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Lara's 22 Steps to Live Your Dream

What I really wanted to do with features some of my favorite photographers from all around the world that are doing beautiful illustrative work that is very different you can draw inspiration from that you can follow and this is somebody that I really adore I met up in four years ago in australia she walked up to me and she said I want it I want you to photograph me and she didn't know me from barrasso but she'd seen my work and we became friends since and since that day and her awards work, she's won several times australian portrait photographer the user's illustrative portraiture um speaking off themes in strength and finding a consistent theme through your work she has done that her work is very a mixture of sort of david the ship owl with a mixture of theatrical I'm colorful and you know her work speaks volumes it's beautifully layered she's somebody that I love and admire and you know she's made quite an amazing hobby out of creating this illustrative work from multiple elements ...

and winning awards through them and you know she's just incredible as to have is a friend that I can bounce off for my creative work of my awards quick she really gets it she's also an incredible international judge off work and a great mentor and I feel like, um who work is just so beautiful and so nate to say uh the strength ofthe folio because I feel like the best photographers have a theme and the best photographers have a consistency on dh there working whether you change that consistency over the years is fine. But it's about making all of your work at high standard and coming up with a consistent theme that's you not just a mishmash of a little bit here a little bit there, but speaking volume, history, your work with beauty and your theme. So going back to our talk yesterday about who are you? What do you dream? Do you dream of having where you going with this? What you gonna do with it? You know, I really want you to decide that. Is it for awards? Is it to win awards? Is it to make money? Is it to get notices to get published? What is your fame? What your elements are you about the water? The forest? Are you about textures, overlays, beauty, pain siete tricks? You know, darkness. What is it? What is your storytelling capability? Now? How much of yourself can you put into a story? Just come back to that. Speak to that. And every single week or month, when you do, you'll find out shoots, speak through your work as much as you can. And you know you saw my dark stuff you saw my light stuff but you know that all of them all of that work like flowers is part of our soul and the more soul we put into it the more authentic it is the more incredibly obvious it is when you see it right and not just like when you were saying about putting words on portrait think about that nowadays you can get an image you khun instagram it you can go to insta quote which an incredible app you can put in a quote over the top of your words you could choose those words you can empower both imagery and woods posted to your social media and just like that you not only have an image you have a little haiku or whatever you want to put in there you have your own thoughts you can take quotes off the internet and you know I quote roomie all the time because he's amazing and he's my favorite poet and philosopher and cows young and and a nice nen is my matches my work so beautifully speak with your photography to people and don't tell people that you're having a discount and don't tell people that you've got this and god that show people you know show people with your stories and your work and your imagery and your creativity and come back to it every single day I wanted to show you this if you go onto my website, you would have seen this the paris book that I did for jill every one of these images a complicit in some way and I used a compass it layering in all parts of my portraiture now now that's an extreme compass it that's part of the love with the eiffel tower with the inside stairwell in the hotel that we started in and that compass it beer pretty much summarized out trip in paris I wanted it to look like an old movie poster. I just laid it all up and aliens kindle the layers together until they all look the same and then I bought them all together and erased it all back. This here was when I got taught to shoot through the glass when lara was teaching the fashion workshop and then I chained around and photograph paris behind me, and then I took the image of paris and I put it over the image of jill and then I sprayed in beautiful color and I softened my reflection so I wasn't a hard black outline around jill and that's been one of them. I celebrated images of paris because it says I'm in paris without saying it and it speaks volumes to jill's both serenity and her beauty and her lost breath and the fact that she was a princess for a whole day and yet an incredible sadness that she is going through the biggest fight of your life and I feel like every part of his story is complicit it's beautiful it's the best I could do you know and I'm I'm not good at shooting on location I'm a studio kind of controlled person so I was very out of my photographic dips in paris and so I feel like the work I put into it afterwards just enhance the story I recently shot a video of my dear friend sharing him and who has just lost a breast a brisk canter this month and she's just out of chemotherapy she started a video online here facebook pages shirin hammond if you follow jill on you want to follow shereen as she's going through him a stick to me brisk cancer treatment with chemotherapy she's done this teo uh put videos online to help people she has a lot of support around her but the reason she did it was one of her best friends currently lost um all of the