Jasmine Star

I've ranted about Jasmine Star on so many occasions! She is one of the photographer's whose blog I've been following for a VERY long time! I found out about her before I even started my own business, so she was definitely a huge inspiration to me. That being said, there was NO way I was going to miss her talk at WPPI! She packed the house in the Grand Garden Arena of the MGM Grand, and even made most of us cry with her openness. 

A lot of what Jasmine said that night I had heard in bits and pieces through other talks and workshops that she's done. But I always come away learning something new or being inspired in a new way. Here are some of the notes I jotted down from her talk...

-Why are you doing what you're doing? Pretty straight forward question, but it made me think.

-As far as your business goes, "You can't do everything well, focus on your strengths and outsource the rest." This concept was reiterated many a times this week through various speakers. I'm still determining what my strengths and weaknesses are, and more-so what I enjoy doing and what I could do without!

-Do I like the photographer I've become? I this touches on my post the other day about not being satisfied with where my priorities were at. But I've also been thinking about this on a more technical level, as well. I don't think I'm at the skill level that I'd like to be at yet, but I'm really happy with my progression. And that's the main thing, that I keep progressing and not get stagnant and settle for where I'm at because there are always new techniques to learn and apply.

-Don't try to make your photos look like someone else's. This coincided what Bobbi + Mike said about owning who you are, and what Becker said about finding out what makes you special and different from other photographers. I know that I'm embracing this more and more I take pictures. Defining who I am and what my style is. I'm still not fully there, but I hope I never really am. I want to always be striving to challenge myself.

-Big sacrifices lead to big changes which lead to big results. Enough said! 

-What changes can I make in my own personal life? Jasmine wrote down some of the changes that she decided to make for herself and they were exactly the ones that I want to make as well. 1- family first 2- make sacrifices 3- learn to say no 4- stop getting caught up in comparisons. Then she challenged us to make two changes that would free up our time and better our business. The two changes I want to make are 1- Learn to say no so that I'm not over-working myself and hence giving me more free time to spend with my family and friends and enjoy life! 2- less social networking. Big one. When my daughter is awake, Facebook stays away. I've gotten better at this for sure, but I still need to wean it out a little bit more!

And finally, Dare To Succeed. I want to take her up on that dare. But I want to do it in a way that doesn't take time away from my family and allows me to run my business the best way that I can for myself and my family.

She had a great talk. At times it felt like she was speaking directly to me about the struggles that I've been facing in my quest to find balance. Can you see how all these sessions have just been building up on each other and why I needed so much time to process after I got home?! =)

After her session she was kind enough to hang around after and talked to us and even let us get a picture with her! Wow! So Star Struck at this moment! Don't mind me, I look a little too excited in this picture! Try to look past my owl eyes! Better yet, don't even look at me, look at the stunning Miss Jasmine Star!

Thanks for taking the picture, Justine!