These are a few that I’ve been told a number of times that proved to be untrue for my career. It is important to spot the advice that simply won’t serve you.

      1. You must produce work consistently.

Here is my problem with number one. It is not that I necessarily disagree with what it is trying to say, it is the pressure that it implies by it’s phrasing. We need to get more specific with the words if it can apply. For example, this sentence could read: You must share work with some consistency in order to maintain a social media following. That would be a fairly accurate (though not always) statement. However, the amount of work that I share is not in any way equal to the amount of work I produce. And that is because I share behind the scenes images along with videos, quotes, and more. It isn’t always my art, and that is okay – preferred, even. It gives me the time and space I need to create meaningfully without feeling pressured.

      2. You must shoot with X, Y, or Z to be successful.

I can hardly believe how many times I’ve been told that I need to evolve my way of working if I want to be successful. You need…a bigger monitor, a Mac, a better camera, more megapixels, professional lights, a soft box…the list goes on. And the thing is that each person telling me these things truly believes that it will help me to be a better photographer. Who can fault them for caring? I certainly won’t. But the problem is not them giving advice, is it us following it. Advice should be weighed as opinions, not facts. It is too easy for an up-and-coming artist to listen to opinions like that and buy into them, literally. And there are many instances where yes, upgrading gear or changing how you work might help your art and career. However, as artists, we must be secure in what we do.

I remember really distinctly a few years ago someone, referring to how I like to shoot in front of a white wall and composite my shots, said, “Call me in a year when you’ve learned how professionals shoot”. Now don’t get me wrong, it was said mostly in jest. But it stuck with me, because I believe that person really believed what they said.

I’m not generally popular among companies because I’m not fun to sponsor. I don’t use a lot of gear and I absolutely hate selling things. If only blank walls and bed sheets were in need of marketing, I’d be all over that. At some point in your career, hopefully sooner rather than later, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions. 1) Are you comfortable with your workflow? 2) Can more/different gear benefit me, and how? They are both great questions. I have expanded how I create. I learned how to use a layer mask in Photoshop (this was a big deal, guys). I learned how to use a Wacom tablet. But aside from that, it’s still just me, my tripod, and white wall at home that sets my creativity on fire. Grow, but not out of fear that your methods aren’t good enough.

      3. You must not create anything too polarizing or you’ll lose your audience.

Say what? My business was build on polarizing imagery! I’ve been given this advice many times and have heard others receiving this advice. And trust me, I totally get it. I am in a unique position where I don’t have clients on the day-to-day. Like any business that deals with customers, you might want to censor yourself somewhat to appease a greater audience of people. I am fortunate to be in the business of creating conversations, so my perspective is quite different. However, I am also a big believer in the idea that being your authentic self will attract your most authentic clients…the people you truly want to be around, who will appreciate what you do fully. I would rather have fewer clients who respect what I do than many who don’t feel strongly at all.

A friend of mine said the other day while we were filming a podcast together that if there aren’t people who love it and hate it then the artist is probably not doing their job. I thought that was definitely an interesting way of seeing art in general. Everyone has a different way of creating, and there is no right way. If you want to create happiness in everyone who looks at your work, I commend you for that vision. If you want to let people glimpse their own darkness, go for it.

The real problem with each of these statements is the phrasing “you must”, which indicates if someone does not follow what comes after those words, they will fail. Most of the greatest innovators are considered so great because they chose not to do what others said they must to succeed. They realized their own potential and accepted their choices as being good enough, and forged paths that no one saw coming.

Know your message and don’t let anyone convince you not to share it. 

This year has been an incredible lesson in how I create. From an 8 foot box built with my own two hands, to the forest, to a stairwell in Vegas, I have been aiming my camera in all sorts of ways. March is here in full swing, which meant that I got to spend the first week of it creating in many different places. I started out in Los Angeles filming an underwater music video, and shooting stills, too! It was massively cold, but I’ll share more on that later. I went to Vegas and felt the itch to create, so I dressed my friend up in a costume and I took pictures in my hotel room as she balanced on a glass table and I turned a lamp on nearby. Finally, I had the privilege of hosting a photo walk for WPPI.

I was preparing to location scout the day before, just after arriving in Vegas, but between an interview and a Skype call, I was stuck in the same building for 2+ hours. While finding a quiet place to have a meeting (before I could check into my hotel room yet), I wandered into a stairwell. My first reaction was: “WOW! This looks like an insane asylum.” (Side note, it didn’t really. But it was painted white, which I found inspiring.) To top it off, there were nice lights mounted on the walls (re: “nice” as it wouldn’t look utterly horrible should I have to use it to light my subject). I decided I would use that space for my photo walk, and I’m so glad that I did.