women in her family to breast cancer and she's supposed to have the basic to me jean mystic to me double music to me that you're supposed to have as a preventative and she's been putting it off and while she was putting that off dream found out she had breast cancer so she wants to empower both your best friend to you know go through this and, um, she rang me and she said, I know you shot jill. Would you come and shoot me? I did this incredible shoot as she has an amazing husband. She's, also beautiful wedding photographer in melbourne and who has been loved his so much as supports here. I went to the place that they got married. I photograph to the week before him. A sick may um she'd already had the first round of surgery. I'm to save, um, her nipples from the first round of surgery. And I photographed here. And then I photographed her and her husband together to tell the story. And these compass. It means so much to hear that in the place they got married. Um, you know, they're together it's it's telling stories with photography it can be so subtle, it can be putting an overlay on a background. It could be putting a flower and somebody's here and then putting color through images. It could be using teachers and overlays. It could be telling stories, or it could be fine at you can be whatever you want to be. Um, after I did my big speech about finding out who you are and then walking that I, uh, was talking to a lower last night, and I was like, how do you she's twenty four okay, so twenty four I had a job, I didn't have a career, I certainly didn't have a business, and she has a career in the business at half my age, just about and I look at what she's achieving and unlike, how do you do that? And maybe you should tell everybody how you do that on a daily basis, you know, because you might have this preconceived notion that lower some rich kid that, you know, get vogue covers or whatever, but you couldn't be so far from the truth. And when you find out how hard this young woman works on her own, just crazy, so I'm gonna leave lower teo tell you what, her vision of what mine was used today, my king, that wass about what she does every day, too, power up and, um, take some nights because this girl is relentless and who pursuit off her own career, and I'd find it the most able quality. Thank you. See? All right, how can I follow that? Hey, I'm feeling so vulnerable myself right now, okay? I'm gonna stand up because that helps. Um so I wanted to go over the steps I take every month, every week to kind of improve my business and push, promote and refresh regularly so I'm gonna be talking about myself, but I'm gonna kind of reference it in a way that you could put that into your business as well. All right, so most people that meet me straight away they immediately think oh, some rich kid you know, parents pay for them to be new york they know they get everything kind of put the way and susan wright, you can't be far from wrong I come from a working class family I've seen my family struggle I'm from a very loving family my mom actually cried yesterday she's going probably quiet again she they encouraged me to do what my heart desired and that's all I needed I went teo I started photography fourteen just kind of referencing back to that I then started my business at seventeen because my family told me I could do it I had no money to start off with I put everything it took into my business and I kind of I advertise my business and when I get a paid job it will go back straight into photography. I had no help I had love and support but I didn't have help with money and that really, really taught me a lesson is a photographer that that's really what tells me now when I'm thinking how good I don't have that piece of equipment or I don't have this I go hang on a minute I was that seventeen year old sought in a business and I made things okay, so if you're sitting out there right now and you're saying I can't do it I don't live here I don't live in this situation I don't have the money you can do it you've just gotta put thes steps into play every week every month and just keep pushing and promoting and refreshing those ideas okay? So the one thing I do constantly and I have agents but they don't do everything agents are simply there to get my work to the next level I can't call it publications like conned in us and get myself that work they need to have that from an agent so I send I think a few weeks ago is a perfect example I was kind of sick of sitting there I was kind of look king around online I notice everyone else and this is a problem I have with competing with other people with any and all these publications I had magazines at home and I was like, you know is you got a three year like I can do that I can do that why am I not in there and again that's wrong thinking I was going into their thinking you know, why do people not have mean this magazine? If I can do these things, what is it I need to do and I have my day, and I have days like this why? I think, you know what, what's going on? And then I had I have this, like, I wake up the next morning, and I have this thought where I'm like, stop whining like you, you have a lot, you're twenty four, you have a house in new york, you have the life so that you wanted it seventeen stop being ungrateful, so I sit, I get up really early and a su said harem makeup, I just kind of get up and you hide myself in the house, and I sent about three hundred emails at this point, and it was simply by me, research in who is this person at this magazine? Who do I need to contact to make that happen? So I made the steps to try and make that happen and out those three hundred emails, I got one amazing opportunity by glamour italia. They sent me a really good budget to shoot in new york. They'd never met me, but they trusted me, and they put their trust in me, and from