Branding Shoot for Annie Grace - This Naked Mind | Colorado, Fall 2020
"The 4 qualities of a great career:
1) I enjoy it
2) I’m good at it
3) I make good money
4) I’m around fascinating people”
- James Clear
This newsletter content hit my inbox the day I returned from Colorado for Annie Grace’s branding and content shoot. It struck me that everything about what I do answers these questions…now thanks to Annie herself and a few others. I have been following Annie Grace for 19 months since the first time I photographed her in San Diego for Think Better, Live Better 2019 with Marc and Angel Hack Life. Ever since, I admire how She, Marc and Angel, and many of the other speakers fulfill these qualities of a great career listed by James Clear with their passions in life and have inspired me to do the same….by photographing THEM.
The only thing I love more than shooting weddings is meeting intelligent, kind, driven, culture-changing people like Annie to create visual representations of their messaging together that further the impact of their already powerful words.
Back in February 2019 I shot the event previously mentioned called Think Better, Live Better for New York Times best-selling authors, Marc and Angel Chernoff. During the event I offered mini headshots sessions for the speakers mainly because I wanted the opportunity to meet them “up close.” These people are big names in the world of self-improvement…right down my alley. Annie Grace was one of a handful of the speakers to take me up on the offer for headshots.
Wanting to be prepared, I read as many of their books as possible before the event. I only had a month so I had to choose which author’s books to read. Since cutting back on drinking (mainly because of my ever-desperate drive to control my weight) was on my list of resolutions for the year, I decided to pick up Annie Grace’s book This Naked Mind all about controlling alcohol in your life. The second part of the title: Find Freedom, Discover Happiness & Change Your Life also made my ears perk up…this was perfect for me.
What I found within the pages of her book surprised me…and changed my life forever. You can’t unlearn this stuff. And, as they say, knowledge is power. I quite honestly didn’t know alcohol is a carcinogen. I grew up in a house where we MADE wine. We grew the grapes and made it at home…still do. They serve wine at church for heaven’s sake! Alcohol is part of my family’s culture. What I learned within the pages of this book stopped me in my tracks.
Quitting smoking after many years of hiding it and the shame surrounding that unhealthy habit, I was SHOCKED to find out that drinking alcohol is just as bad. Just…no one talks about it. Or no one knows….and that is scary.
Not to harp on the bad stuff, what I LOVED most about the book was learning the ins and outs of how companies market alcohol to us. It opened my eyes to how EVERYTHING is marketed to us. It was like the blinders were taken off or maybe, more accurately, like I woke up and I realized what was going on all along in my life. It was not unlike a MATRIX moment but there was no blue or red pill at the end of this book. It explained why I think I want certain things like cookies and candy and, yes, another drink but also don’t want them at the same time. That cognitive dissonance is so darn confusing….but now I get it.
I’m no dummy. There is a huge gap between holding understanding and knowledge and using it. I’m personally still working on implementing all the knowledge. I have re-read the book 3 times already and started down the rabbit hole of reading every book on alcohol I can get my hands on in search of more understanding. Kind of a, “is it REALLY true?” way of still being in disbelief over the cold, hard facts of learning about what alcohol really is and what it does to us humans. Growing up being proud of the wine we made from the very grapes we grew, stomping the grapes with our (very clean) feet means the roots go deep for me. I gave up alcohol altogether after first reading her book This Naked Mind. When I met and photographed Annie the first time I was 67 days alcohol free. Then, after being away from it for so long later in the year when the fall wedding season hit for me, the “It can’t really be THAT BAD” thinking snuck back in. I started having a glass of wine with dinner again and then a beer out with Marc for date night. Then all the sudden I was back to having a glass of wine after a long day shooting a wedding…then two.
There is a small part of me that wishes I could just “be like everyone else” and not understand what it is doing to me when I drink one or two glasses of wine but I do now…and I want to be the change in the world. For myself and for my kids.
It’s hard to be different.
