Freedom Focus Formula
Dial in your Style
17:56
Dial in your Style
IN THIS EPISODE:
#093 - Finding your style as a photographer doesn't happen overnight. I was six or seven years into my photography career before landing on a "signature look"—and that was after many whispers of the devilish voice in my head, saying you're just not creative!
Sound familiar? Well, to all those nay-saying voices out there, I say pfffffft. If you were born human, you were born with an innate sense of creativity. And in this episode, I talk about how to approach putting your own unique stamp on your pet photography.
What To Listen For:
- How (and why) to ethically copy other photographers' work
- The worst idea that most pet photographers have š
- An irresistible rabbit hole to explore—with one major limitation!
- What I mean by "the curse of the artist"
- The thing we often get backwards (and what to do about it)
Think of the exercise I share this week as productive procrastination—so enjoyable that it feels like cheating to even call it work!
Resources From This Episode:
- Connect with us on Instagram and YouTube.
- Explore valuable pet photography resources here
- Discover effective pricing and sales strategies for all portrait photographers.
- Ready to grow your business? Elevate helps you do just that.
- Check out our recommended gear and favorite books.
Full Transcript ›
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Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast.
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I'm Nicole Begley.
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And today we are talking all about style.
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So stay tuned.
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Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast.
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If you're a pet photographer,
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ready to make more money and start living a life by
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your design,
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you've come to the right place.
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And now your host,
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pet photographer,
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travel addict,
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chocolate martini connoisseur,
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Nicole Begley.
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Hey everybody.
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Welcome back to the hair of the dog podcast.
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I'm your host,
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Nicole Begley.
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And today we are talking about dialing in your style.
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Now style is one of those things that is wow,
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just overwhelming.
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I think a lot of times we get into pet photography
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because we love photographing animals or dogs or horses or whatever
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we're photographing.
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And we see other things that we love and we're like,
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oh man,
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I wish I could create work just like that too,
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but we're not sure how to start to get there.
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And then we're really completely lost at how we can ever
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possibly create our own style.
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So what happens is a lot of people end up copying
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whatever the most popular types of work in the industry are
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at that particular time,
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which is really kind of a bummer because we all have
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something amazing to share inside of us.
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And one of the reasons I believe strongly that if we
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have this desire to learn animal photography,
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then we have a unique voice that wants to come out
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in our animal photography as well.
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But often we just don't know how to do that.
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And quite frankly,
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you can't really come out of the gate with your own
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style because we have to actually build our style in foundational
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kind of foundational way.
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And if you look at any artist,
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I'm pretty sure they didn't just pick up a paintbrush or
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pick up a hunk of clay and throw it down on
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the Potter's wheel.
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And then all of a sudden start creating this amazing unique
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work, right?
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It's always a journey.
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It's always a process.
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Animal photography is absolutely no difference in that.
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We start in one area with,
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you know,
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none of us were born knowing how to use a camera.
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None of us were born knowing any sort of artistic rules
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or, you know,
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what any of these composition rules and things like that.
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These are all things we learned as we went.
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And so we,
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we all have to follow that same path.
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So I wanted to record this episode today to kind of
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give you a little bit of the path forward and kind
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of explain a little bit about how this style evolution usually
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goes. Because I don't know for me,
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I know it took a good six or seven years until
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I finally found my style.
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So I don't want you to think this is going to
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be a quick,
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overnight process.
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It takes some time,
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but there's a lot of minefields.
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We can kind of step in along the way.
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So I want to help steer you away from those.
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So let's talk briefly about what this process usually looks like.
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If you're starting out very,
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very new in the world of pet photography,
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and you're just getting out there and you're looking around and
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seeing work that you love.
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And you're like,
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man, I would love to create something like that.
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So how do we get started doing that?
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And that usually is by copying,
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right? We're like,
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oh, I like that.
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I want to create that.
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I try to make that.
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And you know,
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there is a place I believe in the world of learning
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for copying,
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but there is not a place in the world of photography
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or really any artist John rhe for copying and then sharing
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as your own.
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So let me explain how that the difference of this could
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be the difference is when we're starting out,
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we see something that we like.
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What I recommend you do is to say,
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oh, I like that.
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Let me try to create it for my own education.
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And it's not me trying to create this thing that somebody
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else created and then sharing,
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oh, look what I did.
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Look what I did because that is where it starts to
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cross the line.
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And that is what happens when everybody sees this one or
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two types of work and they all try to pile on
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and do the same exact thing.
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And then all of a sudden the entire industry,
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everybody's creating the same thing.