that alone that inspired me to every week make sure I send up follow of emails and that's not only do my research and following up in saying, you know, this is my work, it's saying I'm here here is my new work here is that, you know, the reminder that I'm here here is my new work in my in my newsletter here's my portfolio, I'm in town right now or can we set up a meeting? Can we set up a coffee meeting so it's important to constantly send those emails and remind people, and also to think that, you know, stop thinking that everyone is going to do things for you? You have to make those things happen yourself, and then I also call. So for things such as, like model agents, sometimes model agents or contacts leave cos so I have to reintroduce myself to those people again. So if I send an email often, I'll follow up with a phone call. I'm very persistent, but persistent to a point where I'm not pushy with it. So it's important to know the fine line between those two things, but don't be scared to cold call because a lot of opportunities have happened for me that way. Sometimes I'm like researching something to find an email, an email address and I simply go on linked in I find out who the art director is such a publication house, then this is going back to like the book covers and go, okay. This person I need to find random house, for example, on I need to say, is this person working here? Is there any way I could have a portfolio meeting so again, going back? My agents don't do everything for me, and they always remind me of that that you always have to put one hundred percent into your work yourself don't rely on anyone else to do that. The next thing and I am guilty of sometimes not going back to this to research as much as possible because I often research to remind myself that I'm doing the right thing. I research for themes, obviously with fashion photography, I'm going back in time and going okay, you know, because fashion refreshes itself, so I'm going back and referenced in abadan with turner sign in time, if I'm doing a much shoot, I'm going back to see how other photographers did that I'm researching other artists, not just photography. I'm going online and looking into research, but the main thing that people don't do is they don't look outside the box they research with directly what's in front of them, and I used to do that when I was first on deviant art, I was guilty of copying other people because I thought, that's, all that was out there. So for me, I research as much as I can I make sure that you know, in my research isn't just in a place that's in front of my desk every day okay, the next thing is challenging yourself, so for me I'm always challenging myself technically, I'm challenging myself to certain themes that I've never experienced before and a good example of this is when I was in hawaii and I always say photographers and really great underwater photographer is the london based photography xena holloway and I saw her work and again I was killed here oh, I could do that that looks easy and we all do we see that and either we go well that's so far from what I want to do, I'm going to hide or we go, I can do that let me try it, just give me the equipment and I'm ready to go on I get into the stage of like being really confident and I do it and then I kind of fail and I come back and I go okay know they were probably right that I couldn't do it, but the beauty of that is that we challenge ourselves because if we do fail we learned something from it, and when I was in hawaii and I try this underwater photo shoot, I went out on the boat I had this little car kind of case kind of cheap case for my camera and I threw myself in the water and I had a model I had no snorkeling equipment nothing to protect anything and we were out in the middle of the ocean so when I was scared of sharks to my model was wearing yellow which sharks is supposed to be attracted teo three I was seasick because of the boat and so I threw myself in the water and we had about half a now or everyone else was snorkling it was a favor that we went out into the boat I don't rember the whole time I was just freaking out is trying to tread water and I was spluttering and in the end I just kind of went down and the dad of the model would like push it down in front of the water and those that have my tutorial dvd would have seen this and they pushed me down into the water and when I come back up I just shoot on auto the camera my eyes were red and I remember I was exhausted and what I love though is when I get back I got one or two images that were simply a girl looking like a mermaid with all these bubble was coming up and that was just the struggle of the model trying to get to the surface but those images will forever remain in my mind is I learned something from that, and that was that failure turned into ok, I tried it and it didn't work on what was great about that is I was asked by sony teo to my agent, to do a photo shoot with a celebrity underwater, and if I hadn't have done that, I'd have gone into that situation going I can do that and can you imagine what situation that would have put me in with that company with that celebrity so it's important that we challenge ourselves with seems we challenge ourselves technically because remember, you don't need to know everything we don't need to have ten different lights on set, but we do need to know how it's done so that if you have someone like felix who assist me on set, you can translate that to them. Okay, so the last thing on this page his chute, personal work and test because I I will give you an amount of what I spend every month on testing and I said yes say I only ever get really the catering on set everyone should be working for time for print, you can get models for free you, khun get friends who will model for you, you can get stylists but what's