Get Your Photography on the Cover of a Magazine

Ready to achieve greatness in your photography business? Ready to get your work on the cover of a magazine? Apparently, you have to create something different that inspires conversation!

I've turned my daily commute (driving all around the island of Maui to shoot weddings) into story-time. This week, my Kindle's sexy robotic female voice has been filling my car with the words of wise Laura Vanderkam from her book "168 Hours: You Have More TimeThan You Think". Last Saturday, as I was driving to the Wailuku Cemetery { to photograph Daysha }, something Laura said made me think about how the people who appear on the cover of magazines aren't there because they imitate others (really well). To make it to the cover of a magazine, top of the Billboards, or onto the Best Sellers list, you have got to do something totally different from what others are doing and most importantly, it has to be intriguing enough that it inspires conversation — you've got to do something that people want to talk about. 

Up until the beginning of 2013, I was aspiring to create portraits that looked just like Sue Bryce's work. She was my main inspiration in addition to the lovely Christa Meola, Jasmine Star & Lara Jade (basically the whole creativeLIVE posse).  A few months ago I stopped looking at their work in an attempt to find refreshing inspiration elsewhere and to start thinking for myself, creating portraits that were a bit more "original" and less copy-cat. 

So on my drive to Wailuku, I was brainstorming ways I could take portraits that were really different. .. like really different. What poses have I never seen before? What angle should I have the model tilt her head (it doesn't always have to be 'chin forward & down', ya know.) Of course, when I was standing there knee deep in dry grass, looking at Daysha through my camera, my mind went completely blank and I resorted to my tried-and-true poses, my comfort zone. Oh well. I suppose it was a bit ambitious to assume that I could revolutionize the world of photography in 20 minutes. haha

But seriously now, I've done my first shoot in Hawaii and the ice has been broken. I'm now officially on the hunt to figure out how I'm going to push the envelop a little and venture forth to creative lands where no twenty-four year old with a camera has gone before! ;) But for today, please allow me to share with you these pretty portraits of Dasha that may not be the most original images in the world, but they are very pretty, and we like pretty :D