fire starter sessions | session one

photo by s. zamil

I am making it a point to really take my time and answer the questions throughout this book as honestly as I can. I started off trying to answer them on a whim so that I could move on and devour the book, but I knew that the answers wouldn't be honest to my core. The answers below have been thought about and worked over and over, over the past few weeks. It might take me longer to get through this book but I'm okay with that :)

What are you intensely interested in? While you're at it, include your moderate curiosities.

I am intensely interested in people and their life experiences. How they feel about life, what they've chosen for their life, who they spend their life with, what they embrace, what they are passionate about, what makes them tick, laugh, love, cry, angry, curious, jealous and exhilirated.

I am intensely interested in traveling and seeing new places, exploring new cities, feeling any energy and culture that is so different from where I live. Walking around new places and exploring by myself, forming opinions and thoughts and feelings on my own.

I am intensely interested in love and how each person falls into it, nourishes it, cherishes it, grows and holds onto it.

I am moderately curious about spirituality and religion.
|  |  | 

You go to the best cocktail party ever. It's a life-changing event because you meet the most with-it, interesting, empowered people, and each of them can contribute to your career and interests in some way ... 

|  |  |  

Who was there?

I don't really look up to specific people - it is more personality traits, successes and failures that I aspire to rather than an actual person. If I had to answer this question with life stories - this is who would be there:

- Someone who started out with nothing and became fabulously successful personally and financially.
- Someone who had a life set out for them but decided to go against the grain and completely change their path.
- Someone who has been married for 25+ years and is still crazy in love.
- Someone who has decided to go about life on their own, as a single woman, and has made one hell of an adventure for herself.
- Someone who has left their hometown for a new city to live in with nothing waiting there for them.
|  |  |  

What kind of information did they share with you?

 Each of the above would share with me how they got where they are in life. And why. Why they chose the life that they did, because each of those lifestyles do not just happen to someone. They require you to make decisions and to consciously shape your own life.
|  |  |  

What did they ask you?

 Exactly what I asked them. Because the process of talking through your ideas and life with other like-minded people can, in my experience, help you to see your life and your dreams more clearly.
|  |  |  

How did they offer to help you?

 They wouldn't have to offer any type of help - listening to their stories, asking questions and learning from each of those experiences would be such great guidance in and of itself.
 |  |  | 

What could you talk about late into the night with like-minded people without running of things to say?
After this weekend, I learned that the answer to this would be anything that involves passion. If someone is a passionate human being, whether they are passionate about art and life or cookies and milk - it doesn't matter to me. True passion is the most interesting component, in my opinion, to a person.
|  |  |
I'm still thinking about these last two questions - I'll come back to them soon.

What activities make you feel really useful, alive, and strong?

When do you feel like a rock star, a gifted contributor, a very cool and purposeful human being? In terms of things you do, when do you feel most like yourself?

What do you want to be known for?

fire starter sessions | part one, mojo

One of my favorite photographers and bloggers, Becka Robinson from Studio 222 Photography and her blog www.lifeasanartistpreneur.com has recommended, more than once, that everyone should read Danielle Laporte's book "The Fire Starter Sessions." So I caved. And she was right. Everyone should read this book. I'm only through the first session but it is such a good read for your soul. I figured that this would be a great place for me to write down the parts that inspire me most and also answer the session questions. 

Shit's 'bout to get personal :)

and wordy.

"Self-doubt is so insidious that it not only renders us stuck in our lives, but it also actually weakens our ability to dream about what living unleashed would look like. And here's the thing: The mere act of dreaming is a vitalizing, life-affirming endeavor. As it turns out, using your imagination is very, very good for your well-being. Einstein believed that imagination was even more important than knowledge itself."

There are so many times that I doubt myself. That I feel like a complete and total hack with a camera. That doubt always manifests into thoughts of deciding that where I am right now is as far as I will be able to go. That people accept the work that I'm producing for them and more people want it. Even though I'm not even close to where I want to be. I have to stop doubting myself and let my wild, crazy dreams run free. My dreams of living in Chicago, moving my business there, is not the easiest dream or path that I could plan for myself when I've got it pretty good right now. I could make it much easier and simply live my life out in Cleveland with a small town business and be just fine ... but why let any doubts stop me from dreaming wild and crazy? Im'ma keep dreaming.

"Which path will have more free falls and heart rushes, more laughs, more daring?"

"Your way, slightly reckless, downright defiant, uncharted, seat-of-the-pants, make it up as you go, not a leg to stand on, what will your mother say? You could bomb. You could become so successful that your friends won't recognize you. (Your real friends always knew you had it in you.) You could break through."

Slightly reckless and downright defiant is what makes me tick. Doing things outside of the norm, flying by the seat of my pants ... only filling my life with things that make me feel alive. 

"If you want to access your full range of power, then commit to dreaming about your ideal life."

"Of course, tending to your deep wishes is not a matter of bodily life or death. Without passion, you can still make the rent, be a good guy, and limp along for lifetimes - as many of us do. You'll survive. But we're not here to talk about surviving or justifying just getting by. This book is an inquiry into what makes you thrive."

