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Working Through Doubt Part 2

Lesson 30 from: Photographing Kids

Shannon Sewell

Working Through Doubt Part 2

Lesson 30 from: Photographing Kids

Shannon Sewell

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Lesson Info

30. Working Through Doubt Part 2

Next Lesson: Call to Action

Lesson Info

Working Through Doubt Part 2

I believe I finished the support section. Uh, that was basically, you know, just the whole friend friend, friend, or it was all right. And, um, and remembering that you need to support yourself too. So make sure you take time for that. Um, comparison is the next thing that I want to talk about. It's very easy to do when you're an industry where people are doing similar things to what, uh, you're doing. It's very easy toe. Look at what they're doing and be like, Oh, they did that better. Or how come I didn't think of that? Um, comparison is a horrible, horrible monster. Um, things like Facebook and instagram. While they can be great ways to interact and end inspiring, they can also be a false inspiration that you go there cause you think that you're trying to connect with your community. You think that you're trying to, like, get inspired by looking at all these other people doing things you want to be doing. But I think if you find that instead of walking away excited, you're walking a...

way feeling defeated, that it's time to maybe check how much time your spending or how much you know, you're focusing on other people's pages instead of your own there. Several years ago, I finally cut virtually all photographers out of the blocks that I look at on a rate that come into my feet on a regular basis. And it was there's a few reasons for that. I mean, one was the fact that it would be if I was already in a position where I was feeling like, Oh, everybody else is having fun or everybody else is getting these great jobs. It kind of reinforces those feeling, which isn't the greatest thing, but it's also I found for me I would get bomb. Sometimes I would think of like I have this created Eon wanted like, you know. So just for example, I was finding like I would come up because I keep my ideas and sometimes I'll have an idea and I'll start working on it. And maybe I don't actually do it for three months, six months, whatever. And I might have one that I've been like thinking about wanting, and often something would pop up and I would see someone did that exact, like concept or whatever, and it just make It's like the balloon just and all of sudden it's not exciting. More so for me personally, it was much easier for me to just like take that out. And then that way, if I want to go look, I still know the people that inspire me and I can jump on there and take a look. And, you know, I still get stuff because I follow People's Facebook page. So I still see stuff, but it just wasn't that daily where it's in urine, and I'm a very type a person. So if, like, emails, log feeds everything, I need to check everything off like I like to have everything zeroed, Um, so I would look at it all, even if I probably shouldn't be. So That's one thing to kind of think about if you, you know, if you find yourself getting that way, close the window, walk away. Um, and also it's putting. I think it helps put the focus on the wrong person. In all of this, the focus really should be you. And when you start, I wouldn't want to say obsessed thing that you start really like thinking about all these other people and what they're doing. Really, All that enter. If you're using that same amount of energy to turn around and use that energy to push, you know what you feel like, What you feel like you should be doing much will spend. So, um, one way to think about that, I think is instead of if you find yourself like looking at things and being like, I wish that I would have thought that or I wish I would have had that proper I wish I had models like that take, I wish out of your boat vocabulary and instead replace it with things like, I'm proud that I can do this or I'm happy that, you know, I do have this great model, right? So just try and restructure the way that you self talk. So instead of always though, you know, I wish it's more of like I'm happy that or I'm grateful for I have these things and I think it it helps, um, kind of just switch that little, you know, such that little focus spot in your brain toe. Be more positive and proactive in your own in your own business. And another thing that I found special. I was first starting out, and I wasn't, like, super secure in my gear. And what I used was that following other people on seeing the stuff they use. I always felt like I needed more like, Oh, they got that shot with that lens. I need that once. If I had that piece of equipment, I would be just I would I would be that good and honestly, more stuff doesn't bring you more happiness like I didn't buy those things. And then, like the next day, it was all perfect. And I had everything I wanted in the world. Most times you buy the stuff and you're excited for the day, and then it just becomes part of your stuff. So, um, really focused on being using what you have to make to make the best product you can out of it, And that is with you know, your gear. I've even suggested, and I've even tried, like with my 35. It's not my favorite ones, but there's been times that I've only put that on my camera and taking it out just to see can I push it to do the things Maybe I can make it work better. And it's fun. Like toe. Look at that picture. Really? You know, when I could be getting a little bit closer and getting word that look that I love with that lens. So maybe before you think that you need that next new product or that next new thing actually use your own gear in a way that, like, makes you use it to its fullest potential. Um, and also, yeah, I kind of talked about that already, but just the fact that we're always comparing everyone else is a realtor RB riel. Of course, you're not gonna put your bad stuff out there for the world to see. So and we see are bad stuff. So it's really not a fair