great about shooting personal workers were also testing ourselves technically so the other day I did a shoot which was basically a test for creative live so I took my model I just some natural light set of I set up a technique and I was I oh this was too complicated this will take too much time so it is so important to get out there not only to test yourself and test ideas but to know what works and to also whatever this course is all about which is experimental portrait's were put in something of ourselves in twelve work so personal work for me is my soul into my work without it my what couldn't exist because clients don't really relate to anything commercial they want to see it they want to see that white background studio shot but they also want to see what I'm passionate about and oh what is this about and you know I'm the twenty four year old that goes into these big meetings into these books publication houses and I am the last person they call in the in the room when they're saying oh meeting for laura and then I kind of pipe up and I go that's me my tutterow over my big hewas in my blond hair and they just like until I get in the meeting with them and I have my portfolio on the desk and you know my portfolio is big, heavy professional things that already I look professional am I going through and I'm like I start telling my story and all of a sudden you see this click and they go I get it I get it every time and I wait for it and I almost like I laugh in my own head on what's funny is usually when I'm sitting in front of people and I show them my work I get asked they look at me and they go what do you get your jacket from or you know it's usually those kind of people in the industry I am in that don't really suit my personality because I kind of find it hilarious that people think that way of me or do your parents pay fee to be him and I've had that but I don't let it get to me I come out of the meeting and a great example of this I was in australia with my australian agent sarah and we went to see a big publication um over there and we sat in the meeting and sat down we were looking over the portfolio and my agent was going fruits it was the first meeting I'd had so she came along and we're going from ii pan and we were talking to the editor of the magazine and my agent was like, you know she's built her business on social media she's done this and this at this age and she just looked and she was like I don't care because it's not about what you can do for us what about what we can do for you? And I just sat there and I thought, okay, you know, I'm not going say anything to that, and I was positive for the rest of the meeting on when I came out, I said to my maid, it was like, you okay? That was she was pretty harsh with you, and I just went, you know what? I find it hilarious because one day these people are going to be same to me oh, you know, who is that girl that you know? And they forget that that I remember this so it's important to not let those things get to you and to use all failures is awaiting me for words. All right? So the next thing here is live with gratitude, and so really did a powerful taught yesterday, they even moved myself when I was listening and live with gratitude be thankful for what you have. I'm thankful that I'm twenty four and I found my path is a photographer I know still have a long way to go. I will admit that I am not even close to the start of my career right now, and I'm so excited about where the next few years they're gonna go, so always live with gratitude remind yourself of what you have and what's around you and the people as well I have learned to surround myself with very positive people I have let go of negative people and the people that I lived with and involve myself with encouraged me and make me very aware that I live a very you know lucky life not lucky I've ever seen made that for myself but I live a very great lifestyle that you know I've made this kind of things for myself from nothing I come from nothing and I've moved forwards with it and that's just from putting these kind of twenty two points into my career every day okay the next thing is self worth because everyone believes that they don't deserve something when people remind me that I am just this a young photographer that doesn't deserve to be in this magazine or doesn't deserve this or I shoot a story and I spent so much money on the story that I you know I haven't slept for a week and I spent a thousand dollars out of my own money knowing I'm not going to get money at the end of it from the publication and that magazine editors quickly gone over them with out a care and said to me we don't want your pictures they don't work and then all of a sudden it's too late because the seasoning fashion is out for me to submit them somewhere else so they have told me I'm not worth being in their magazine and I have my day and I will admit like we all do, I cry and I say to my boyfriend and I find my mom and I say I want to give up, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm tired of people not taking me seriously. What do I have to do for people to take me seriously? And I remind myself that I am worth something I have built my career, I started my correct seventeen, and I'm twenty four and I don't feel twenty four I always remind people of this, I feel thirty years old, I don't feel twenty for battle, and I think what's gonna happen is one day I'm going to turn around and go. I never had those days of drinking and going out and partying like what's going on, and I'm gonna turn into one of these like forty year olds that kind of just going in that crazy kind of cat lady with, you know, and I've just got to remind myself, and I constantly do this, and sometimes I need validation off of the people I need validation of my mom. You know, I'm still in my mind, like, I still