying on the objects around to fill the frame. When you create from nothing, you create from within. As so many of us do, my journey into photography began when I had little resources other than a camera. I had no money, no locations, no props except for what I brought home from dumpsters (seriously though). And looking back, it was like going through a golden age of creativity. My imagination was working overtime to find ideas that could come to life without any resources.

This is how I started a career, with white walls and dumpster props, and how I still try to operate today. There are times when I indulge in bigger budgets or interesting locations, but for the most part, at least 90% of the time, it’s just me and a $5 allowance. Oh, and bed sheets. Because they make the best costumes.

Have you ever created like this? I’m betting yes, either out of necessity or interest. If you have, you know how confronting it is. If you haven’t, you might find it to be an exercise in style.

Creating from nothing allows us to explore who we are, at our very core, without any outside influence. It is how I found my style so fast in my career, and how I learned the camera without pressure.

This video is from 2015, but it’s a good one. Here, I create an image inside a cardboard box, since I didn’t have access to a room suitable to my needs.

Create something with an everyday object in a way that isn’t expected!

I think that we have an innate desire to put our stamp on things, whether that is as a person, as an artist, or something else. In my years of teaching photography, I’ve never once conducted a workshop in which no one asked how to build a recognizable style. I’ve asked myself that question plenty of times.

It is a beautiful thing to look at someone’s work and know, without looking at the name, who made it. Those are my favorite artists. Their essence is in their art. It feels like a natural shine.

As an artist, I have thought about this topic for years. What makes someone stand out as being original? What makes someone’s work recognizable? What makes mine?

Here’s the truest answer. More true than any technique in Photoshop or lens choice.

If you don’t like that answer, you’re not going to find what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for a certain technique to set you apart, stop.

Yes, they help tremendously. Yes, they can make you stand out. Yes, they are the medium that us visual artists exist in.

BUT, and I believe this firmly, there isn’t a successful artist out there who doesn’t have their art in their bones.

If you gave your favorite artist a guitar instead of a camera, it’s very likely that their original music would match their original images.

What we want our art to look like is in us from the beginning. From Day 0.

My art is not just what it looks like or feels like. It is the culmination of who I am – visually, emotionally, experiences and reactions and decisions combined. It is my expression of myself.

That is not to say that finding a style is instant. Why? Because we hardly know ourselves. The more we understand who we are, the more fluidly our style can evolve.

At least that’s what I believe. And I really, really believe it.

There are certain visual ways that my style has evolved. I used to create very monochromatic images, almost always indoors. I shifted from that to incorporating more color in my wardrobe and visiting new locations outdoors. I then started to get into more complicated composites, more detailed sets, more props. I evolved. And I am evolving.

If I had to choose 3 visual cues to my signature style, I would say:

Square Format
Yellow highlights/blue shadows
Painterly

There are more:

Feminine
Dark
Cinematic

It’s hard to define a style with just a few words, and not entirely productive, either. We shouldn’t feel trapped by a style, but able and willing to move in and out of it.

I used to fear my style. I felt stuck in it. But now I recognize that my style is mine because that is what naturally comes out of me. No matter what I pursue, it will be mine.

I hope you enjoy this video detailing how I found my style and a few different tricks in the editing room to achieve a polish to my work.

How do you describe your style?
How do you hope to evolve?

My friends, I struggle a lot with sharing technical information. Not because I want to keep it a secret, but because I prefer the focus be put on creativity over tools, on imagination over technology. However, I also love Love LOVE to share as much as I can with others, technical or otherwise, so that we can all be elevated.

This week I answered a swelling call I’ve been receiving to go into a little more depth about editing. This video is a juicy ten minutes of Photoshop explanation, philosophy, and the editing of a new image.

I am self taught in Photoshop with the aid of my husband for the extra-technical bits.

This is how I believe I was able to teach myself Photoshop:

I only researched exactly what I needed. I never went to workshops or watched classes because that was information overload for me. Instead, I put an image in Photoshop. Then, I decided the one most important thing that the image needed, and I searched for that one tool. Little by little I was able to learn Photoshop, and here I am today.