comparison, even if you are trying to compare, Um, so that's just something to keep in mind. Okay. So sorry. I was gonna make sure that yes, so are last and forth. His failure, failure, failure, failure. That's, um, something I know. I am a perfectionist. I don't like to fail. And many times through my life, I didn't even try things that I thought that there could have been a good possibility that I might fail. It kept me from trying things. Um, as I've gotten older, I've gotten a little more. Okay, I guess because I've failed enough times now and seeing that like nothing catastrophic has come of it. People didn't like Sean me. I didn't know the world didn't end. It was actually OK, um, and honestly, failing repeat after me failing is not that it's not about, um it's actually quite a good thing in that fact that it's it's showing yourself that you're pushing yourself to your house limits, and that's really the way you're gonna grow the fastest and strongest. Um, it's a great way to learn fine tuning. Its a great way to see. I mean, that's why people that are 10 years in can do think easier than people are one year, and they've had all those failures behind them. And they've learned what works, what doesn't. And it gets you to that place where you could be in the zone and, you know, this is gonna work. This is gonna work. This is gonna work, and then you can try those bigger things with, ah, higher success rate. Um, did we get how to pronounce his name. The Yes, you would help me on that. It's pronounced JIA JIA JIA young. I believe it was a Ted talk. I was watching and he gets up there and he starts talking about, you know, went to school. Had this great, you know, six figure a year job. He had everything you could want a wife, house, the cars. Um, but he wasn't happy. And he's talking to his wife about it, and they decided that, um she told him she would give him six months to do you quit your job. You have six months to go out and find what makes you happy. Don't find what your passion is. So he quit his job and he developed an idea. I'm not. I'm not recalling what the idea was or if he even shared and, like, four months and he thinks he has a backer. He thinks it's going to be a success. And he gets a phone call. And the backer was like, No, not interested. So he goes home, tell his wife I'm done. It didn't work and which I think is amazing. She says to my baby six months, I didn't give you for. So he decided to start Googling, I guess. Rejection, because that's where he was. He had just been huge rejection. He thought it was done. So Google injection and comes up upon rejection therapy. And basically, he decided from that rejection from his reading on reductions there therapy. He was going to 100 days of rejection. So each day he was gonna ask something that should be rejected. So, like examples he gave was he knocked on a stranger's door in his soccer gear with a soccer ball and said, Can I play soccer in your backyard? The guy says Yes, but it's like story after story. 100 days he got to drive a cop car. He got to fly a plane like all of these things that should be knows. Can I do a few more? Yeah. Do you have more? They're so great. He borrowed 100. He just borrowed $100 from from a stranger. He sent stuff to Santa Claus through FedEx. He took unregistered exams. He gave $5 5 random people. He was alive mannequin at Abercrombie. Yeah, but it's just like it. Maybe you should look up the ted dot because he and the way he tells the story, he's so great and animated. And you just feel like because he started where we're all starting, where we're so afraid to get that No and what he learned through it. Waas Who cares if you get that no, like five times? Because 95 times. Look what? That Yes, for all you like. It's amazing and I've I've taken that on I mean through the years with what? Ideo. I have to approach a lot of people for help, whether it's locations or clothing lines or strangers in the mall that I think there kid is really cute and totally fits like this vision I have for a shoot coming up. And I have to go up and, like, try not to act like a weird stalker and ask if they want, like, pictures of their child for free. Um, you know, the more times I did it, people aren't mean. I mean, I've had people that have been like, Oh, yeah and then just never called. But that didn't hurt, like, cause you just never get the call. It was No one ever yelled at me or slapped my face or said Absolutely not Get out of here like no one has ever done that. I mean people, I guess, have rejected. But it's always been in such a gentle way that it really doesn't hurt. So it just try it. Uh, failure isn't a scary a zit scenes. And another thing to is a lot of us look for I don't know if it's necessarily failures, but excuses like Why can't do that? I'm too busy or, um, you know, they look for ways to almost make themselves fail like they stop themselves before they get into it. And my thing on that is, if you find yourself, you know well, I'm supposed to do that so that I'm just too busy. I'm too busy. Sit down and be light and check yourself. Am I really too busy? Like what's taking up the hours that I can't do it because you can always find the hours in the day you can. I mean, I've done it over like we've working out. I'll go, Ah, whole year, where I find that our every day to go and then maybe the next six months I'm too busy to, But I'm not door busier than I waas year before. I'm just not motivated. So if it's something that you love and it's something that is worth wasting your like thinking space and your energies making excuses why you can't do it and still talking about it, then maybe it's worth it to just take those excuses out and go for it. Um, sorry. Um, any other thing, too, is where I find that we're really lucky in the quote unquote jobs. We have hobbies, jobs, passions is that I think failure is easier for us because we're finding so much joy in the process. Um, there is How do I explain that? Um, there was there was a quote I read. I'm gonna butcher. Someone even tried, but it was basically was a mountain climber. And he talked about that like