The next day 30 of us fit into that tiny stairwell as I began sharing how to start simple and work your way up to a more complicated, thoroughly storytelling image. I was quite excited for many reasons: 1) I had white paint…in a white stairwell. AMAZING. 2) I was about to cover my best friend in white paint. SCORE. 3) I was with a whole bunch of weirdos! Weirdo is my term for AWESOME PEOPLE, so please read appropriately.

It really was a great time playing with paint with a whole bunch of new friends, and we ended up back in my hotel room in order to edit and talk business. The 90 minute photo walk turned into a 4-hour affair. I just couldn’t stop sharing! And everyone was so nice!

I love experiences like that because it proves that we can create anywhere. We can make the best out of any situation, even little old me trying to find an inspiring location in a casino in Las Vegas, of all places. It can be done, and sometimes embracing a space you wouldn’t normally be drawn to can be even more inspiring. I hope that no matter where you find yourself today you carry inspiration with you to create.

“The second vertebrae is my favorite vertebrae.” – If you were at my class, you get it ;-D

Model: Kelly McGrady
Assistance: KD Stapleton
Shot at WPPI 2016 at my Photo Walk “Creating the Fine Art Portrait”

In my years as a photographer I can remember a handful of times when I told myself I was going to be more proactive in building sets, costumes and props. And in all of those instances the enthusiasm went down the drain and I never really tried much of anything. I have never been naturally good at building things with my hands. My sister was always the one doing that – sculptures and pottery and painting and drawing. I was always the one making up stories and trying to direct films. In other words, I’m the bossy one and she is the artistic one. Usually.

But now, in hindsight, I realize the reason why I was never able to build something that I loved, or stick with it, was not because I didn’t have the talent or the skill set. It was because I didn’t have the wherewithal. I didn’t have the right motivation. And it wasn’t the right time in my life yet. Last summer I decided something had to change in the way I create. It wasn’t until I had a portfolio review that I was tipped over the edge and I came up with an idea for a new series. And it wasn’t until right after that, when I heard Jennifer Thoreson speak at my Promoting Passion Convention, that I decided I needed to just start. Because sometimes beginning a project is the very key you need to figure it out.

So I started building. I came up with a plan, a sketch, an idea and then five. I went to Home Depot more times than I can remember so that I could ask the people there how to build something very basic, yet challenging to me – a room, with no windows or doors, and a moveable wall. At first no one took me seriously. They laughed at me and asked how I’d be able to even pick up the piece of wood I was purchasing. And it was mean, and it was probably sexist, and probably justified in a way, too (I’m a very tiny person). But I won them all over, and we ended up laughing together, and each time I’d go in they would ask how the progress was going and I’d give them an update.

…and remember, if you are thinking about starting a new project, sometimes you just have to BEGIN.

Have you accomplished something this year that you didn’t think would actually happen?
Or do you have plans to make something happen that has been nagging at you lately?

Final images to be released in an exhibition opening January 2017 in NYC.

I felt a transition coming on. You can always feel them from miles away but sometimes you choose to ignore them, and other times, you simply can’t. My world was shaking like a train was passing right by, and as often as I closed the curtains so I wouldn’t see it, the floor was vibrating with intensity. I wanted to change the way I created. I wanted to do something different and challenging. But I was holding on to a lot of creative baggage that I didn’t want to let go of. I had no idea how light I could feel. It turns out, stripping away that baggage is an ongoing process.

5 HANGUPS of creativity

A lot of times I get asked how long I’ve been a photographer. There are so many ways I want to answer that question, but usually I stick with the actual date that I first picked up my camera and started creating.

I could answer with when I became a full-time photographer, but that seems a little bit silly since nothing really changed on that day at all, except my stress levels.

I could answer with when I started honing my style, which was years and years before I ever picked up a camera. It was when I started writing when I was single-digits old. It was when I started making short films in high school and college. It was when I started writing poetry. And it was when I picked up my camera.

I could answer with the most recent time I reinvented myself, which is very akin to starting over entirely, questioning your process.

All of those answers are true. And in fact, I don’t even entirely consider myself a photographer. I am one, and I revel in taking pictures, but I am many other things as well – a director, a writer, a set designer… a cat lover? Lots of things.

Too many people have told me that they feel beaten before beginning because they just started photography and there are so many people so far ahead of them. I’ve met people who have decades of experience but feel disheartened by not knowing all of the current trends. The new photographers wish they had years of experience, and those with experience wish they could see the world with fresh eyes.

How long we have been practicing our craft isn’t always related to the way we create. The artist I am now is not the artist I was when I started. The person I was then is different, too. The only thing that remains the same is my intense love for creating with my voice, my vision, and zero compromises. As I piece together a new series, and reflect on how I have changed a huge chunk of the way I work and run my business, I find myself thinking of how scared I am. How, at times, I question what I’m doing, wishing I had years more experience on one day and on another, wishing I was just starting out with no pressure or expectation.