If you are just starting out – with anything – remember to take small steps. They add up to a sum greater than we think possible. Nothing is beyond our reach. I have to believe that because my life is based on it. Little by little, our reach grows; we are expansive.

In the video you will see me use all of my favorite Photoshop tools, like curves, lasso, and feather. They will help me to…

Composite extra hands into my picture
Expand my frame
Add fog to the background
Change the light and color

…and more.

If you want to learn how I edit in depth, I encourage you to check out my online classes.

I get a lot of requests to put full-length editing tutorials online. While I totally understand the request, for now I’m pointing you to my online tutorials.

Why? Because I put months and months of my heart/soul/energy/time/money into them to make them as comprehensive and perfect as I could for you, and in turn, it allows me to be supported in my art. I thank you so much for buying them and showing me that my weird vision is worthwhile.

What is your favorite tool to create with?
How often do you actively seek to learn something new?

Model: Steph Perez

I declared 2018 my year of NO travel, and that will be true…after June. So far I’ve spent a month away in India, Sri Lanka, and Florida (that sounds a lot less exciting after the other two). Soon I’ll be heading to Tennessee and Wisconsin before going to Greece and Maine. That’s all by the third week of March.

With that pace it is extremely difficult to keep up routines. I find myself in airports, hotels, Airbnbs, grandma’s houses. I move so quickly from one place to the next that they barely have time to stick in my memories. When your circumstances change, how can you keep a routine? I do my best. Yoga everyday, even if it’s only for 15 minutes. Lots of water. Emails every morning. Reading everyday. Outside of that, nothing is the same.

I’m home for a few days in between trips, exhausted from traveling, body aching, but all I wanted was to create – freely, without interruption. Instead of pushing myself beyond what is wise into the cold for a photo shoot, I searched my computer for long-forgotten images. There I found the spark of something interesting. I didn’t know what it was, just that it could be.

I found an underwater image that struck me as graceful and full of emotion. I had already edited those up for the most part, wasn’t interested in redoing them. I wanted something new. I started to look at the image differently, thinking that the bubbles looked like stars. And so I began creating what I knew could be something interesting. Watch the editing process here:

It is wildly important to act on our creative urges, in whatever way is available to us, in whatever way feels right. I find it necessary to keep motivated. So often we talk about what is recommend to stay healthy: good food, exercise, fresh air, etc. But something I vehemently believe we need to add to that list is creativity. An outlet for our imagination. And I would put that before most else.

How often do you exercise your imagination, release your creativity and make something for yourself? 

I’ve spent a long time letting go of the word “good” in this context. I bet everyone here has had the experience of not creating because what you were making didn’t seem good enough. Now that I’ve had some distance from my process of creating, from my body of work, I can see much more clearly. There are works I create that are good and bad. Some that will remain, others that will be forgotten. In the moment they all feel so important, and they are. But what is important is not how they are judged, but how they made you feel while creating them.

When was the last time you did
something completely for yourself?

Do you notice a change in your health
when you set your imagination free?

“Moonrise”, February 2018

Model: Sara Silkin
Dress: Michelle Hebert

I have always loved photographing bandages because of how timeless they are while being sad and a signifier of pain at the same time. Old and sad are my favorites. I have been using these bandages since I started taking pictures. I had a vision of a group of girls standing in a circle, abandoned, scared to look out from the bandages that have kept them in the dark.

To me, bravery looks like the person who would peer out from behind the mask they wear to show the world who they are, despite what anyone might say about it. It is the one in the group who looks first, not knowing what they will see, and then encourages others to open their eyes. At some point in our lives, we could all use the encouragement to open our eyes when darkness is much more comforting.

I hope that no matter what you are going through you find the courage to look out at your world with your very own unique eyes and cast your gaze upon it’s wonders. You are sure to change the landscape just by being open to seeing it.