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And it's just not really unique.
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And I know you have more of unique voice in you.
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So what I recommend you doing is finding these different techniques
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and learning this technique and then breaking down this technique and
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breaking down that technique and,
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and learn to create,
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to replicate a photograph so you can learn the technique,
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but it's for learning.
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And then that replication stays on your computer and it's not
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being shared.
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Or if you're sharing,
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you can say,
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oh, I'm,
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you know,
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practicing the technique.
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I was inspired by.
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So-and-so like,
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just give some credit.
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But then this is where the magic is.
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And this is what's really important is that as you learn
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different techniques,
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then you can start mixing and matching these different techniques so
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that you are starting to create something unique.
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This is the place that a lot of people don't necessarily
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get to,
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but you know what?
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All the people in the industry that I have seen that
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have found lots of success,
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oh, they've all gotten to that point.
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So if you want to find success,
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I believe it is 100% imperative that you start to find
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some, you know,
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start to find a unique spin to your work and how
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we can start to do that.
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Like I said,
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we do that by breaking things down.
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Like that's how we learn.
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We learn by copying as a kid,
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you learn by saying what your mom said.
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Like we say truck tree,
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you know,
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we point out all these things because our parents are doing
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the same thing.
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We're copying what they're doing.
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We're copying what they say.
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We're looking at what they say,
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what they point to.
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And we're saying the same word.
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That is how we learn.
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We also learn by someone,
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you know,
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we see everybody walking,
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we start to learn how to walk.
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You know,
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it's just,
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it's repetition and it's doing something that's already done before.
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So that is just the learning process.
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But as soon as we have learned that process,
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then it is time to start to make it our own.
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Now, one of my favorite exercises for starting to kind of
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deep dive into what you actually love,
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like what you might,
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I'd actually be drawn to,
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you know,
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the, the work that might make your heart sing,
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that you don't even know it yet.
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You, you probably have no idea because we tend to look
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for inspiration in the same genre that we're shooting.
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And I think that is one,
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one of the most challenging worst ideas we can have is
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looking for our inspiration in the same genre that we are
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photographing. Instead,
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this is my homework for you from this episode,
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please, please,
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please. I can't tell you how many people have done this
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exercise and how many people have come back to me and
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said, oh my gosh,
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Nicole, this was so eyeopening.
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What I want you to do is I want you to
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go to Pinterest.
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You can go really anywhere where there's a lot of imagery,
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but Pinterest is a great place to do this.
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Create yourself a little board.
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It can be a secret board.
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You don't have to share it with anybody.
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And then I want you to start pinning images.
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You love here's the catch,
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absolutely zero animal or pet photographs on that board.
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I want you to pin other work that inspires you.
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Other types of things,
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photography, you can search wedding photography,
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high school,
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senior photography,
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fashion photography,
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commercial photography,
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you know,
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Photoshop, painting,
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Photoshop, composite,
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and like just look for different things.
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You can also search happy photography,
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moody photography,
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high key,
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low key studio photography on location,
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photography, flash photography,
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natural light photography.
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Start looking for all of these different kind of things.
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Just start searching landscape photography,
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fine art,
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photography. I mean,
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pick any adjective and put it in there and start searching.
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And then when you see things to catch your eye,
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just start pinning.
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Don't give it any thought,
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just start pinning,
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all the ones that catch your eye.
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And I would do this too.
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You have at least 20.
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I mean,
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it's a pretty fun rabbit hole.
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So stay down there for a bit and maybe get 30
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or 40 different images.
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And then you'll have all of these images and you can
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go ahead back to that Pinterest board,
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bring them up on a big screen.
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Look at them all and ask yourself,
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where are the commonalities amongst all of these images?
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Like, what am I drawn to?
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Is it a use of color?
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Is it a certain type of light?
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Is it a wide angle,
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feel a more like artistic or shallow depth of field feel?
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Is it the storytelling?
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Is it negative space?
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Is it,
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you know,
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whatever a certain color palette start to look at the commonality
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of the different images that you pinned.
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And that is going to give you a little bit of
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a glimpse into where you might want to start taking your
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work and where you might want to explore new techniques.
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And then you can look for places to learn those techniques.
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And the academy,
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we have guests,
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artists, we have lots of different editing tutorials on YouTube.
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There is a world of different editing tutorials you can explore
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or shooting tutorials,
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you know,
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just start finding different ways to learn some of those individual
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pieces. So maybe look at that big group,
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pick out three or four common traits and then learn those
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individual tasks,
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like learn those individual,
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you know,
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the, the techniques for how to do them.
