Get Out Of My Head Jones!

"Keeping up with the Joneses."  It's a phrase we all know.  Unfortunately, lately, I feel like I know it to well.  Only it's a mind game with me... it's all in my head.

If you were to ask me if I cared what other people thought about me, I would tell you that I don't care.  I would tell you that I live my life how I believe I should (morals, values, religion, how I was raised, how I was educated, and past experiences produce how I "believe" I should live).  I would tell you that I am 100% happy with my life and I try not to compare my lives to others.

In all honesty, I know that's what I should say and I know that I shouldn't compare myself to others.  I know that I need to appreciate what I have and even be thankful for things I don't have.  (There are a lot of things to be thankful for that you DON'T have... like cancer and no family.)  The problem is that I know how I should feel and I know what to say, but do I believe it?

I've been constantly comparing parts of my life to other peoples lives.  I do it inside my head every day.  My photography business is the biggest culprit.  There are a million people who are professional photographers and there are millions of business.  I could sit all day and compare photography skill, business practices, prices and even what they are shooting with.  Quite frankly it drives me nuts.  It's not good, not at all.  Again, I KNOW that.

Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and all these social media outlets make me feel like I'm just checking in with the Joneses and comparing to see if what I'm doing that day is cooler than Mrs. Jones. Or if what I am making for dinner is healthier than what Mrs. Jones is doing... in her sparkling new kitchen, with her cute apron, her bleached white teeth, and the latest recipe from Sweet Paul magazine- in fact there is a photo of her on Instagram spreading a Demi-glaze on a succulent duck.  Dang!  I only made spaghetti.  I loose.

I know I should be happy with my spaghetti.  I used whole wheat pasta, venison Italian sausage that my husband made and store bought sauce.  What's wrong with that?  I know I should be happy that I have the funds to make spaghetti, I have the kitchen to cook it in and I even have a working digestive system to handle the load.  I KNOW!

How do you go from simply knowing to actually believing?  How do you let it all go?  How do you allow yourself to seriously. not. care. and to seriously. stop. comparing.  I feel like I have to live in a shack out in the middle of Montana with no TV or internet to get that feeling.

Don't even get me started on clothes.  I am constantly checking out what other women are wearing.  I keep thinking that I am out of style and my whole wardrobe needs to be burned.  So I take mental notes of what I see... okay that girl is wearing a longer shirt with leggings, boots and a scarf around her neck. Easy enough.  I try on the long shirt with leggings.  Crap!  It does not look the same.  It looks like I have no figure and it's extremely frumpy on me.  Maybe because that girl was 5 foot 9 and I'm... not! Scarfs?  Ya I think they are really cute- too bad it makes me look like I'm missing a very important piece of my body, my neck.

It could be worse.  I could be in complete denial and not be aware that I think this way.  I could be completely obsessed and have a credit card debt filled with dollars signs from boutiques and markets and spas.  I don't- Thank, God.  So I don't have the actual issue of physically trying to keep up with the Joneses.  It's just all in my head.  I've been trying to figure out a way to empty those thoughts in the trash can and have the garbage man haul them away tomorrow. (How convenient that tomorrow is my trash day.)  It's not happening though.  The thoughts are simply staying around- no matter how much I tell them their dumb, go away.

So- I don't have a solution, or a game plan or a goal.  I guess I simply wanted to write this out, acknowledge that I have a mental-Joneses-problem... and maybe, just maybe it will go away on it's own.  Hmmm. Suggestions, anyone?

Matthew 6:19-20 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Style- Part I

Believe it or not I am up late again waiting on something...not a television show this time though.  I am actually waiting on my dishwasher to finish. No, not to dry them and put them away.  I'd be warm in my sheets right now if that was the case.  I need a certain dish to put my turkey/bean chili in for lunch tomorrow.  I know what your thinking... why didn't I put on my 50's underpants and wash the dish by hand?  That's actually a good question.  A very good question.  And to be honest I guess I didn't think about that until I started telling you that I'm waiting on my dishwasher.  Maybe subconsciously I wanted to waste time on the web again.  I did play with Pinterest, geesh!  And now here I am blogging again.  I'm seeing a trend.

So what's on the docket tonight?  More regrets?  No sir.  Something totally different and yet I guess you could say it's still part of "figuring oneself out," which I am sure understanding your regrets falls into that category as well.

Style: "a particular kind, sort or type, as with reference to form, appearance or character."

Style and branding are the two things on my mind tonight.  I have a feeling that I will use my personal blog to explore this so that I can apply it to my professional life and photography business.  Let's face it- I can't discuss what type of photography style or what my "brand" is all about on my photo blog.  My clients would wonder what in the world I'm doing.  You're probably wondering what in the world I'm doing too.  I mean if you know me at all you know that I've had a photography business for years now.  So why would I concern myself with style and branding right now?  Well basically because I did my photography business back-asswards!  I had a photojournalism degree...skipped town and headed off to the West Coast and somehow got involved with wedding photography...which turned into portrait photography...which led shortly to sport photography (what?)... and then finally I landed with a business called "Capturing Grace Photography" where if you go to my website you'll see that I literally have 6 different portfolios (weddings, families, engagements, seniors, editorial, landscapes.)

So you're thinking that this is where I tell you that I have narrowed down my photography and that I will only be shooting ______________.   Wrong.

I made my own quote up the other night (I hope it becomes famous one day- like where you'll see it painted on weird wood and then you'll see a photo of it and then people will pin it. ya.)  ...Damn.  I don't think I can remember it now.  Okay... I don't remember the first quote, but I do remember what I ended up with (I geared it more towards my actual website/business.) "My passion is photography, my focus is you."  In other words I don't want to JUST be a wedding photographer.  But, at that moment, when I am shooting a wedding that's what I want to be focused on, you, my client.  I don't want to JUST photograph families, but you better believe that when I am that I will be passionate about them.

