STAYING TRUE TO YOURSELF

Ashley Marie Anderson

I had just started shooting in manual on my baby Nikon D3400 and lens kit when I received my first inquiry in the spring of 2017. Wow. There it was right in front of my face! My very first message and really the moment of truth as it felt. Would she book? Could this be the start of something great? Was this the real deal? I frantically refreshed my messenger app hoping to see the words I had been waiting for. Losing hope after a few minutes of no response, my heart exploded when I read the words, “We would love to have you shoot our wedding!”

I remember jumping up and down quite literally in the living room as my 5-month-old watched me giggling. I did it! My very first client! It’s an incredible feeling, one you never forget, and you can only hope you get that feeling each time someone says yes to your work.

Twelve months later my first wedding came and went, then the second, then the third, and I started to feel like there was some sort of inadequacy in the process somewhere. I felt like something was missing from my galleries but knew I had to give myself grace and time to grow to better my work. As my work improved, I’d challenge my next session to be better and continued to notice that there was still a missing “piece”—the connection I had with my camera and really the whole process. It began to grow and I struggled with this feeling for an entire wedding season because I wasn’t sure that there was much more I could even find to enjoy.

After each client that booked, I would tell myself, “This is it! This is going to be the session or wedding that fills my ‘missing piece,’ this will be the location that brings everything together like I’ve been hoping for.” But still, I waited for a revelation. Each gallery I sent out felt so mundane as I hit the send button. I had been waiting and watching for a lightbulb moment for what felt like forever—there HAD to be more than this. Then burn-out began, and that is a horrible feeling especially after feeling such a strong desire at first. I started to ask myself if a different camera would shift things, a different lens, a new light meter, maybe even a different film stock, preset, or film lab? Was my creative radar broken? Was I finished? There had to be more to the journey than this, but I just couldn’t reach it.

I was always making a point to make my sessions just as good as the last or even better. So why wasn’t this gap filling up? I was working hard to better myself and stick to my brand. Why did my creative cup feel so dry when I was submerging it in water? For months this went on and uncertainty set in. I had strong doubts about myself, my work, my visions, and my capability.

“My very first client! It’s an incredible feeling, one you never forget and you can only hope you get that feeling each time someone says yes to your work.”

One day in particular I remember very clearly—after exporting a gallery and breezing through it I told myself, “That wasn’t quite like the last one,” “You could have done better,” “They don’t look as light and airy.” I am being told that to stay true to your brand—you must stay consistent in your photos, digital, film, or both. Something’s got to give. I was immediately disappointed and couldn’t enjoy the final product that was really beautiful. Even after finding the world of film, which I fell in love with so hard and so fast, I was still finding myself discouraged and confused.

I wanted my photos to have character. I wanted them each to tell a story about the location and my clients. I felt like I was failing, and shooting more was driving those feelings higher. But why?

I started really searching for an answer to all my questions, and I’ll just share a few of them that I feel were the most important for me (at the end of this article, you will see how one simple sentence answered all of these questions and more):

• Was I finding the right light?
• Was my creative radar broken?
• Why wasn’t I loving each gallery like the previous?
• Did I need a different film camera or film stock?
• Why was I feeling torn about not having super ‘light and airy’ photos?

I was determined to make 2019 a year to grow in—not just my work but in myself, in my journey, and in the process. Desperately looking for answers and still not finding any despite the 15 webinars I signed up for, mailing lists, newsletters, other photographers’ freebies, branding strategies and countless other tools I could get my hands on, I had a wrench in my gut one morning to message another film photographer also based in Oregon.

I remember thinking, “I have nothing to lose—maybe there’s something I don’t know and maybe he can help me.” His work has always been some of my favorite and carries emotion and light both simultaneously in a way I had been striving to do myself. I felt like I had come to a crossroads.

