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.

I’ve shared a very heartfelt message in my video today, so I hope you’ll have a good watch. Which leaves me free to share with you the real title of this blog post: “Why NOT to Snooze”.

This morning I had my alarm set for 4:10am. The alarm went off, and I was very tired, so I did something that I never, ever do: I hit my snooze button. I am usually bolting out of bed right when the first sound goes off, so it was very odd that I didn’t get right out of bed today. Instead, I opted for five more minutes. I already know that five minutes doesn’t do anything or make me feel any better, but there it was. I did it. And now, I regret it.

In those five minutes (technically four, because I woke up one minute before my next alarm), I had a dream. A nightmare, more accurately. I have them all the time, almost every night, so it wasn’t unusual. Just ill-timed.

Cue wake-up.

Cue me frantically re-thinking my shooting location.

Cue me saying “drats” and getting in the car and going anyway.

I got there and had an awful sense of foreboding. In the span of one minute I was certain I was going to a) get arrested, b) find a dead body, or c) somehow drown in the 3 feet of water I was in and never be heard from again.

And then I remembered my camera sitting there and felt the rock hard, well, rocks, under my knees and I was drawn back to reality. I shot for only about two minutes before I got out of there, lest any of my premonitions come true. My dress kept sinking in the back and hitting my leg and I was certain it was a dead hand coming to grab me.

I blame this one two things: one is my dream. The other is the book series I’m currently reading about Necromancers. Either way, it was unpleasant. I was only able to giggle at myself when I got into my car, turned on A Fine Frenzy to make me feel calm and connected again, and I was driving away from my shooting space.

And then, I turned and saw a rainbow. Funny how these things work out.

Day 22, you scoundrel.

I’m off to work on some very special content for you that I can’t wait to share. Saturday brings diligent planning and homemade pizza and reading. Aside from that extra five minutes of “sleep”, it has been a pretty amazing one.

I love getting to share some of my editing process. This week was super fun because I was working in a way that has a lot of wiggle room for creativity. I love changing colors especially in my images until I find just the perfect combination. I always have an idea of a color palette before I start, but there is magic in finding control in the editing room so that you can create a palette that speaks to your soul. That is how I felt during this edit.

Some of what you will see includes: changing the color of the dress (and overall), moving the subject to a different background, blending the subject, and some finishing techniques.

I did 30 photo shoots while I was in Iceland, so we can’t really expect the images to let up quickly, right? This is another image from Iceland, and what a brilliant day it was. Our group arrived at this famous site very eager to create, but even more eager to eat. So we cooked in our campers before shooting while I ran ahead and tested the safety of the little bridges that seemed to be created just for us to take pictures with.

When we all saw the location as a group, it was overwhelming. The weather was perfect, with storm clouds rolling in the air, never letting a drop of water out, and vast, insurmountable scenes that only Iceland can produce. I wanted a picture out on the natural pathway, the bridge to nowhere.

The wind whipped at us, as we had grown accustomed to, but nothing can prepare you for a climb out on a rickety ledge in a billowing satin dress. The gusts were harsh, and as it caught my dress I looked down at just the wrong moment, feeling every second of the drop below. I decided it would be best to crawl out since my dress was pulling me so hard. The satin was a poor choice. As I knelt down the fabric was slippery, and my knees and feet were caught on it as I tried to make my way to the edge. In reality it wasn’t a very long way, but it felt winding.

I tried some images laying on the ledge and some standing, but in the end, standing there with the wind pulling at my dress, it felt right. I knew what I was creating, where the story was going, and how to tell it. This is my bliss. This is how I know I am doing what I am meant to do. Creating. Storytelling. Sharing.

It took me a while to edit this image when I got back. I remember creating it and thinking that it was the easiest image I had taken thus far. I knew exactly what I wanted from it, and I could already tell I really liked it. So why, then, did I put it away in a folder on a hard drive and refuse to look at it when I returned? I started fearing I’d never have the motivation to edit it – that it would be one of those images that stays hidden forever, for some unexplained reason. And yes, I have many of them.

I realized, after months of being home from that trip, what it was. I had loved the image so much. Loved the shoot so much. Knew just what I wanted from the image. And in finishing it, that day would be over. A memory captured in that image. Nothing more to go back to, nothing to look forward to. It was like closing a chapter on a day that I loved so much.

But upon editing it, I felt empowered. I relived the magic of that moment. I could feel the wind at my back, pushing me onward to the edge of the bridge to nowhere. And I embraced it. I let those emotions sweep over me. I felt a rush of bliss.

It wasn’t until I was putting this video together that I realized the impact of what I was creating. I went searching for music and came across this song by Message to Bears which touched me so deeply, I felt as though it was the perfect punctuation to a long and elated sentence. It gave the image more meaning. It gave the image life.

Throw it down, look away,
Don’t be scared, it’s okay.
Settle down, set it right,
Don’t be scared, it’s alright.