P.S. Very soon I’m releasing a brand new PAY WHAT YOU CAN challenge that I’m so excited for. You’ve got a 50 page e-book coming, daily emails, and all the guidance you could need to take on a CONTENT CREATION challenge. WAHOO!

My business was built on the foundation of happiness. I’ve spoken about this before on Promoting Passion, especially since joy is the foundation on which our lives should be built. When I started photography I had no desire to make it a career. Only when the realization presented itself that it could be what sustains my life did I intentionally begin to pursue it. I was “naïve” and “young” and “didn’t know better” – all of these descriptions that those “older” and “wiser” and more “experienced” used to describe me (and still do).

I didn’t approach business traditionally. I rarely asked myself “What will make money?” and then decide to pursue that. I did it backwards in a way that made others uncomfortable, perhaps because they never took that risk themselves, or because it was a truly risky thing to do. Instead of seeking money, I sought joy. I asked myself what I would do every day if I could, and I devised plans to make that type of work benefit me.

I had no idea if it would be good or terrible or really horrible. It was all of the above at different points. But mostly it was good, and sometimes great, and often very blissful. I am not motivated by money – I never have been and daresay never will be. I judge my wealth by my happiness. Thank. Goodness.

I do, sometimes, need a reminder to stay on that happiness track. Sometimes I veer off. We all do. We often don’t even realize it. We say yes to a few too many things our hearts aren’t in and then we find ourselves side-tracked and unhappy.

This year I’ve spent 100 days at home and 81 on the road, if I’m doing the math correctly at the time of writing this. That means that almost half of my time has been spent away. I love what I do, but I don’t always love how it takes me away from home. I am very attached to the sense of home and a feeling of closeness to my love and my space and my down time and my cats. It is more a part of me than you will ever know. So this year has been hard in that regard. I said last year I wanted to travel less. Unfortunately, life doesn’t work like that. I can’t simply say I want to stop and then stop. I took more and more jobs because they seemed so lovely at the time, but now that I’m booked through November I’m feeling pangs of regret at my constant YES-ing.

I had a real breakthrough a couple of weeks ago when a friend said “I thought you said you were going to travel less!” – a phrase I hear all the time. But for some reason, hearing it that time, I changed my response. Usually I’d start to unintentionally place blame elsewhere – “Oh, yes, but then X came up and I’m doing that…”, or “It’s just so hard to say no!” or “I’ve always wanted to visit X place!”

All of those responses are perfectly suited to place myself out of control of my own life. I wanted to take it back and make decision for myself.

The next day I got an email: a convention I was meant to speak at changed dates suddenly and they wanted me to confirm my attendance, even though it was smack in the middle of two other huge trips. I wanted to say yes so badly. I felt physically sick at saying no. I love the people running it so much. But another part of me, the part that I don’t let come out very often (and the part my friends are always telling me to nurture) jumped out. That part took care of me and looked ahead at my happiness. She said no. She said she had to take care of herself.

Suddenly another email came the very next day, and again I said no to the opportunity. I’m not turning everything down, but I am making sure that I don’t suffer next year. My experiences are rich, much richer than I ever would have imagined they could be. But they are draining, and my joy fades, and while I can keep a smile on my face while I travel 40+ hours alone in one go, frequently, and I so truly see the light in all things, I suffer. My body hurts, I feel less sharp, I miss home. I miss home. I miss it so much.

This is the year of taking back my life. Of saying yes when I feel that glow of inspiration well inside of me, and of saying no when the opportunity doesn’t make me soar. That is so hard. I am a people pleaser. One of my biggest flaws is my constant desire for affections. But sometimes personal health comes from social sacrifices and telling people no when you want to give them a big hug and say yes.

You will understand. I know it because I know us, this amazing community, and no matter if you are introverted or extroverted, shy or not, physically ill or mentally, we all have something we need to tend to. We all have moments we should have said no, or wish we said yes. Or, that we wish we had said yes to different things and no to others.

Do you have a hard time saying no?
Do you ever feel trapped within your plans?
What was the last big change you made to create more space for happiness in your life?