want to talk to my home at night and say, you know, what can I do when I walk around the city on my days off and talk to her? And she validates it for me that I've just got to keep going? I moved to new york for a reason, and it will happen. My dad always says it'll happen for you when you twenty five I think the next thing is to look deeper because we have to look deeper into what we do in what we shoot you can't, and this is such a great example, my agent said to me, that's, something missing in your latest? What? What is it? I felt it, I felt like I wasn't given something and she said to me, we sat over coughing and talked and I said, there's something wrong? And I didn't really want to hear it because to me that someone telling me that I'm doing something wrong and obviously I want my agent to validate that I'm a good artist. I want them to want to keep me on their books. And she said, you stopped telling a story and I said, I know I said, I know I've stopped telling a story and that's what it is, I've got to go back to basics and put my passion into it I'm not just shooting close, I'm going to turn down it when it stylist says to me, I just got these clothes you want to do a shoot, I'll say no, because that wasn't my idea. If a model says to me, just want to do a shoot no and you have to learn to know when to say no to it. So always look deeper into your work and put your personal connection to it. Let go of fear because I used to be the shy fourteen year old girl at school, I would always run away from school. My mom kept me off school for a year because I was bullied and I had this fear that I wasn't worth, you know, having friends or having this, and this is what got me into photography in the first place because I go home and I create and my teachers, if I didn't go to physical education to pee, they would say, I'll just go into your photography because they knew that's what I was passionate about, and I let go of fear as soon as I challenged myself to do things out of my comfort zone, so if I didn't want to talk and I'd avoid things I would then go and do talk so for when cannon actually sponsor bee in the uk for a while and it's been really helpful with aa lot of things and I met frankie the contact I know they're said to me, I want you to do talk feli was probably two and a half years ago, so it wasn't that long and I said I was like, I don't want to do a talk, I'm not good at talking like this, I'm a photographer. I'm not I did not someone who teaches very well and he said to me, you can do it it's fine. So I remember had, like twenty pages of notes that I took to me and I standing behind my leg turn on the thing. I was kind of like this on my notes to run top, and I remember I was doing the talk and I was reading as I went and I was shaking and, you know, my family was in the audience and it was a tiny audience, but I was so scared and just putting myself into that, and I get so nervous before I speak, I start to get stomach pains and, you know, we all go through that that I used to stutter, and I used to get so scary is to cry but I've pushed for it and now I do talks all the time and I get so much joy out of pushing myself like that. So let go of fear because the thing is if people notice fear, then they'll start to be put off by it. If I go into a meeting and I am fearless, people will see that I want to be twenty four year old photographer that knows her shed and knows what I'm doing, I don't want to walk in there and go, please book me for your job and this is my work because automatically, they'll know I'm not going to work well with clients. When I worked with celebrities, I have to talk, I have to have a voice and I am very soft spoken and I will never get away from that, but I have to know how to talk to my team. So it's, so important to let go of that fear I have don't compete because me and sue even said we're so guilty of this every day, I'm always like that person didn't do a good tour because I'm trying to validate that I'm better than that. I always looking magazines I okay, I can do that. Why am I not doing that as I said before I compete we all want to compete it's in our blood that's what we want to do but you have to let go of that or turn that idea of competition into I'm gonna work on something new I'm gonna work on the next project when someone challenges me to something say like someone say it to me in a meeting you know your work isn't right for that I want to then go into a project that will challenge that so I want to prove to them that I am worth that I can be in your magazines but no, no I don't want to be in your magazine now because actually knew I could do it so that's what you have to do turn it into an idea if competition equals you want to do something good from it don't ever share online that you're angry about something or you want to be in competition or you don't like something okay for the next thing is to be open to collaboration because I have to give it to my teams and you saw erin you saw my models, he saw felix, they will make my images for me I am the person that stands and I have the idea and I pressed the shutter and know what I want but without all of those people around me, I wouldn't be able to create those images I have today, so be incredibly grateful for those people that help you one shoots my when I first ever started those bird cage images, when I started fine art when I was seventeen, the first people I work with I still bring them onto jobs. I still pay them if I get royalties from the book because I am grateful that they have been there for me, so be open to collaboration, get models, get hair stylist, get stylists and let them collaborate start with people that are atyour level and build with them, and don't forget people that helped you along the way and access to keep educating yourself because I'm also the last year