To have memories that we cherish, to have images to remember them by… Life is constantly growing all around us, and I am content – radiantly happy, even – to sway with it. Let it move as it will, and I’ll create with it as well as I can. Walk out onto the ledge, reach for what you want. Every storm has an eye, every fear a beacon of hope. So settle down, set it right, don’t be scared, it’s alright.

Which music inspires you to create?
Any songs that you feel match perfectly with your vision?

A little while ago I found a big black feather and took it home with me, hoping to use it for a photo. I promptly forgot about it until it suddenly appeared in my car, and I decided to put it to use. I love the way that the human form can be so evocative, expressing emotion much the same way as our faces. Contorting a certain way, lighting a certain way, and through editing we are able to create atmosphere with almost no help from outside elements. In this case I wore an ace bandage and made sure the lighting was more severe than I normally utilize.

I chose to pose against a wall that had only one light source: a window coming from the left. After that, it became simple to find a pose that felt right, and the shoot was over quickly.

How often do you use a white wall or blank canvas to create your art? Share it if you’ve shot it!

How often do you live in madness?

[Transcript of video] I was thinking about Alice in Wonderland and how they not only introduce, but unashamedly applaud crazy individuals. What if we lived in a world where that was also encouraged, where we could be as mad as we like and we were applauded for it. Well, the truth is, that we do live in that world, only it is a world of elitism. We don’t exactly applaud the mad adventures of creative people in all circumstances. It is easy to be labeled weird or strange or written off for prancing around in a nightgown in the middle of the center of Amsterdam (or is that just me?) because craziness without success is often labeled as sad. But if you are crazy, and you follow through with one of your mad plans, and it suddenly is successful either through fame or money, then you are suddenly not crazy at all, but instead you are a genius. And with that genius comes praise and acceptance and a shift of the status quo. The problem here is that many people, myself included, will have ideas that are crazy and will not succeed. We think big and we try our hardest yet still that plan doesn’t find legs, and we find ourselves back at square one. This is a natural phenomenon. This is human nature – to try and fail and try again. Yet with how easy it is to be influenced by social media and the opinions of others, how often do we really try again? How often can we say that we are making our dreams a reality through the repeated failure of said dream?

How often do we put money first, or our family’s security, or the protection of our good name in order to protect what is nice and easy and safe? How often do we blame other people for our dreams not panning out? And it is easy to do this! It is easy to say that it was so-and-so’s fault, that mean person online who told me to give up. But think back to when you were a child and your parent told you to go to bed, and you rebelliously said no. That child didn’t think twice about what was right or wrong, what was safest for him or her. No, no, you simply did what your heart wanted. Why do we lose that? We lose that sense of self because we are taught to abandon it for the betterment of everyone around us. So when Mr. or Mrs. Nobody online, who we do not know at all, tells us to quit for whatever reason they see fit, we tend to listen, because we have been taught to listen. And listen we should! But not to that person. When it comes to following your dream, it is not wise to listen to the naysayer or the person who wants us to be safe. It is important to listen to ourselves, because in our heart of hearts we know what is right and what is true. We know what makes us feel alive. And without that…if we let that slip away…we will be left with a sore heart, too full with dreams to let anything else in. And we go on with what makes us content and we fail one last time.

But what happens when we don’t. What happens when we try again, and we find new ideas to love, and we nourish those ideas until they are so big that we simply must act on them. They cannot be ignored. And they shouldn’t be, because an ignored dream can be felt by everyone around you, and it infects their minds just the same as it rots in your own. When you pursue that dream, you show the world around you that it is okay to be different, to be mad and strange and weird, and it is okay to believe in what makes your heart soar. You prove to yourself that you are worth it. And even further, you change the world by simply not giving up. It is true that people become successful in the eyes of the public because of wealth and status, but that does not make their idea any better or worthy of praise. Your idea, it is very likely, has merit of it’s own. But no one will ever know that if you don’t tell them. And you won’t tell them if you never believe in yourself enough to try.

The first little while went really well. The water was pretty clear and we were having a lot of fun. But then some boats started coming in and docking – not at our pier, as it was out of commission (I checked first!) but at a nearby pier. This caused the water to become quite choppy, and since we were near rocks, we decided to get our before it got worse. I swam while holding my camera in my huge ikelite housing and then navigated the slippery rocks out while helping my friends and continuously (per request from Kelly) checking for sea creatures underwater with my camera (I would shoot a few pics to see what we were surrounded by). I did see a couple – an octopus and an eel, but I certainly didn’t tell her that until later. Once we made it out we decided to get back in when the water calmed, and we shot a few more images before calling it a night and drinking a coconut.

Now I desperately want to go back to Hawaii. Oh, to re-live these experiences through photographs is something I do not take for granted, and I can only hope to better document my next adventure.

Model: Marsha Denill
Assistance: Kelly McGrady

When I finished editing the image on air, and the cameras went off, everyone in the room let out a big sigh. We all knew it didn’t really work out but we were happy we tried. When I got home from Seattle I decided to start editing it again. I tried twice more and it still wasn’t coming together. That was when I took a slightly different approach.