I spoke with him over the phone and told him how I felt about everything: my fears, my goals and how I felt like I was in a very stagnant place, how frustrated I was that each session wasn’t like my last, and that I felt like my film scans weren’t consistent to the brand I had been trying to stick to and create. And the most profound words came across the phone:
“You’ve got to stop trying to make every session look the same.”

My brain spun around because that’s what I had been working so hard on doing! I said, “I guess I feel like they’re supposed to have the same aesthetic and feel to them to be true to my brand.” He replied with:
“Just like your surroundings are always doing something different with the light you’re given; each shoot will always give you something a little different too. Once you let go of that—you will find yourself.”

My answered questions:

• Was I finding the right light?
  YES. But I was trying too hard to find the exact same light from one location to the other, and it will always be a little different because of surroundings.
• Was my creative radar broken?
  No. Not even close. I was just stuck in a pattern of trying to recreate the same everything and getting it mixed up with ‘staying true to the brand’.
• Why wasn’t I loving each gallery like the previous?
  I wasn’t respecting the fact that each location is unique and will tell its own little story. That’s the point of shooting in a different location!
• Do I need a different camera or film stock?
  No. I didn’t. I just wasn’t using it in a way that would serve me. Instead of creating, I was trying to duplicate my other sessions.
• Why was I feeling torn about not having super ‘light and airy’ photos?
  Because I wanted to capture emotion, story, and mood in my photos (staying true to myself) while trying to ‘stay way too strict to the brand’ on top of trying to keep my label of being a ‘light and airy photog’. Bad recipe for burn-out. Stay true to the things you want to create. No matter how anyone labels them.

Basically bawling, I hung up the phone and sat in my room for a little bit going back to all the times I was WANTING to create but instead DUPLICATING. All the times I had doubted my work not being ‘consistent’ was just the simple fact that each location is different and we need to see it that way, love it that way, shoot it that way.

Feeling complete peace over each doubt, I made a promise to myself while sitting on my bed that I would look at each shoot a little differently and embrace the differences I have no control over—instead of trying to re-shape a session to fit the mold or fit ‘the brand’.

I promised myself I would learn to enjoy what I can do in each situation given to me. I even had to write it down on my hand a few times:
“Don’t make every session look the same.”

It’s what makes your work so beautiful and what really drives creativity—THAT’S what makes your brand, that’s what tells a story and sets that mood. Using uneven light, more shadows, more/less contrast, that perfect golden light and even dreary grey fog (like in this coastal shoot) tells a different story. I think sometimes we take ‘staying true to your brand’ too literal. We hear it all the time, “Setting a strong brand is setting a strong foundation for your business.” But we are getting our brands mixed up with ourselves—it’s really important to remember that you are your brand.

After a full year of working really hard on embracing different settings and different light while using it all to my advantage, I finally found that I don’t have to be labeled ‘light and airy’. I’ve finally come to the place where I don’t try to recreate my previous session or remember what it looked like. I deleted all my Pinterest ‘inspiration’ boards, I stopped looking through other photographers’ finished work and just focused on me and capturing the feeling, emotion, and mood I was craving for so long. I can’t tell you how valuable that has been.

It’s going to take some time and uncomfortable situations to get there, but once you reach that sweet spot of always creating something new and not duplicating, you will find yourself enjoying your career so much more. You’re going to have that burning desire again like you did at the beginning, trust me. And if you’ve ever heard the saying “This world would be so boring if we were all the same,” that applies to our sessions as well. Why should each gallery be like the last?

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ASHLEY MARIE ANDERSON
Ashley Marie is a film wedding photographer based in Oregon and has been shooting professionally since 2017 along the West Coast. She enjoys meeting other photographers and sharing her experiences and knowledge with them. Ashley also loves lavender (especially lavender lemon cookies), iced white mochas, trips to the beach, shooting florals, and sitting in a field with horses. Ashley is currently working on finishing her Bachelors in Equine Science at Oregon State University in hopes to one day run her own cow horse operation alongside her photography business.
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