everybody was talking about, you know, reaching the summit like that. He's right that the joy is in the joint like the joy is that mountain, like the views you have each day and finishing a day and having you know, climbed however far you climb, he's like, I don't I don't do it to get to the to the peak like That's great, but I do even when I don't make it to the peak, and I still do it again because it's the journey. So I think that's why we're so lucky. And what we do is that we do get to find that daily joy. We don't always have to. It's not like a job we're only doing for pay where we have to wait till you know, the first in the 15th to get that little bit of excitement. You know, I got paid for what I did the last two weeks. We actually get to each day, feel fulfilled. Um, and also, I think that, um, sorry have a couple different directions. That's gonna okay. So on that same work work aspect of things, I think we're also kind of taught, even from being young, that works. Supposed to be hard, like we put those two words together. Hard work like you're not supposed to necessarily enjoy it. It's considered okay to complain about your job. So it's considered okay to be like, ready for the end of your day, like that's just like our societal norm is that if it's working supposed to be hard, so I think a lot of us, almost we wanted everyone else to think that we're hard workers. We want everyone else to think that we deserve, you know, accolades and the money that we're making. So it has to be hard. So we kind of make it hard on ourselves when in fact, you could be having its play. Why don't get paid for a play, you can have fun and do it. So I think even switching that mindset to realize that those two words don't go hand in hand hard and work like it can be fun work, you know, easy work. And all of those things are OK. Um, yeah. So that kind of sums up our little are four things that we we cut off on, um, right before our shoot. So does anybody have any questions on that? Cause we're gonna move into some fun stuff with our kind of summing up our three days. Yes. So we do have a question from Carolyn. Well coated these guys next. She says my worries about following my dreams to still get something really big out of my photography is that I've just started, and I'm already 35. I just can't imagine being 60 and still on the floor photographing kids. Do you have encouraging words? Do you know what? I actually just read an article the other day, and it was all of these people that they listed, and I wish I could have the worst memory when it comes to stuff like that. But they listed all of these people who didn't find success until I don't know why. The one that's coming to my mind is Colonel Sanders. But like Kentucky Fried Chicken didn't start till he was, like in his sixties or something. Um, but I wish I had the article in front of me. There were Moses, was she started painting it 80. Yeah, there was this whole list of people that didn't even start what they became famous for until they were in their fifties, 60 seventies eighties. And for me, I mean, I'll talk about age. I'll see, like 17 year old photographers that are just blowing my mind. I'm like, what? They're gonna be a my image like, how do you do that at that age? So the only way for me the age comes into play is when I'm so in awe and shock of like young people and how amazing there. But I mean, we could all be done tomorrow, so live it to the fullest. Now you're as long as you're picking Atlanta and as long as. And that's why when I was talking about that finding the joy in the day today, it doesn't matter what happens tomorrow or the next day. It doesn't matter if your fame is one year offer. If you're famous 25 years off, if you're enjoying it day to day, those 25 years, we're going to go by like a year. It's so I think it's just focusing on the now and focusing on finding that happiness each day that you're doing it rather than I want to get. I want to get to the end. I want to get to the end here. I don't think is as much about the end as it is about the now, and I will try and find that list because it was a remarkable list. I didn't realize when I was reading it. Do you find that you know your friends like that? You've talked to over the last couple days. They help you bring bring you out of that spiral like when you can't change the self talk. Yes, definitely. Yeah, the people that are because, you know, I don't know one photographer as big as they are new is they're starting out. Every single one of my friends that's in the industry have had moments where they feel down here have had moments where they're just like, why am I doing this? Are moments where I don't know how I'm gonna pay the bills like I need a job to come in. And so when you're in that place and there it's Yeah, I definitely turned Teoh turned the people that know in turn of the people that, you know, we've talked about these things before because it is hard to remember in the moment that you know what it all turns around and like, this is just an emotional, you know, up and down, which I think is quite expected of artists in general. I think we're a more emotional crowd, so yeah, there's definitely people, and that's what I thing with your tribe. You need that support of all those you need the support of those people around you because isn't this hard when you're putting your heart on your sleeve and putting so much into a photo shoot? And then you hand over this package and everything relies on them, you know, liking or not liking it, it's really hard. It's emotionally draining. So to have that support. And like I said, even support yourself. Take time away if you're If you're burnt out legitimately burnout, take a week and completely aware, take however long you need completely away and fill your fill your energy pots with other things that make you happy, cause then when that move, this backup, you can jump.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Shannon Sewell - Family Questionaire.pdf
Shannon Sewell - KidsQuestionaire.pdf
Shannon Dream.atn
Shannon Sewell - Dreamer Journal Summer 2014.pdf