Yet other days I let myself soak into the reality that, each and every day, we are connected with the voice of our soul. We are compelled to create and so we do, and how long or short a period of time you’ve been creating is irrelevant. Every day we are reborn. Every day we give ourselves new opportunities. And every day, the fear creeps in with the light, and we must quiet that voice that tells us someone else has more experience, or that our tricks are old hat. The moment we listen to that cryptic voice is the moment we lose a sense of why we create in the first place.

It isn’t to measure the years we’ve been clicking a camera, or the consistency with which we have fresh ideas. It is to die and be reborn over and over, as all artists should do, to discover something so much more important than age or professionalism or value; it is to discover our worth, and our uniqueness, and to create with the most mighty of swords – our voice.

I am a big believer in making time to analyze newly created works. At the end of each year I put together a personal list of top 10 images that I created so that I can do my research about my own process. After making my selections, I try to find similarities between them that might indicate a direction I could go in or a way to categorize the images. I look for similar lighting, locations, themes, characters, elements, etc.

This year I’m seeing a few recurring elements. One is fog and darkness. I love creating a neutral environment where the subject can stand out from the background, and creating a dark background or a foggy background seems to be something I am very drawn to. All of the images I liked from this year had obscured faces, so I know to continue down that path of really stripping the personal identity away from the characters I’m creating. And the final thing that seems to be consistent is that most of my characters are doing something. I like for them to interact with what I am photographing in some way, or to at least be posed in such a way that furthers the story and makes the physics of the world more believable.

Choosing images is never an easy thing. I found it simple to narrow my selections down to 12, but deleting two of them was really hard. I made my choices based on gut reactions to the works. Some I chose because of the whole process, and others solely based on what it ended up looking like. But either way, I can confidently say these are my favorites that I’ve created this year. And I had a lot of images I really, truly didn’t care for when all was said and done. I created over 80 images this year (and many more than ended up in the depths of my computer’s folders). I learned from the images I didn’t like as much.

And you know the connection there? They weren’t meaningful enough. They didn’t have enough story. They were created in haste. They were not loved enough while they were baking and the bread went flat.

If you’ve baked some not-so-tasty loaves of bread this year, don’t dwell on it. Sometimes it’s good to keep the mice in the back of your mind fed with bread crumbs. The art that you created that didn’t work out is food for thought. It isn’t something you sell, but it does inform your new works. You know what you did wrong. You can learn from it. And you can move on.

I would love to see your favorite piece of art that you created this year!

And if you aren’t an artist in the traditional sense, share something that you saw this year that really moved you! I can’t wait to be inspired by YOU!

I was on a trip in Iceland. It had been five days with my friends, driving around in RVs, our little homes crammed with people we hadn’t seen in a year but filled with love. Homemade dinners, everyone swapping motorhomes to taste some of each. Pitstops at inspiring places when the mood struck. Sunsets and sunrises that made us all squeal with joy and then immediately stop, and quiet ourselves, and reflect.

It was our last evening. We had been taking pictures for hours in the lava fields. Night was coming for us despite our resistance. We had one more campground to find. One more sleep until we all left the next morning. I called a stop to the shooting so that we could pack up, but I didn’t listen to my own command. As I stood in the lava field, watching everyone slowly pack up, I didn’t want to go. I had an overwhelming, all-encompassing feeling that I should not be leaving – that I belonged there. I stood for what felt like seconds but was certainly longer, staring out at the bleak yet beautiful dropping sun, almost hidden entirely through the misty clouds.

I had been gone for three weeks. I would be returning home the next day. A trip back home is sometimes a welcome thing. I love being home. But on a trip like this one, something changes in you. You see the world more profoundly, and when you do, it is hard to leave. So I stood there, while everyone else did all the work of packing up, and I let it wash over me. It was that feeling of understanding, like your entire person has expanded because of a deeper connection with everything around you. I felt as though I was being spoken to through the bottoms of my bare feet resting easy on the soft moss.

It was cold, but I hardly remember shivering. It started raining, but I don’t remember the drops. It was getting dark, but I only remember the light.

I stood there wondering, before she came over to pose for me, what would I create? If I could do away with what was cliche or what anyone expected of me, what would I create. And that was when it was obvious, like the image was burned there in my mind already. I would create what I felt. I would create what cannot be, yet is my truth. I would photograph her floating, being lifted by the light that didn’t exist but in my mind. I would create an image indicative of my experience there in that lava field, utterly surreal in that surreal place, completely elevated by that experience.

While I was traveling I overheard two statements that made me sad:

“I can’t believe how stupid humanity is.”