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And then can you start mixing and matching those techniques and
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creating something completely unique?
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What other ideas do you have?
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Can you keep a little notebook where you jot ideas?
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I have a Trello board when I have just like random
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ideas for random interesting either techniques or really like composites or
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print and competition images,
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or just different things that I just kind of jot down
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there because here's the truth.
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I used to tell myself that I'm not creative for a
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long time,
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probably until about four years ago.
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It was,
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you know,
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Hey, I'm Nicole.
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I'm really good at business.
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I'm really good at the business of photography.
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And I do believe that if we are going to have
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a business,
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we all need to be business people first.
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However, I would then not feel secure in my artistic ability
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or my creativity,
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because I felt like I just was never really creative.
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And I think a lot of us can feel that way
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because we were all born creative,
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right? Like when you're in kindergarten and preschool,
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you're just taking the colors.
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You're smearing them all over the place.
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There is no part of us that is second guessing,
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our creativity we loved to create,
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but then something happens as we grow up.
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Whether it's an offhanded comment,
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you know,
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not on purpose,
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not malicious from a parent or a teacher telling us to,
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you know,
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focus on something more practical or artists don't make any money
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or, you know,
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whatever. It could be.
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Just this one little tiny offhanded comment that didn't even mean
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anything from like an aunt when you were three,
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could have totally changed the trajectory of your self thoughts with
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your creativity or how creative you think you are.
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But here's the truth.
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We're all born creative and creativity is not something we have
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or don't have.
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It's something that we all have inside of us,
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but it has been pushed down in many of us.
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So the best way to start to bring it back is
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to create is to practice is brainstorm is to go down
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this Pinterest rabbit hole of finding things that inspire you.
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And then you can start to reclaim that creativity again.
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So this is part,
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two of your homework is to have,
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and it could just be that same pincher sport or another
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one just to have a place or a Trello board or
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a physical notebook,
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or you can keep ideas for things that you want to
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do in your photography.
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And, you know,
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every stall once a month,
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at least once a quarter go out and try something new
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because it's really,
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really easy to get in a rut of doing the same
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thing again and again,
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and then just,
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you know,
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getting really comfortable with it and not continuing to push the
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envelope. That's one thing that I actually really enjoy about print
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competition is it's not about competing with other people,
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but it's actually about pushing ourselves to create something new,
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to create something better,
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to improve what we have done in the past.
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So just find a motivation,
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a way to continue to practice that creativity.
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And I promise you that creativity will continue to grow.
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One other thing I want to talk about before we go,
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and that is really the curse of the artist.
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And I hear so many photographers telling me that they're not
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creative, their work stinks.
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It'll never be where it needs to be.
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And I look at it and I'm like,
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Hmm, this is pretty darn good work.
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I don't know what you're looking at.
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Do you have eyes?
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Because my eyes say this is lovely,
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but as creatives,
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we tend to be hardest on ourselves and it can be
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pretty challenging sometimes to kind of get past that.
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So one of the easiest ways to do that,
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of course,
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just keep on creating and then just know,
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give yourself permission that,
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you know,
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not everything has to be perfect.
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Cause I think that happens a lot too,
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where we're scared to try something new because it might not
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work out.
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It might not end up as we had hoped it would
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so that we just don't try because we don't want to
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fail. But what is failure?
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I mean,
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it's just learning.
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I mean,
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yeah. It,
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it, every time you try something new,
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you're going to usually take a few times to start to
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perfect it and start to get better at it.
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So if you start doing that now,
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then you will reach that mastery level faster and just know,
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just know those feelings of self doubt,
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those feelings of,
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oh my gosh,
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I'm not cut out for this.
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I don't know if I can do this.
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Those are normal.
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And we all have those and we all go through them
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and you know,
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you're not alone there.
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So I think one of the biggest ways to combat that
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is just get back out there and start creating.
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And also sometimes you can't wait for the motivation to come
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because I think this is a fallacy too,
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where people wait for motivation.
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They're like,
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well, I'm not motivated to create,
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but what if let us,
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that's actually backwards?
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What if once you get out and you start creating whether
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you feel motivated by it or not,
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but you'd get out and do it.
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What if that causes you then to feel the motivation?
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What if getting out there and doing the creativity,
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just getting started,
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putting one foot in front of the other is actually what
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leads to our motivation.
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Cause I know I found that to be true quite a
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bit. So that's my homework for you this week,
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guys. It is to go ahead,
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make that Pinterest board find different things in inspire you that
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are not pet photography and then go and try some new
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things. And if you're very early in your journey and you're
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still learning those basics,
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you know,
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it's okay to break down an image that you love to
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learn the technique for.
