I once said that with blogging, there is this facade that you have to be rich and buy the most expensive things to stay relevant. And I truly believed in that for the longest time. I would compare my blog to others and change a lot of what I was doing to become more like these bloggers (who had been at this game for way longer than I have been). I started to hate the way I looked in photos, compare my body to others, compare my editing skills to others, get in a funk and start to plateau. I started to hate my work and doubt myself because I wasn't doing it the way everyone else was. That can be a real downer when at the end of the day this is supposed to be a hobby. Hobbies should make you feel good and proud and I would go into funks where I really wasn't proud of my work. I also wasn't seeing results like I wanted to because I would go into this funk and not be consistent. I was really doing it to myself.
I had to get out of this funk and start to rebuild my confidence in myself. I'm human, there are gong to be times that I don't like things about myself, but overall I'm actually a very confident person. I have a wonderful and supportive group of friends and family that build me up everyday to be a better version of myself. It's totally natural to go through phases like this. Once I started to pick myself up again, I almost felt unstoppable. I started to write more. Not just shopping list to share with you all but real meaningful post (sort of like this one) where I talk about more than just makeup and fashion. I'm a real human going through things and I need to talk about this. First and foremost this blog is for me. I had to remember that. If I like my content and my pictures then that's all that matters, number of likes be damned.
Once that happened I had a fresh outlook on it. I started to do more research and taking time to plan things out. I also read the book "Instastyle" by Tezza and it was a game changer for me. Her words were so inspiring and I thought you know she's right.. I am trying way too hard to be something I'm not. I needed to chill out and focus on what brands I wanted to work with, what type of post I wanted to create and how I wanted to share that. Another book that inspired me was "Next Level Basic" by Stassi Schroder. The way she writes is just so witty and it reminded me a lot of how I talk. I am a very witty and sarcastic person, but that wasn't showing in my blog. I felt like sometimes I was too robotic or posting things because I felt like this is how a blogger should talk, but this book reminded me of my voice and how to use it with the written word.
I started to work on photoshoots and research new editing techniques that I liked. I knew that I needed to find a preset that really captured my personality. I have made countless attempts to create my own presets but nothing that really worked. It wasn't until I started to use VSCO for every image. I fell in love with the C1 filter and nothing I could find on Lightroom compared to it. I was literally doing basic editing on Lightroom then uploading the images to my phone to put the C1 filter on it and tweak it from there. I did everything to find a C1 preset lookalike for the desktop (I even emailed VSCO to see if they offered that preset or something like it for purchase) and I couldn't find anything. But you know what? Who cares? I liked it! I loved the way my photos were turning out and as I started to post more and more I started to see a response from it. It wasn't over night. As I said, making a career out of this takes patience and consistency. But it was going somewhere at least.
Now I plan photoshoots with my friends like crazy. I'm more comfortable with my friends which gets me to loosen up in front of the camera and not be so stiff. I've also been more consistent when editing photos and using presets. It's a great base to start when editing my photos and everything has looked so coherent from there, I just love the way everything turns out. I'm your average twenty year old, and I say that with pride, because I am Michele Katsaris and there is no one out there like me, but I'm going through so many of the same things that millions of other twenty year olds are going through. I'm uniquely average and I'm not ashamed of that. I go through days in life where I love what I do and days I hate it. It's all about finding a balance and that's my niche–finding a balance in blogging and my everyday life. I'm not perfect at it, but that's what makes it special.
xoxo, Michele
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