Can we just be drama-free for a second, while I offer a suggestion?

Let’s stop. Let’s forget mud-slinging and name-calling.  They’re not doing anyone any good.  Being mean and hurtful won’t get anyone’s money back.

Let’s agree to live life with cash — meaning, if that $750+ workshop is awful, it won’t mean more credit card debt.  Just chalking one up to experience.

Let’s stop relying on one person, event, day, or workshop to reveal our own vision to us. You find vision, refine your style, and generally learn more about yourself by stepping into the world with your camera.  Not your camera and a mentor and 22 workshop attendees.   Your vision lives in the part of you that is quiet and still, the part that cannot be denied or manipulated and that does not respond to seeing x or y photographer in person any more or less than it responds to a sunset.

Let’s stop copying one set of post-processing tricks, ideas, or tips to get to a better end product in our photography.

Let’s explore on our own, innovate, and stop consuming blogs like they’re going to make us anything but prone to copy-cat-edness.

Let’s remember that photography is precious and powerful.

For an example, watch this video:

The photography of Jonathan Canlas, the funeral of Natalie Norton‘s baby son, Gavin.  I dare you to be worried about who said what about whom after watching.

Let’s forget the drama and let our work — and our lives — shine.

For the record, I still heart workshops and learning.  I’m attending Jonathan’s Park City workshop in October.  And I paid cash.

Want to read it on the blog? FOR THE RECORD

Three easy steps can take you a long way when (re)defining your brand:

1.) Ignore your industry for two weeks.

Yes, I know you blogstalk this wedding designer, that public relations firm, or those photographers, but that’s terribly limiting.  If you’re only drawing inspiration from those inside your industry, you’re more likely to come up with a copycat design.  If, however, you manage to turn an episode of Gilligan’s Island fashion into a new website concept, I’m guessing you’ll be labeled brilliant and original.

You’ll find that those two weeks provide startling clarity, and time for your voice, your likes, and your dislikes — the ones you’ve been ignoring because you needed to ‘feel the pulse of the industry’ or ‘keep up with the Joneses.’  What if you HATE the look of x that’s in fashion right now?  (Hammer pants, anyone?) This leads to…

2.) Give yourself permission to be you.

Yep, it’s been said a million times by all the experts, and with good reason.  If, as a clothing designer, you whip up 15 red garments for your Spring line but ABHOR the color red, your work isn’t going to be all that and a bag of chips.  Embrace your love of magenta, of shooting Polaroids, of working through 4 a.m. three nights a week.  Give it up for authenticity, people!

3.) Collect objects that speak to you.

If you can’t afford to go onto Etsy and buy every single item that inspires you (hey, if  you have an extra $6.2 million lying around, go for it), buy just one.  If you can’t afford one, bookmark that bad boy and then make a list of what it is about this object that draws you in and speaks to you.

Collect five of these objects — these utterly you, utterly awesome objects — and in the descriptions of why these items sing your name, you’ll find some substance for your brand design.  I promise.

That’s it for today, honeys: ignore your industry. Get inspired. Collect objects.  And let me know how it goes, of course.

Want to read it on the blog? FABULOUS INSPIRATION BUILDS FABULOUS BRANDS.