"Take Starbucks for example, they revolutionized the coffee business. Anyone who follows will be merely evolutionary. And evolutionary is good-it's solid; it can be quite fulfilling ... But revolutions! Ah ... that's the really exciting stuff. Who doesn't want to be revolutionary?! Which would you rather be?"

"Humans are gloriously determined to get what they want. We're ridiculously insatiable. We have a propensity for craving - ceaselessly. Buddhists, who are always trying to detach from this we=heel of suffering would agree: Constant craving can be a bitch. But on the other end of longing, there is some good news: your hunger will lead you home."

My hunger and insatiable thirst is absolutely traveling while meeting and learning about people. Their stories, their lives. Capturing it with my camera. Oh hunger, lead me home.

"If you're fully showing up for life, you won't be able to tell the difference between selflessness and self-serving because it feel so good to give ... or is it receiving?"

"Wisdom comes from embracing contrasting experiences: Lucky breaks and pounding the pavement. A winning streak and a dark night of the soul. Selling out and taking a stand. Wanting is all and walking away."

I have had so many people say to me, "wow, you really got lucky with that job", "you really got lucky with your business". All I ever want to say is, yes, maybe a little bit of luck was given to me, but I also busted my ass. The first two years of my business were a total nightmare. Working 8:30-5:00, shooting sometimes three sessions a week plus a wedding every weekend and editing until 2AM every single night. All while trying to manage my relationship, my home, my dog, my own well being. It was terrible. And I wasn't making anything resembling decent money because I was just starting out. With every area of my life, when I bust ass, 'luck' seems to find me. I love that Danielle brings up contrasting experiences with this - I have had so many winning streaks followed by the darkest of nights. Somehow, I always get back up and keep pounding that pavement. I hope this never changes.

"This I know to be true: we are craving to play bigger, to go deeper, to shine."

"I found out that there weren't too many limitations if I did it my way."

- Johnny Cash -

"The bottom line is this: If you want to make lots of really good stuff happen in your life, then that's really exciting - for all of us. If you want to earn a living by doing meaningful things, then that makes you exceptional. This truth is most evident: In seeking our freedom, we liberate our potential to accomplish incredible things."

"As people wish the creative spirit, we're obsessed with possibility. We live for the rush of turning a though - an abstract idea - into something real, tangible, touchable, readable, effectual, profitable. We feel empowered, generous even, in the making of our art. We have a practical indignation for mediocrity. We love to get things done."

Possibility is, hands down, my biggest motivator to keep going. I love this paragraph.

"Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Food is what we all agree on. As long as you stick to good, you'll never have real growth."

- Bruce Mau, designer -

"If it doesn't light you up, you're not the right person for the job."

"I want my fortune to be who I am. I want it to be that easy ... I want the privilege of a lifetime, of being myself."

"Every admission about the things I loathed to do felt like a giant step forward for deeply ambitious humans everywhere."

"I began to notice I was attracted to eccentrics, crazy obsessive fanatics who immersed themselves in their creative worlds. I really liked people who admitted when they didn't know something, "Out of my league - no idea." What a refreshingly real response in contrast to my bullshit, empty-eyed refrains of know-it-all answers and feigned interest. Specialists intrigued me. Enthusiasts made me swoon. I wanted to be one of those Passionate People. One of Kerouac's "mad ones": "the one who are ... desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars ... "

"A chilled out but insistent voice kept reminding me: "You didn't sign up for good enough in this lifetime, you signed up for awesome."

Who are you trying to impress?
Do not try to impress anybody. Do it for you. I need to stop thinking about other photographers at all. Focus on me, what I see and how I capture it. Work on embracing and sharing my vision. Work on figuring out what my vision is and fine tune how I see the world.

What do you have to force yourself to do?
Family sessions and little kids. It's not that I don't like them, but I absolutely do not love them. They don't make me excited, I don't love the images I get from the sessions the same way that I do engagement or weddings or even senior sessions.

What would you like to never, ever do again?

Someday, when I am full time photographer grown up, family and children sessions.

"A strength is what you do that makes you feel strengthened." Boom. So it's not necessarily what you're good at or what you're capable of - it's what makes you feel amazing when you do it."

"Masters focus on what they do best. That's how they become masters. They stay in their zone, and the zone is what feels good. Damn good."

Which is why I need to cut out the types of sessions that drain me rather than build me up.

"Can you remember who you were before the world told you who to be?"

I loved my high school science teacher, Mr. Haines. He was awesome, and the coolest guy around. I looked up to him more than I did any other man in my life at that time. When I had told him that I wanted to go to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for photography, he straight face told me not to pursue photography. That no one else would tell me this, but life is not about doing what you love, it is doing what makes you money so that you can live a good life. And the kicker? I listened to him. It wasn't until years after graduating that I picked up the camera again. I should really write him a letter about that.

Also - on a completely shallow side note, I am pretty excited about finally wearing fall clothes again, and I found these gems at Target today as part of their new designer line for women (please ignore lack of makeup, yoga pants, undone hair and messy bathroom - it's lazy sunday around here):