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Remember then to keep learning other techniques.
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So you can start mixing your techniques together and you start
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to create something that's incredibly you and unique and amazing.
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And gosh,
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we would just love to see it.
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So I would love to know if you guys have any
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breakthroughs from this.
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If you guys do that Pinterest exercise,
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let me know what you find out.
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You can let me know on Instagram at hair of the
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00:15:58,880 --> 00:15:59,840
dog academy,
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00:15:59,900 --> 00:16:02,450
or you can let us know in our Facebook group and
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our podcast community.
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00:16:03,830 --> 00:16:04,300
If you will,
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00:16:04,320 --> 00:16:07,250
to go to hair of the dog academy.com/fb
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00:16:07,250 --> 00:16:08,600
group, it'll take you there.
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00:16:08,660 --> 00:16:11,030
But I would love to know what takeaways you guys have
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from this week.
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00:16:12,020 --> 00:16:13,760
I'm going to keep it quick so you can go spend
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00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:15,200
more time on Pinterest,
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00:16:15,290 --> 00:16:16,250
happy pinning,
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00:16:17,030 --> 00:16:18,320
enjoy that rabbit hole.
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00:16:18,680 --> 00:16:20,690
And I will talk to you guys next week.
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00:16:20,930 --> 00:16:21,530
Have a good one.
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00:16:21,530 --> 00:16:25,310
Everybody. If you enjoy this podcast episode,
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00:16:25,310 --> 00:16:28,730
go ahead and take a screenshot of this episode on your
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00:16:28,730 --> 00:16:31,970
phone and post it up there on your Instagram stories and
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00:16:31,970 --> 00:16:35,480
be sure to tag us at hair of the dog academy.
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00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:39,140
And we would just love to see how you're listening and
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00:16:39,140 --> 00:16:40,280
a full disclosure.
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00:16:40,400 --> 00:16:43,850
Sometimes we just like to give away a little pet photographer,
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00:16:43,850 --> 00:16:47,690
swag in the form of hair of the dog t-shirts and
443
00:16:47,690 --> 00:16:50,270
sweatshirts. So what are you waiting for?
444
00:16:50,300 --> 00:16:53,390
Go ahead and share that screenshot of this episode.
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00:16:53,660 --> 00:16:55,520
And don't forget to tag us at Hare,
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00:16:55,520 --> 00:16:56,330
the dog academy.
447
00:16:56,570 --> 00:16:57,590
And while you're there,
448
00:16:57,620 --> 00:16:59,900
maybe you want to jump on over to our account and
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00:16:59,900 --> 00:17:02,870
see what we're up to on the gram would love to
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00:17:02,870 --> 00:17:03,590
connect with you.
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00:17:04,520 --> 00:17:06,800
Thanks for listening to the hair of the dog podcast.
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00:17:06,800 --> 00:17:08,870
If you want to check out the show notes for access
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00:17:08,870 --> 00:17:11,090
to any of the links that we shared in this episode,
454
00:17:11,390 --> 00:17:13,670
as well as any additional related resources,
455
00:17:13,910 --> 00:17:18,530
simply go to www.hairofthedogacademy.com/
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00:17:18,530 --> 00:17:20,330
93. Once again,
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00:17:20,330 --> 00:17:24,500
that's www.hairofthedogacademy.com/the
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00:17:24,500 --> 00:17:25,940
number nine and the number three.
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00:17:27,040 --> 00:17:30,010
Thanks for listening to this episode of hair of the dog
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00:17:30,040 --> 00:17:32,470
podcast. If you enjoyed this show,
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00:17:32,530 --> 00:17:34,240
please take a minute to leave a review.
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00:17:34,450 --> 00:17:35,350
And while you're there,
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00:17:35,440 --> 00:17:36,850
don't forget to subscribe.
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00:17:36,880 --> 00:17:39,100
So you don't miss our upcoming episodes.
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00:17:39,610 --> 00:17:40,360
One last thing,
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if you are ready to dive into more resources,
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00:17:43,690 --> 00:17:49,090
head over to our [email protected].
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00:17:49,420 --> 00:17:52,630
Thanks for being a part of this pet photography community.
Welcome!
I'm Nicole and I help portrait photographers to stop competing on price, sell without feeling pushy, and consistently increase sales to $2,000+ per session - which is the fastest path to a 6-figure business. My goal is to help you build a thriving business you love while earning the income you deserve.
