Creativity – Page 2

Nov 17 2016

Join Me For a Meetup + Vision Board Party

I’m sooo excited!

My award winning writer/actress friend Linda Manning and I are teaming up to host a meetup and Vision Board Party for Female Creatives!

Our generous friends at KRVC are opening up their office to us so we’ll have an intimate and inspiring space to gather, network, and design an amazing 2017 for our lives and businesses.

We both separately spend a lot of time in the city, but we thought it would be great to gather and get to know local female creatives in our own neighborhood.

So if you’re in Riverdale or any other areas of The Bronx or close surrounding areas and want to meetup with other like minded women…

Join Us

Tuesday November 29, 2016

6:30pm – 8:30pm

for a Meetup & Vision Board Party

Create a road map for your best year ever!

KRVC is providing the space for us to meet, the supplies for our boards and even some snacks! Woo Hoo!

All we ask is that you bring some of your favorite magazines to share with the group. We’ll be cutting them up and using them in our boards.

Space is limited so if you’d like to attend, you can either send an email to info@krvcdc.org to reserve your spot or call 718-543-7100

It’s going to be a great evening!

Nov 02 2016

How To Create A Photo Library For Instagram

One of the key elements of having a thriving Instagram Feed is to have great images. Unless you’re super popular and already well known, having high quality images will help you grow your following and make you stand out.

Having a photo library at hand is key but I’m not saying you need to spend all of your time taking photographs. My suggestion is to maximize your time by leveraging the images you already have. Most often you can find photos within a photo. You can crop the original image to get multiple images from it. I’ll show you some examples:

From My DSLR

When I use my “real” camera, the image quality is really high and the file size is very large allowing me to zoom or crop without compromising the quality.

Here’s the original image I took of sunflowers at a farm.

I was able to get 6 square images from it that I can now use for my Instagram account. I prefer to have square images on Instagram even though you are now allowed to have rectangular images. It’s just a personal preference.

This one I can overlay with text since there’s a lot of open space by the sky.

For the next 3 I zoomed in on the flowers – having them fill up most of the frame.

These next 2 are more of a wider view just slightly different from one another.

This next example was also from the same farm using my DSLR. I was able to get 3 square images from this original one.

From My iPhone

So you may be asking if this can also be done from your camera phone. Yes!! The file size is smaller so you may not have as many options but for this example of the tree I was still able to get 3 square images from the original. This was shot with my iPhone 5S.

Three different images from the same original.

Some Extra Tips:

I find that the horizontal images work better than vertical.
When shooting your original subject, shoot it wide – don’t zoom in.
On your phone, select Photo, not Square.
I use Photoshop to edit these photos but I’m sure you can do this with whatever photo editing software and apps you currently use.
Scatter your images – for example don’t post all of your sunflower photos consecutively

Let me know if you have any questions about your images and Instagram. I LOVE Instagram! It’s my favorite social media platform right now. Put your Instagram account in the comments so I can check out your feed.

Mine is @life.happens.now

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Oct 28 2016

The Importance of Personal Projects

Whether you’re starting or growing your own creative business, it’s important to make time for personal projects.

Why?

Because what tends to happen in your business is you start to create based on what your clients want and like. You need to earn money, you need to pay bills so you need paying clients. Of course the best case scenario is to have clients that love exactly what you want to create but that doesn’t always happen.

I’ll give you an example from my photography biz – I usually photograph kids and their families whether it’s portraits or their special events like Bat Mitzvahs. During these sessions, I know what the client is looking for so that’s what I photograph but I do also mix in about 20% of what I want to photograph.

When I want to create 100% for ME, push the boundaries, try out new techniques and grow as an artist , I turn to personal projects. This is where I come up with different scenarios and concepts, try out new editing techniques and just have fun with making mistakes. If something doesn’t work out, there’s no pressure. I just try something different next time. Personal projects give you freedom and room to grow artistically.

Aside from filling a creative need, as you grow, you then in turn have more to offer your clients. Put your work out there, and you may also get attention and unexpected new opportunities!

It doesn’t have to be perfect, the goal is to just have fun doing what you love to do without any expectations tied to it.

Yesterday I applied to what will be my 3rd round of the B&H Photo Portfolio Development Series. It’s purely for my own personal creativity – to experiment with photography the way I want to. If I get selected, at the end of this 6 month program, I have the potential to be included in a gallery show and have a book created of my work. Being in a program with other photographers and learning from one another helps us each to grow.

What is it that you’ve been wanting to try? It doesn’t have to be related to your business. You don’t need to make a huge time commitment, just get started and see where it leads.

I’d love to hear about a personal project you want to get started on. Tell me in the comments.

Life Happens Now!

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Oct 19 2016

Podcast Interview: Life By Design

This week a podcast interview I did with Allison Hardy of the Life By Design podcast went live!

It was so much fun talking with her about creativity and being a mompreneur. If you want to listen, go to her site and it’s Episode #6

I was also flattered that she invited me into her private facebook group to do a facebook live broadcast for her community. I gave them tips on how to incorporate mindset work into their morning routine. Having the right mindset is so crucial for your life and business. I spend so much of my day doing this – not just in the morning. I find pockets of time to journal, listen to inspiring audios, or sneak in a few pages from a book I’m reading. I do it throughout the day to keep my mindset at a higher level.

Let me know if you check out the podcast!

Aug 04 2016

Podcast Interview: The Power of Creativity in Your Business

Recently I was asked to be a guest on the DWL podcast – Dream Without Limits. I have to admit I was both excited and nervous at the same time when the opportunity was presented. Fear came in the way of thoughts like “I’m not ready” and “who am I to speak about this.” I just said F That and went for it anyway!

So glad I did!! I spoke with the host Teneika via skype back in May. Our conversation was both relaxed and easy going. So great when you can connect with someone so easily! I’m glad I didn’t let my fear get the best of me. We spoke about different forms of creativity, working on your mindset and tips for balancing motherhood and your business.

I’d love to do more podcast interviews but secretly I really want to be on the other end doing the interview. During a recent photography project i was working on, it was more photo journalistic and I was required to interview my subject. I actually loved it and after months of following her around I thought I’d eventually run out of questions to ask but they just kept flowing out of me. I’ve been told by my friends that I’m a good listener but I think I also attract people that like to talk a lot and I give them the space to do so. 🙂 So this might have to go on the goal list!

One of my intentions for this year was to be more visible – as scary as that may sound. I’m trying to push myself to do more things like podcasts and guest blogging to reach more women to inspire them to start that business they’ve only been dreaming of and start living their life now.

The episode was recently posted and you can listen to the podcast interview here on the DWL site: I’m episode number 8 – my favorite number!!

Make time to listen to some of her other podcast interviews – lots of great inspiration there!

If you found it inspiring or valuable in any way, please share with your friends! Always appreciated!

Is there something you’ve been wanting to do that’s scaring you a bit? Tell me in the comments…