Photo Shoot Blog

With 11 days until my photo shoot, I am feeling excited and anxious. While I have done photo shoots before for clients and myself, I find that marketing others comes more naturally to me. I was brought up with humility and marketing oneself is anything but. So, with that challenge, I have decided to use my trusted sense of humor to offer me not only some levity, but an element of relief. I figure, if at the end of the day I can still smile and laugh, I can mark that day in life as a win.

A natural tomb boy growing up, I never did the whole girly girly thing well, if at all. I did not even own a barbie. Transformers, Dinosaurs, Little People, Legos, Nintendo and my active imagination, along with running around barefoot and exploring with my dog were the tentpoles to my playtime happiness. I knew I was cute, but it certainly was not something I focused on.

As an adult, I still feel a bit out of place and the same things that once brought me joy as a child, still bring me joy to this day. I will never be too old to run around barefoot and explore with my dog. I also will never be too old to play Nintendo, use my imagination or play with Legos.

And because I care so much what I think, I really want these pictures to exceed my expectations. I know the photographer and makeup artist are beyond talented and I am incredibly grateful for having access to such talent. It does make me feel like a bit of star and even a princess.  After all, who doesn’t want to feel special?

What I worry about is what I will think of myself when I look at the pictures. Will my face make some weird gesture I will not be able to unsee or get past? Always my own worst critic, I seldom look in the mirror and think, “Oh my goodness, who is that hotness staring back at me?” No, I think, “Wow, I am so much more attractive in my head, what happened? Am I imagining myself from some past life and my brain just won’t quite transition to the current time frame?” I know I need to work on being more of my own best friend. I do love myself, but let’s be honest, with ambition and a desire to have everything be tip top, there are moments when I cannot help but shift into the constructive and harsh criticism gear.

So, I have 10 days to learn to love my face, my body and accept that they are unreturnable gifts that deserve and need to be celebrated by me because if I don’t love them, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Maybe I’m missing that narcissistic, self-aggrandizing gene that would make this whole process a much easier one. Then again, life is about learning and putting ourselves outside of our comfort zones. Complacency may as well be the kiss of death. Here’s to finding my comfort within life’s necessary discomfort.

1 Week Until The Photo Shoot

T minus 7 days until my photo shoot. I have been busy planning, working, and having a lot of fun. Much more fun than I could have imaged or expected. In an effort to secure loose ends, I have been going back and forth with the Photographer and Makeup Artist on last minute details and lighting. Like everything I do, I want to make sure there is nothing else lingering on my end that needs to be addressed. I also want to account for any unforeseen issues and address them if possible. I find my Advertising and Marketing experience to be incredibly helpful. Because I am comfortable with last minute fire drills and things not naturally going as planned, I feel like I am already prepared for that to occur come Photo Shoot Day.

When the photographer (Meg Nobriga), a good friend of mine, started asking me if I was getting nervous, I stopped to think about it. Then I quickly heard her say, “It doesn’t feel like you’re nervous. I don’t think you’re nervous. Are you?” As I smiled listening to her talk over the phone, I said, “No. But I do have anxiety and am nervous about my writing. It is not flowing.  I have all of these pieces but nothing is polished. I know I need to be patient and am focused on this right now so yes, I am nervous but no not about the shoot.” We both laughed. She gave me one of her stellar pep talks and hung up. Then I asked myself why wasn’t I nervous? Oh my GOD should I be nervous?

5 Days Until The Photo Shoot

5 days until the photo shoot. So far, I have done a great job of not overthinking or worrying about how I am feeling or how I am going to look.

I think the older I get the more comfortable I am in surrendering to what will be. I can only control so much and to be honest with you, I am not sure I am controlling anything at all. This is the first time in a very long time where I no longer feel like Sisyphus.

The photographer asked me today if I would be getting a manicure and pedicure before the shoot. Yes, I will. Then I started to think about my hands. My hands that look like the hands of a 3,000-year-old woman. The hands a palm reader would not be able to decipher. My old soul hands as I call them.

