{"id":1888,"date":"2011-09-28T14:06:57","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T20:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zoedphotography.com\/blog\/?p=1888"},"modified":"2012-03-24T17:43:30","modified_gmt":"2012-03-24T23:43:30","slug":"heart-plano-photographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zoedphotography.com\/blog\/heart-plano-photographer\/","title":{"rendered":"heart | ramblings of a plano portrait photographer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, I watched a two-day \u201cTaking Care of Business<\/a>\u201d course that Tamara Lackey<\/a> did on creativeLIVE<\/a>.\u00a0 It was full of good information, but I especially appreciated what she had to say about branding for Photographers.\u00a0 My degree and my background are in Marketing\/Advertising, and I dig that stuff in a geeky way, but even more so now that I have my own business.\u00a0 (Side note for photographers: creativeLIVE<\/a> is a great resource for learning about photography, the business, Photoshop, you name it.\u00a0 Another course I thought was fantastic: Foundations of a Working Photographer<\/a> with Zack Arias.\u00a0 The way that dude teaches is so perfect for the way\u00a0my brain learns.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, one concept (among many) that really hit home for me was to consider your gut instinct \u2013 or at least that\u2019s how I interpreted it.\u00a0 I believe her quote was something like \u201cIf what you should<\/em> do is A, then what is B?\u201d<\/p>\n

My entire life, I\u2019ve worried too much about pleasing others, making sure everyone likes me \u2013 even if it means I\u2019m not really even being<\/em> me.\u00a0 Following the rules or traditions, even if it doesn\u2019t necessarily make sense for my situation.\u00a0 But what I\u2019ve found lately is that when I force myself (and it does take some force) to go with my gut, things almost always turn out surprisingly well.\u00a0 It\u2019s not easy, but it\u2019s incredibly rewarding.<\/p>\n

I get more \u201clikes\u201d when I post something on my Facebook Page<\/a> from my heart \u2013 even if I feel a little nervous putting it out in the world.\u00a0 (Like today\u2019s status update, which prompted me to write this blog post.)<\/p>\n

I create much more compelling photos when I shoot from my heart than when I\u2019m trying to get a shot that I think my client wants.<\/p>\n

Hmm\u2026. I can\u2019t think of another example to make it a perfect three, but you get my point, right?<\/p>\n

No, I\u2019m not going to start breaking all the rules in the name of \u201cjust being me\u201d or anything crazy.\u00a0 I\u2019ll save that for when I\u2019m 84 years old.\u00a0 But I am going to try to give my thoughts, feelings, opinions, ideas a little more credit.\u00a0 \u2018Cause apparently, they\u2019re not half bad!<\/p>\n

And since I can\u2019t stand a post without an image\u2026. Here\u2019s me and my little Max (10 months old), captured by Leo, my three-year-old (after I got the settings in place and let him fire off about 50 completely random frames).\u00a0 It\u2019s overexposed, poorly edited, out of focus, it has some motion blur (shot at 1\/125 of a second in a toddler\u2019s hands), Max has a dazed expression, I have zero makeup on, there\u2019s baby drool running down Max\u2019s chin and onto my thumb.\u00a0 And, jeez, the worst part of all, my hair could not possibly<\/em> look any worse!\u00a0 Couldn\u2019t I have at least re-adjusted the ponytail?<\/p>\n

But\u2026. back to Tamara\u2019s advice\u2026. what I should<\/em> do (A) is delete the file, right?\u00a0 But what I would like to do (B) is post it online for the world to see.\u00a0 Because despite all those imperfections, I LOVE this image.\u00a0 Because it was a wonderful moment with both of my boys, in our own home.\u00a0 And because (in my opinion) you can see my \u201cmama love\u201d shining through all the rest of the mess.<\/p>\n

Oh, and because I can\u2019t get enough of that heavenly window light.\u00a0 :-)<\/p>\n

\"photographer-as-photographed-by-toddler\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, I watched a two-day \u201cTaking Care of Business\u201d course that Tamara Lackey did on creativeLIVE.\u00a0 It was full of good information, but I especially appreciated what she had to say about branding for Photographers.\u00a0 My degree and my background are in Marketing\/Advertising, and I dig that stuff in a geeky way, but even more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,16],"tags":[240,239,242,241,238,611],"class_list":{"0":"post-1888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal","8":"category-photography","9":"tag-creative","10":"tag-creativelive","11":"tag-gut","12":"tag-live","13":"tag-me","14":"tag-personal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zoedphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zoedphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zoedphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zoedphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zoedphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1888"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/zoedphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1891,"href":"http:\/\/zoedphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions\/1891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zoedphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zoedphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zoedphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zoedphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}