I get why I am suppose to have a focus, a style, a brand.  I get that if I focused on one genre of photography that I might have quicker success.  (Who wants fast success? I love having two side jobs. That was an ironic joke, just in case you missed that.)  But quite frankly, I don't care.  Because my passion is truly photography.  Photography is complex, it's involved, it has genres and each genre has a category and each category has a style and each style has different manipulations.  I love it all.  I love landscapes- like mountain photos that you say "wow" when you see it.  I love black and white prints.  I love "art" photography even if it's weird. I love Polaroids.  I love people.  Hell, I even like animal photography.  I could do with out kittens and go more towards Polar Bears and Moose though. I don't stop into a lot of art galleries unless they have photographs.  I don't buy books that have horrible images on the front covers.  I can't handle seeing empty frames in people's houses.  In fact when I do, I offer up one of my photographs to fill it until they print whatever was suppose to go in that frame.  I love photography.  So with all that said, I'm not going to fill in that blank.

I am however, going to narrow it down a little.  So here is my large "focus."  People & Places.  I know, I know, that covers a lot.  But- I did leave out Things. I will not do product or commercial photography.  When I speak of "Editorial" photography, to me that does not include commercial.  Although in the large scheme of things commercial could be listed under Editorial.  I still am not going to do commercial photos or products.  Editorial, to me, means that it's going to publish in something tangible that people read, like magazines.

People: engagements/weddings and families.  Notice anything?  I dropped senior portraits.  I like doing them, but let's face it, I'm not a studio.  I don't get a lot of business doing seniors and even though there are some cool kids out there that want unique shots from an on-site location session...their parents don't.   lol.  That might not really be the case.  However I think weddings, engagements and families are enough to fill that love for people photography.

Places: I will never not photograph landscapes or "pretty pictures."  It's what got me into photography and it's what I'll die doing.

Editorial is a combination of both people and places.  (That's probably why it's my favorite.) So I am trying to focus a lot on the editorial side of photography right now.  Keeping fingers crossed and knees to the ground that some more magazines (like 1859) ask me to photograph for them.

PHEW!  I actually went off track a little.  I thought I would talk more about my actual photography style- I even picked out words and phrases and all sorts of random crap to share.  But atlas my dishwasher is done and I need to hit the sheets.  I guess this was good because I finalized what type of photography I will focus on.  My next blog post I can wrap my head around my actual "style" that I will do/use.  Until next time...

Skipping,
Aubrie

The Book is always Better

I'll read novels from time to time that are tied into the theatre.  I will admit that I love finding movies that were first a best seller then I have my own challenge and tell myself that I can't see the movie until I finish the book.  The book is always better.  Way better.  

It's funny how books are 100 times more descriptive and yet so simple.  For instance, I read Eat. Pray. Love. by Elizabeth Gilbert a few weeks ago and I just finished watching the movie tonight.   The movie moved so fast that you didn't get to take in all she actually experienced.  The Ashram, in my mind when I pictured it, was so delicate and open...spacious.  There was no ladder on the roof top where she forgave herself, there was just a beautiful white building with a deep blue sky and God.  The movie added too many distractions and was missing all the little stories that made the book a novel.  

So to re-live a few moments from the book I thought I would type-out some of my favorite quotes/stories from the printed version of Eat. Pray. Love.  I'll have to add a disclaimer here.  I do follow a Christian belief and that is my personal God.  No, I am not going to visit a Ashram or become a Yogi.  I like these quotes because it either made me think, laugh or I just simply enjoyed her writing.  

Eat (Italy):

 

"Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure.  Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one.  Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to theme parks to wars, but that's not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment.  Americans work harder and longer and more stressful hours than anyone in the world today... Alarming statistics show that many Americans feel more happy and fulfilled in their offices than they do in their own homes... Americans don't really know how to do nothing.  This is the cause of the great sad American stereotype- the overstressed executive who goes on vacation, but who cannot relax.  Italians are the masters of 'il bel far niente.' This is a sweet expression. Il bel far niente means "the beauty of doing nothing." 

Pray (India):

" Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death.  Time- when pursued like a bandit- will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing it's name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you.  At some point you have to stop because it won't.  You have to admit that you can't catch it.  That your not supposed to catch it.  At some point, you gotta let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you." 

(There was a story about how people at this Ashram had to tie a Saint's cat to a pole while they meditated because it was so loud and annoying.  After it died they didn't know what to do or how to pray because they thought they needed to tie a cat to the pole first in order to meditate.) ...

"Be careful, warns this tale, not to get too obsessed with the repetition of religious ritual just for it's own sake.  Especially in this divided world, where the Taliban and the Christian Coalition continue to fight out their international trademark war over who owns the rights to the word God and who has the proper rituals to reach that God, it may be useful to remember that it is not the tying of the cat to the pole that has ever brought anyone transcendence, but only the constant desire of an individual seeker to experience the eternal compassion of the divine.  Flexibility is just as essential for divinity as is discipline." 

Love (Indonesia): 

"The Yogic sages say that all the pain of a human life is caused by words, as is all the joy.  We create words to define our experience and those words bring attendant emotions that jerk us around like dogs on a leash.  We get seduced by our own mantras 'I'm a failure... I'm lonely... I'm a failure...I'm lonely... and we become monuments to them.  To stop talking for a while, then, is to attempt to strip away the power of words, to stop choking ourselves with words, to liberate ourselves from suffocation mantras."