I started choosing new shots to work with – a higher angle of my subject as well as different house shots from the kiddie pool so that you could see more of the house under the water, thus adding to the believability effect. Those changes made a world of difference for me, fixing some perspective issues as well as changing what was a very static shot.

I have been on a book kick lately, really wanting to experiment with how books (stories, really) can transport you to another reality. Books are old, universally recognized, and provide an amazing symbol for anyone to latch on to. There are many different emotions attached to books, but one thing remains the same. If you read, you take your imagination to a different level. What an amazing metaphor for creating.

I ended up using all of the same techniques to edit this image when I was home as I did during the CreativeLive editing segment for this picture. Some of the featured tools were the Background Eraser Tool, Curves Adjustment Layers, and changing of the Lighting Dynamics. I think something that brought the image together for me in the end was the choice of clouds, and really creating a light source as well as light variation so that some of the image was in darkness and some in light.

Thankfully the light for this image was quite natural, with no extreme highlights or shadows, so changing the light slightly was not a problem. Of course, I can’t say if the image did ever come together or not, but it did satisfy a dream I’ve had. I always know when a picture is finished when I feel it matches what I saw in my imagination…so I want to thank you for watching and for supporting this photo shoot through your encouraging words as well as to CreativeLive for setting this up for me!

I have been creating so many images lately with heavy compositing, and I was loving that experimentation. I have no plans on stopping, either. But in that haze of image editing I decided to try for a simpler composition and shoot in my favorite spot in the forest. I went with my friend Kyna to take some photos. We had tea and chocolate and then sat in the ivy, burning candles and playing with wax.

Earlier in the day we visited a local Goodwill and found many books for the photo shoot. I bought about 25 of them and decided to make do with those. One that we found, which was extra special, was a huge anthology of Shakespeare’s works, with illustrations. It was incredible timing, as I was fashioning the character of the image around Ophelia.

When we got to the forest I opened up the Shakespeare book and turned to Hamlet where I found the page you see in the final image. I put a vine in her hair and posed her quite similar to the woman in the book, and decided to go for a play on characters: one mimicking the other.

To read is to escape; to become someone else; to wish for a new life. So much of reading is becoming, not just imagining. We can feel what they feel, and in doing so, become those characters, even if for a brief time. Escape, release, and imagination. These emotions are what books are made of. Enchantment.

Who are your favorite storybook characters?

In all of this craziness, with the year coming to a close and inspiration running deep in my veins, I decided I could use some simplicity this week for my Promoting Passion video. I recorded my screen while editing my latest picture, though it froze a quarter of the way through so I finished the video by including screen grabs of the editing process thereafter. Sometimes all I need to feel the calm is some inspiring music and the reminder that life moves at the pace we set, and we always have the option to change it. But right now, I’m going to enjoy each minute and taking home a lesson from every journey.

…take a moment to savor the beauty in your life.

Create something unexpected. Do something to remind yourself how amazing the world is. Take a walk. Make a piece of art. Give someone a hug. And above all, create your dreams.

I shot this on top of a rock and wasn’t very concerned with the background as I knew I wanted to create a separation of sky and fabric. It went very quickly, taking about 15 minutes from the time I parked to when I cleaned up, and I was feeling really good about the images.

When I got them into Photoshop that night, pieces started coming together. I went through a process to create a more painterly effect, and when I was finished…I didn’t like it at all. I felt like my vision wasn’t coming together despite the fact that I did everything I had planned.

“The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry…”

And such is life. You have a plan, you execute that plan exactly, and then you wait to reap the rewards. But sometimes they don’t come, and that’s okay. That is not failure but instead an opportunity to do more, to do better, to create something more fulfilling for yourself.

I slept on the image and decided to take a fresh look the next day. And when I did, it all made sense. I had to alter my vision slightly, but only a nudge from where it had been. I added just a couple of details and it started to come together. My imagination was feeling very happy.

And that was when I decided to just let go and have fun. I created 5 new layers of the same image in Photoshop, and then changed the colors drastically on each layer. Slowly I peeled back the colors to see which I liked best, and landed on red. It was the opposite of what I had envisioned. I specifically bought a certain color parasol and fabric just so that I could execute this calming concept, to create an ocean-like effect.

Yet when the red popped up, it instantly felt more painterly, as if it flowed more naturally. I felt I understood the character better, because even if you are the creator of a character that person can still change and grow if you allow it. And when I settled on the red, and let the red become the new image, it felt finished.

Allow your life to lead you where it will. Have goals and desires and wishes, yet know when to trust your instincts. If something isn’t working, ask yourself why. If you don’t know why, come back to it later. And if you never come back to it, be confident you will move on to bigger ideas that let your heart pulse.

Everything is a process.

Enjoy it.

 website   |   facebook   |   twitter