Everyone has their own insecurities based on their life experiences and I am no different. I have been teased relentlessly about my hands since elementary school. The names I was called were never clever or hurtful even if they were intended to be. I almost felt bad for my tormentors. I could have come up with more ways to insult myself without even trying. It also didn’t hurt that there was a guy friend of mine who would stand up for me whenever he was around because he too had the hands of an ancient human being. We called each other Grams and Gramps but I digress.

Bottom line, I need to find a way to beautify these bad boys so that they can be camera ready come Photo Shoot Day.  And I also need to accept that with ancient hands comes ancient wisdom. I love my hands and their every groove. I will never be a hand model and that is okay. I value being different, quirky, and unique and my hands embody that. If my eyes are the window to my soul, maybe my hands show the many lives my soul has mastered.

3 Days Until The Photo Shoot

3 days until the Photo Shoot and I am hoping I do not have a cystic acne breakout. I find that whenever I have too much time to sit and think about something as opposed to just being, I can do an amazing job at driving myself insane. As I have been riding this roller coaster of emotions, I can’t help but think about Meg’s, comment. She calls Photo Shoots and the process, Photo Therapy.

There is definitely something that happens to me when I feel the need to be or look a certain way. And it is never to my benefit. Things come together more effortlessly when I do not feel as though I am physically trying to move heaven and earth. It doesn’t help that I keep having this image of a chicken repeatedly squawking its head making loud noises and sudden jerking movements. Perhaps my higher self is sending me a message to calm down. Meg is right. This is therapy. I am experiencing many uncomfortable emotions that like a fire, need to be put out. And just like therapy, I need to sit with my feelings and feel them before they will release their grip. Sometimes I want to be able to have an adult temper tantrum where I yell at GOD for making the learning process so physically and emotionally painful. Of course, these feelings are not from the photo shoot. They never are. They are from some where deep inside me dying to be released and exorcised and I will happily welcome that exorcism any day.

1 Day Until The Photo Shoot

Tomorrow is the BIG day. Meg sent me a wonderful Instagram video that talks about how difficult it is to be authentic.  She is so thoughtful. Like a swim coach, I can feel her attempt at lifting me up before my big meet. I am very appreciative.

I am also very excited and nervous. Nervous because I want everything to be perfect. And while I am aware that it is way more important that I have fun, readjusting that knob may take a few attempts. I am however noticing that I am different. I think this is probably part of the Photo Shoot Therapy.  I am realizing that I am no longer the person I was a year ago. My negative thoughts are simply echoes from my past. I know who I am now. I have worked very hard to build myself and my life. I have fought like hell to put the pieces of me back together and the outcome has proven better than I could have ever imagined. I can officially say that I have my mojo back. And with that mojo comes the confidence and desire to put my art out there. No more being afraid of what other people think. What I am doing takes courage but more importantly, I do not want to be too afraid to pursue my passions. I am done shrinking myself down just because that creates less waves. That has never been who I am. I want to feel like I can breathe. I want to stretch my creative arms and legs out so far that I am even surprised by what I create.  I refuse to suffocate any longer and fear the online faceless haters. Like a good guy friend of mine says, “Dani, if you don’t have any haters, you are doing something wrong.”  I am certainly not looking for enemies. I am simply aware that some people just will not see things my way and that is okay. At the end of the day, I need to do me.  At least if I fail, I will know that I failed being and doing me. And when it comes to assessing my life, that is all that truly matters.

I am very much looking forward to tomorrow. I am curious what makeup tricks I might learn even though I know I could easily poke my eye out with an eyeliner pencil and have done so in the past. My plan is to try on the outfits today to review what works and what needs to be tweaked. I often visualize outfits in my head. Sometimes what I imagine looks great. Other times it looks like a clown show where my mom is begging me to change immediately. Regardless, I have a lot of prep work to do and am in good spirits thanks to my swim earlier. Here’s to an AMZING Photo Shoot!

