WLS Wisdom from a Photographer?

The other day I was catching up on my blog reading (a never ending battle). As you know, I love photography and subscribe to many photo blogs. Ed Z Studios had an interesting post the other day that included some "words of wisdom" from a professional photographer to people just starting out in the photography business. I was struck by how easily the advice given could translate to us after WLS ... not just as it relates to losing weight, but also how we live our lives and make the changes we want to see in our character, habits and lifestyle. Here's a few of my favorite points (I've added my personal comments in parenthesis after some of the points):

• Style is a voice, not a prop or an action. If you can buy it, borrow it, download it, or steal it, it is not a style. Don’t look outward for your style; look inward. (Define “style” any way you’d like … is it your personality, character or fashion sense?)

• Know your stuff. Luck is a nice thing, but a terrifying thing to rely on. (Makes me think of being educated about nutrition, our new anatomy and what to expect with life after WLS.)

• Never apologize for your own sense of beauty. Nobody can tell you what you should love. Do what you do brazenly and unapologetically.

• Say no. Say it often. It may be difficult, but you owe it to yourself. … You are no good to anyone when you’re stressed and anxious.

• Learn to say “I’m a photographer” out loud with a straight face. If you can’t say it and believe it, you can’t expect anyone else to, either. (Replace the word “photographer” with whatever term you want to be identified as.)

• You cannot specialize in everything.

• Accept critique, but don’t apply it blindly. Just because someone said it does not make it so. Critiques are opinions, nothing more. Consider the advice, consider the perspective of the advice giver, consider your style and what you want to convey in your work (life). Implement only what makes sense to implement.

• Leave room for yourself to grow and evolve.

• Gimmicks and merchandise will come and go, but honest photography is never outdated. (This makes me think of all the fad diets we tried before WLS – now the “honest photography” to use is a healthy lifestyle of moderation and good food and exercise choices.)

• Never forget why you started taking pictures in the first place… Never let your technique upstage your subject. (Sometimes we get bogged down in the daily calorie counting, exercise logging and protein gram tracking … and we forget why we had WLS in the first place. To be healthy.)

• Never compare your journey with someone else’s. It’s a marathon with no finish line. Someone else may start out faster than you, may seem to progress more quickly than you, but every runner has his own pace. Your journey is your journey, not a competition. You will never “arrive”. No one ever does.

• Embrace frustration. It pushes you to learn and grow, broadens your horizons, and lights a fire under you when your work has gone cold. Nothing is more dangerous to an artist than complacence.

Be on the look out for inspiration all around you. You never know where the next words of wisdom will come from.

~Pam