or so after I did my last creative life, I made it a goal that my next one and this was a year ago, that I would be a better speaker, that I would be able to tell you technically what I do and why, and I knew it before, but I couldn't project it. I was too, with joint to project it, and I was scared of sharing that, so I educated myself, I have a studio in my apartment in new york. Andi, I simply I have lights bronco will really helpful to give any lights, but I still use natural light in my studio with simple reflect to ravi flat on I educate myself. The idea with the mirrors came from the artist problem reverse e on my chute on day one that I came across by educating myself on youtube, the skin retouching technique I remember, I suggest about the frequency separation I learnt that about two years ago from watching a youtube tutorial so never stop educating himself. You never going to know everything there is to know this is going to help you with your style and sharon engage as much as possible because I did used to be so scared about showing my work shown my techniques, but now I'm an open book and like, okay, you can learn this because you're always going to be one step ahead and creating something different anyway, once I've shot something, I'm already thinking about the next thing, even at the start, the shoot, I'm thinking, ah, what about this? And I'm already talking to my stylist about it. So sharon engage with the audience and that's also online as well on social media, engage them with what you're doing your personality, share your inspiration, share people know that inspire you network in kind of goes along the same way I have a great group of friends that I'm so grateful for in new york that actually live in the same building as me luckily enough we network constantly even if it's do you want to come over to my place and have a coffee or do you want to go over the road and get something to eat and you know we network constantly we go to networking event together and I'm never going to be that person that goes out to fashion parties and drinks and drinks truth I'm the girl that stays at home with the cats in the slippers believe it or not so networking is so important because it only takes one person to recommend you to someone else so think about how that opens a circle a swell and network in in events network in online I've met so many people free twitter model mayhem and they've all open doors for me as well and stay inspired and again thinking outside the box how do you guys stand by it you tell me what are the main ways in which you guys saved spying traveling and get outside of your comfort zone and meeting new people and new cultures yeah just completely different ideas bringing yeah anyone else wait yeah and working with assisting other photographers always push us to make a good one too like if I see a technique it pushes me to go home and try it and and into that? Yeah, that's a really good one assistant of photography's really helps people and be inspired, but to stay inspired, I look into movies, I go for a walk, suze probably the same as me. We go around like crazy text to lady oh, the sox cool or look at the clouds and my friends that aren't artist think I'm crazy, but I'm constantly thinking of ways and to do that, but we went to a restaurant yesterday with some of the creative live team, and, you know, it was that kind of old retro kind of place, and immediately I said to kenna, when I walked in, this will be perfect for a shoot, so I never stopped thinking I never stopped thinking about things and be honest, because things, if you're not honest with people, it eventually track you down, and my agent actually said this to me and this my older agent at my new york agency said to my younger one, it's always good, to be honest because someone will find out further down the line and it's so important, I am very honest with my friends and very honest with myself, I'm very familiar with myself, and I've got to know myself over the past few years just by becoming more confident with my work. And it's good to be honest with those around you, those people that collaborate with each other's makeup artist, those has silas be honest with them if you are doing a shoot that is paid, pay them something, even if it's five hundred dollars paid him fifty dollars and explained that it's important that you're honest with those around you, if you're selling images, make them aware of it, don't do things behind their back because people will find out and it will come back to bite you in the ass to you, okay, so that the next thing is have something to look forward to because I'm a big believer in to do lists and, you know, I'm usually got about ten little scribbled list around the house and probably like on my boyfriend's death that he hates and you know, I'm constantly reminding myself I need to do this this this is today, and I'm not angry at myself if I don't get them done, but I need mental remind us so that I don't go to sleep thinking about them, and I always put on the list like something I have to look forward to. So something I always look forward to is all plan a trip like a travel trip, and this is why I love teaching workshops because often it kind of gives me excuse to travel a swell so I always give myself something to look forward to in mainly and shoots because I am so passionate about my shoots on my tests in my personal work I always throw a shoot in there and go okay, so in two weeks I'm going to do the chute I'm gonna work towards it because you know we have a lot of downtime is artists we sit there and wait aston eight and we go um depressed I can't create today I'm not having a good day and I always have those days I have a bad hair day and it ruins the rest of my day so it's always important to have something to look forward to so it's a good reminder of that