I am ridiculously happy my photos will now be part of the hope that things can be different. I believe there will be a day when more people don’t drink than do….just like with tobacco. The team at This Naked Mind has a new program called The Path that I’m sure will help so many people in the same boat as I am….needing that little bit of extra support. Not necessarily for those with serious addictions to alcohol (professional help should be sought for those with a serious physical addiction) but for those like me where the culture around alcohol is deeply rooted. At the point where it’s not a physical addiction but a mental craving for “normalcy” and to “fit in.”
It’s hard to be different.
I have the rare opportunity in my job to witness people drinking in excess at almost every weekend at the weddings I shoot. At first, when I stopped drinking, I worried that it would make things harder for me to be in that position but it is actually the opposite. Being one of the only sober people in a sea of those intoxicated is the perfect way to engrave why I want to be different into my very being. Ask any one of my second shooters. I’m singing and having fun along with the guests while shooting at every wedding truly enjoying myself….without a drop of alcohol because weddings are FUN and I am SO HAPPY for my couples and their families.
Now, please don’t think I will EVER judge you who are reading this or ANYONE for drinking. I STILL have a drink here and there (though I immediately regret it now). I just want to put it out there that if you or anyone you know is thinking about just…not drinking. It’s okay. #sobercurious is becoming all the rave. There are more people out there than you think that are teetotal (a super cool way of saying you don’t do drugs or alcohol). It’s becoming the fashionable thing to be healthy and mindful and “all there” in your life….and I think it’s super cool. If you are tired….literally…from drinking even a glass of wine a week, maybe pick up the book or start listening to Annie’s podcast where you will find that you are not alone. There are so many of us out there fighting for the change trying to spread the truth about how alcohol affects our bodies and minds.
When Annie contacted me in early March with interest in having me out to Colorado to have a complete branding and content session, I was all in and so excited. Then COVID happened. Yes, this session was affected by COVID-19 as well. We postponed 6 months but the perfect weather we had last week was worth it in my books.
I’ve had a lot of questions about what a branding and content session is so I’ll just answer that quickly here:
The purpose of a branding and content session is for business owners to get headshots of themselves and their staff and professional photos for their website along with product shots and lifestyle photos to use for content on their media pages for the season or year depending on how they want to structure it. It can be of the business owner herself or of models or both! There is a full-day shoot option with the intent to get content for 6 months to a year (depending on time with the locations you chose) or a half-day shoot option with the intention to hold one seasonally for actuate seasonal photos. We can even sneak in family photos like we did for Annie’s session if you like. I will send you a guide to get you thinking and a questionnaire to help me understand your vision and brand before we develop a plan for your shoot together. Unlike with a regular portrait session or wedding, the client has full permissions to use the photos as needed and even to change and edit them if they so choose. They CAN be used commercially of course and for advertising and such….that is the purpose of the shoot.
Because the photos are taken for the client to share with their message, I don’t share many of them on my pages. If you would like to see the bulk of the photos from this session and how Annie and the team at This Naked Mind use them over the next 6 months to a year, go follow her @thisnakedmind and see their website at www.thisnakedmind.com. The first photo on the homepage is from her mini headshots session the first time I met her in San Diego. I’ll be excited to see how she uses the photos from this new session as well!
Below you will see a few of her headshots from her branding and content session and most from the family session we snuck in at the end. THE BEST KIDS EVER. SO SO SO FUN. And, if you love reading inspirational newsletters that are truly relatable and packed full of helpful advice, the three I regularly open and actually give my time to read are:
Annie, thank you for having me out to see a beautiful part of the country I have always wanted to visit. Thank you for being so welcoming. Thank you for playing along and being so easy to work with. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for your work and changing my life. I hope you love your photos which are waiting for you in your inbox RIGHT NOW along with a little surprise because I just had to. Keep doing what you’re doing and changing lives. Your work is so important and I love you to pieces for it.
XO - Megan
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