 

Photo Shoot Day

Today was the big day. All I kept thinking about was how grateful I am. Grateful for the amazingly talented Makeup Artist Kimm DiCato (Website: www.kimmdicato.com // IG @kimmdicato) and the wonderfully talented Photographer Meg Nobriga (Website: www.megnphotography.com  // IG @megnphoto). I am also grateful for the best assistant ever Jesus Mena. I could not have done today without you. You are amazing. I love you all.

I loved having my makeup done. It was so relaxing. I also learned a lot. Kimm was and is truly a pleasure.
Meg was on a roll with her photography. Perfectly in her zone. I loved watching her work and being on the other side. I really valued her coaching. I thought it was interesting how I could think a pose looked good when I was doing it but as soon as I saw the photo, I was able to see how what I was doing was not translating the way I wanted it to. My best advice, trust the professionals. Trust the photographer. Trust the Makeup artist. Know when to advocate for yourself and when to pipe down. It is a fine line. Let your intuition not your insanity or desire for control guide you.

There were definitely times when I would feel like I was in the groove. Meg had the music playing so that was helpful for someone like me whose soul needs to dance.  Like anything in life, you can feel the flow when you are no longer in your head, but present and immersed in the moment.  Unfortunately, I am still learning how to maintain that state indefinitely and have not mastered that art at the present moment.

Lighting proved to be incredibly important so thank you to my former Voice Over coaches and Kimm and Meg for those incredibly helpful tips. I feel as though I could explode with gratitude. Everything came together better than I could have expected. I feel extremely fortunate.

Next steps, I need to sift through the content. See what is there. Review the photos with Meg and make the selections. I am very excited and also tired. Today was a wonderful day. I hope to have many more like it.

 

5 Days After The Photo Shoot

Today was the big day. I was able to view all of the select photos from the shoot with the lovely and talented Photographer, Miss Meg Nobriga. They did NOT disappoint. I did have a bit of sneak preview when Meg texted me a few of them earlier in the week. I was just as excited then as I am now thinking about it.

I do not think I have ever had too many great photos to choose from, so this was a new luxury. If anything, I can recall in detail some of my worst photos ever and then the awkward photo stage I went through where I could not even look at a picture of me without wondering who the person staring back at me was.

As I viewed the images with Meg, I remembered the day vividly along with Meg’s direction. It was very cool and interesting to see how poses I thought felt awkward looked amazing and how helpful Meg’s direction and eye for detail is. I really appreciate people’s talents especially when I do not share them. I am in awe of their abilities, and it just makes me appreciate them even more. I am the person who struggles to take photos of strangers, accidently placing my thumb over the image. So as you can imagine, I was and am blown away by Meg’s talent and ability to see things I am blind to. It reminds me of playing a new sport I am not naturally gifted in. Meg and Kimm’s incredible expertise, level of professionalism and attention to detail was evident when viewing the photos.

Too many great pictures is definitely a wonderful problem to have. I am incredibly grateful for Kimm DiCato, Meg Nobriga and Jesus Medina for making the photo shoot such a success. My makeup looked just the right amount of natural and Kimm even gave me some makeup tips I have since carried over into my everyday life. Things are coming together with ease and that too is not something I have had the enjoyment of experiencing in a very long time. I am beginning to wonder if the Universe rewards us for the magic we put out into the world. I think so.

Now that I have all of the wonderful selects, I will need to sift through them all to see which ones will work best for what. I also need to review the Behind The Scenes Footage as who knows what pearls I will find there. I am just overwhelmed at the moment with gratitude for all of the love and support and good fortune in my life. Thank you.

 

Contact Information:

Meg Nobriga – Photographer
Website: www.megnphotography.com  // IG @megnphoto

Kimm DiCato – Makeup Artist, Co-Founder Alchemy Beauty Academy 
Website: www.kimmdicato.com // IG @kimmdicato