it's a few more stay active on social media and I'm guilty of this too with my blogger kind of neglected it and now I want to go back to it because the thing is your audience is going to engage with you and if you stop engaging with the audience than their get, you're gonna lose them and I found that a few of my older social media websites I wish you'd have kept up with that to stay active as possible this is going to know only inspire you're going to find out about other people you audience you know you can meet people you can network on social media and let other people help you because I am so guilty of wanting to do everything myself, I'm like, no, you can't retouch my work for me, that's, my baby that you can't do this and it's only been recently that over that retouch has come into my life and start taking it away from me, and often I'll just let them do one thing, and I'll still finish the images because I'm like, so scared that this is my thing and someone's going to come in and take it and even assistance. I have a hard time on set because, you know, I can't lift things I can't put up an octave box, I always on the floor and scrambling, and I haven't got the strength to put the thing in, and I have assistance in they're like, why did he do and let me do it for you and a merry might know I can do what I can do it and I can lift things and they have to come over and take things from me and stop it. But I feel guilty that they're helping me when it's my shoot, so I have to I had to let myself this year let people help me let people talk to me when I'm feeling down and that's a really good thing to remember let people around you help you on shoot and your personal life let people help you with giving criticism on your work because you're not going to know everything yourself and you can't do everything yourself on a few more shoot for love not for money obviously we all need to earn money but if you're not shooting for love then all you have is this blank canvas of work that's just how I got paid for that to pay my rent you have to have some passion behind you where we're all artists so when you're shooting something and it's you know you get a job offer in it's not really what you want to do in its pain well take it because it's the money but if someone saying to you can you shoot this clothing connection for me can you to retouch fifty images in a week and you know it's gonna come in on your personal time and you're getting pay five hundred dollars for it you say no because that's my personal time I'm gonna have a really hard time with you on set I know that you're going to expect more than fifty images from me and where is my retouching fee for that so it's important to know when to cut off jobs like that and went to take on um jobs that you love and said so I had a really bad shoot experience a few weeks ago and I weren't going to detail but I shot this story and I was you know, one set the whole day was really stressed in only my assistance no when I'm stressed cause around my team I'm like this fake, you know, not fake but I put on my persona because it's like an immediate professional kind of thing I do I did not go behind the v flat are all going to my bedroom on my shooting I sit there so my assistant comes they know I have a quick like gossip session about how someone's annoying me I don't calm and then I'll go out again and then I do it and it's and then after the shoot I remember sitting over wine and I was like, I'm really upset I was like, you know, crying I was like, that wasn't right I was not happy about that. So instead of getting really sad about it, I let myself crying get angry I then said, okay, we're going to do the chute next week let's put these ideas let's do something for love let's do something I've wanted to for a while and it was actually another gatsby she and I keep going on about gets b but it was actually with my stylist marisa and we sat down and I was like and it made me so happy that I could create and that I just had this horrible experience on set that I was making money from I'm one of them. The last things is to look back and remind myself because only recently and with thanks to this course because I haven't looked back in my old folders and hard drives forever, my last course, I even said it. I am ashamed to look back at my older I want to show you guys that I'm not this person anymore, but I went back into the folders on this course and I looked back and I said, actually, this wasn't so bad. Look at the contrast. From then, until now you can see the way that I've changed emotionally in the photographs, you can see my personality in the photographs and it's. So great to look back, even just work that's a few months old and see yourself grow as an artist. Okay, so that's the end of my twenty two steps. So if you remind yourself of toys every month, right yourself bliss and rich yourself is an artist so pushed, promote refresh every month. Ok, any questions from that yet? You contact our doctors, and I know we talked to shawn it yesterday you're sending in the pds, are you putting like one or two photos on there? Are you sending them like selling here? I would say as much as she put into a put on portfolio whatever's relevant for the companies. And now, if I did a book publishing company, I would put what's relevant to them. And I would say ten to fifteen images and no more because you don't want. And my agent says that's all the time. How rude that someone sent me like this ten megabyte or something. Pdf! Because I'm not going to spend the time to sit in a low that, and sometimes they'll be out on their phones and check things, and they won't open it. See, you wanted smallest possible any attachment. Seventy d p I, um, I always go for about seven hundred on the whips whenever I send photos. So they really small, so they just come up straight away.