When I say I’ve been planning my latest video for over a year, I mean it. I’ve been eyeing zip-tie crown DIYs on Pinterest for a while, and when I saw a celestial-themed cape in Target’s 2020 Halloween drop, I was so excited I even preordered it. (I’m the type of girl who loves Halloween/fall decor, but NOT the kind that “Black Friday-style” shops it, you know?)
But then the cape just kind of sat, balled up in my “costume” bin. It was so glorious I wanted to do it justice! October 2020 came and went. (I had plenty of other Halloween-themed videos to fill my schedule.) So I thought I might make it a birthday-themed video for April 2021. I started working on the crown in February for that purpose. Then I had a crown AND a cape but still no motivation to film a video.
Finally I put it on my calendar for October (over a year after I’d originally planned it) and said it was happening now or never!
And TA-DA!
The biggest challenge I ran into with this video (and what had me procrastinating so much) was that I wanted the photos to be magical, ethereal…basically better than my skills or equipment would allow. I considered booking a photographer (that’s still on the table for the future, honestly). I scoured Pinterest and Instagram for posing and framing ideas. I nitpicked over outfits and the way my body might look at certain angles.
But then that wasn’t the point, was it?
I loved this cape and made the headdress because I wanted to feel made of magic. So why was I putting so much pressure on myself to look a certain way or have a certain quality of photo? That was missing the point!
Learning to let go and create for creating’s sake has been a goal (and a challenge) of mine this year. There’s probably no better example of the struggle than this. When I finally let myself go with the flow I was able to make the video. And some of my favorite photos were ones I just tried experimenting with on the spot. (e.g. Where I pull the gauzy cape over my face and shoot through the fabric. That’s the first photo I took like that and it ended up being my favorite!)
And just because I’ve taken some photos in this outfit doesn’t mean I have to pack it away, never to be seen again. It doesn’t mean I couldn’t still hire a photographer to take professional quality photos like I’d originally been envisioning. Basically, just because a video is out, doesn’t mean I have to jump on the next creative project train rather than refining and continuing to experiment with this one!
So much of the creative internet sphere these days is about churning out content as fast as possible. And it’s easy to forget that not every artistic endeavor is going to be perfected on the first draft or able to be completed on “The Algorithm’s” schedule.
All that’s to say: Create how you want. Learn, draft, reiterate. And don’t pressure yourself into checking certain boxes so that you don’t end up creating at all. Maybe you already know that, and it’s just a reminder for me. Oh well. I need it!
i IMAGINE (blank) 
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