bonus material with enrollment

Shannon Sewell - Gear Guide.pdf
Shannon Sewell Virtual Swag Bag.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I loved this course. If you already know what you are doing as a photographer and are looking for fun and inspiration, this is a great class. Shannon didn't focus on the technical aspects, but rather HER way of working. She offered many, many fun and inspiring ideas to build a photo business that feeds your soul, rather than a business that just earns money from clients. She has taken an art form and made it her own. Her work is the result of her focus on her own personal style, which is fun, stylish, trendy and happy. I found this video to be inspiring and leading me towards making images that are my personal style. I can see how this course may have been challenging for people who are more about the technical aspects of photography, but hey, anyone can learn technique. The ART comes in when you can make it your own, when you can use photography as a way to express and reflect what you go going on on the inside. In Shannon's case, it's joy. Thanks CL for a fun, inspiring class and thanks, Shannon, for sharing your heart and your art. I had fun.

a Creativelive Student
 

I really enjoyed this class. I love Shannon's style both of photography and connecting with the children and families she photographs. She doesn't tell you what to do step-by-step, but rather offers you a bag of tricks which to draw from. Rather than telling you what to do, she shows you what works for her. I found the course very inspiring and the posing techniques helpful. She successfully demonstrates that you can create beautiful photographs with no more than a wall or a chair but she also shows you how to go all out with a detailed styled shoot. She shows that there is not one formula for success.

Marilou Jaen
 

I love it! Fantastic info. I love her easy way with the kids, and I found it really informative.

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