I'm in a time warp.

Do you ever look back at younger versions of yourself and think, "my god, I was the shit!"

Or just me?

Like who is this Sarah who just romanticized her life and enjoyed creating 24/7 like it wasn't a chore? And who just LOVED her work so much and deemed it worthy of submitting to photography magazines? And wasn't afraid to post and post and post her photos. Like who was she?? I was SO in love with what I was creating and I wasn't afraid to share it and say I was proud of my art.

I say those things now, but I think the difference was that a less jaded, more naive version of myself wholeheartedly BELIEVED it with her entire free-spirited soul.

I don't know where the switched happened in my brain of seeing myself as less capable and more self-critical. I've had myself in a chokehold, forming this impossible standard of perfection, trying to be perceived as the professional spiritual bad-bitch, who leads an empire (isn't that what every woman in business are told they need to manifest these days?), commanding female armies advancing the movement of women in love with their bodies. Let's be honest though, I'll still be doing that last bit because I LOVE when women love themselves, but to be fully transparent, I'm a fucking human, a hot mess who has no shits together and also just wants to be a wittle baby girl who plays, runs wild on the land, builds forts with the trees and laughs at stupid humor with all her other wittle feral girl besties.

Maybe all of this was brought about because I'm looking back through rose-colored glasses. Either way, I'm letting this be a scolding to my ego (I've been writing a blog post about the ego today -- more on this to come soon) to pipe down and let me create without hesitation or judgements. Photography used to be way more fun when I was left to creating on a whim without strategy and expected outcomes.

Project 10

In my nolstalgic reminiscing, I was reminded of this really fun photography challenge I did with 4 other photographers, called Project Ten where the concept was to do one theme each month, (like "magic", "sharp" and "adventure"), with a collection of 10 final images. We announced the theme on the 10th of each month with a blog chain, linking to each other and then other photographers could participate by creating their own set of 10 images based on the month's theme and post them in a Facebook group. This was so playful for me to participate in. Still 10 years later, I find myself in awe of the out-of-the-box thinking this called me to do and I'm craving more of it.

Project 52

I also had the best time doing a short stint on a Project 52 where my good friend Alyssa Campbell and I attempted to do one photo theme per week (like "double exposure", "motion blur", "no head" and "rainbow/reflection"). My version was in self-portraits. This was not quite as sustainable for me as I found out 10 weeks into the challenge that I was pregnant with baby girl number 3 and that sucked the life out of me for the first trimester and I never came back to the project. Again, I crave this sort of intention, freedom and play in my art.

Brainstorming a new creative project

As I yet again overcome the ego and step back into the joyful fire of art, my chest is burning to create for fun again. I want to shoot at least once a month on a styled theme. I've been insanely inspired by Marina Williams for quite some time but have yet to make the jump into bold colors. So I think as I move forward with more intention, I want to choose different color theories to practice with. My sweet and incredibly creative friend Barclay and I found this glorious, almost metallic blue, 80's vibe dress at the thrift store that I envision in a monochromatic setting. You might be seeing more of the rainbow here on my blog and Instagram in the coming months.

Stay tuned.

xo,