“People are just naturally cruel.”

I heard two people say those statements in the same day, and for some reason, instead of letting them be random words murmured by strangers in passing, they stuck with me. I wrote them down in my notebook and really thought about them. I thought about all of the horrible things people have done, and all of the senselessness that seemingly goes into decisions that turn out terribly. I felt down that day. I felt like those words got into my head.

Here is the problem with allowing negativity inside: it clouds the good stuff.

The next day I had forgotten all about what those people said, and when I was out for a walk I watched someone help an older woman up some steps at the subway station. Someone held a door for me even and I hardly even noticed. My suitcase got stuck on a curb and a stranger picked it up for me. I gave my leftovers to a homeless person.

And then it struck me: Yes, people can be cruel and people can make poor decisions, but that does not make people universally blanketed by those qualities. I started thinking about the amazing things people do for one another every day. About the way that if we did focus more on the good, we might come to define people based on those attributes.

If we show others more kindness, we might see more kindness in the world.

We are an innovative people. We are always imagining and doing more and creating. To think only of the negative contributions we’ve made is to take away the probability of something changing. If you always scold a dog for doing bad things but never reward them for doing good, how will they know to keep doing those good things? We must remind ourselves of our powerful we are, and use that power to swing ourselves over to the good side.

When I was creating this image I couldn’t help but think about the concept of how powerful our minds are when we allow them to be. From being kind and compassionate creatures to using the little machines in our heads to create amazing art or build an amazing piece of technology, we have the most infinite potential – more than we could ever tap into. Let the magic come from within. Let it envelop you. Let it overcome all other senses. And use it for good. Good art. Good actions. Goodness.

The other day, something amazing happened. I broke my, what seems like, year long creative block. I’ve been creating and have created some images that I know will last in my portfolio, but I’ve felt a bit repetitive and have wanted to break out of it, but nothing “new” and fresh came to my mind…until the other day. I wanted very badly to create in a new way. I woke up thinking about a photo idea I had for a while, and so I started looking for locations. First where I live, then in my whole state, and then in my whole country. I just wasn’t having any luck. I needed a space with three blank walls and no windows that I could shoot in, but was coming up empty handed.

The image isn’t perfect, but I wanted to share it anyway because it is a symbol of what is possible. I’m going to continue shooting in boxes this week and really hope to create a small series of images by the week’s end. All in a box. All in my little office. All filled with inspiration.

Have you ever created with something unusual? Or used something in a way it isn’t necessarily intended? If you have, share the resulting image or story with me! If you have ideas of what could be used, share that, too! And if you create something this week with this theme, leave the image in the comments. Can’t wait!

Hello LOVELY community! This is the final day of our 3-week collaboration and I am just so thrilled with the results. I hear time and time again, when I’m out at different events, that community is dead and it’s every man/woman for him/herself. But I believe that there is community everywhere if you are so willing and bold as to create it, or join it, or give back to it. We, as creatives, are too often taught that to be vulnerable in a community is weakness. It is your allowance to other people that they may make fun of you, judge you, or bring you down. But I believe that community is strength. It is what brings us together, not what rips us apart.

I’ve chosen a winner for the collaboration, but that doesn’t mean that this picture is any better than any other – who am I to judge, anyway? I chose a winner based on the attempt – based on the interpretation and how much it inspired me at first glance. I was a little bit worried about choosing a winner, since I fundamentally don’t believe in competitions, but then I remember who you are – that you are a group who would not judge me for picking one out of so many, and you, who would be happy for whoever won, and gracious toward everyone. That makes my butterfly wings flutter.

Here are the WINNERS — That’s right, plural, because I liked these two so much for completely different reasons, and in the end felt I couldn’t judge one against the other. In random order…

Julie Mullin’s image stood out to me because of it’s simplicity and strength. She didn’t have to show a lot to make the viewer understand the image. The shadow of the bed across the girl’s face paired with her expression and moody lighting drew me in immediately and I’ve been thinking about it ever since I saw it. It reminded me so much of childhood, with a fantastic sense of innocence, and I truly commend Julie for achieving that.

Julie also made a video to go with her image, reading the story aloud and showing part of her creation process!

Theresa McManus’ image is overtly powerful and full of fury. The red color of the dress screams strength while the lighting says war: the war above, the war within. The way she used the sword in this image in such a proactive way really grabbed my attention. And finally, the ray of light that she included really made me center in on the subject and highlighted the intensity of the battle raging within our main character. Not to mention that light had a flair of heaven, which goes well with the ending of the story, too.

Fantastic work everyone! Please scroll down to view everyone’s work (in alphabetical order), each linked to their websites, and pocket that inspiration for a beautiful week! Barbara, Julie and Theresa – Please get in touch with me so I can send you some goodies!