I have been sharing my editing process on my Instagram and I have had a handful of messages along the lines of this: “I am surprised you are sharing your editing so openly. Are you worried someone is going to copy you?” No.
My very highest hope is that people take a trick here and there and get some ideas to apply to their own work and they don’t try to mimic my work exactly. Not for me, for them. Without sounding like a total jerk, no one will ever be able to “copy” my photography. And no one will copy yours, either.
Sure, they could try to edit exactly like me BUT are they gonna shoot at my locations, be my same silly self (thus getting the same emotional response), attract my exact clients, use light the same way, edit identically? Nope. They simply will not.
You know what is super freeing? To stop worrying about that. I have been living in this bliss for about three years and life is way better than the first seven where I felt angry and jealous and scarce about success.
It went from “If SHE is successful, then I could never be…. hmph” TO “Holy crap, if she can be successful, I can too”.
Which is more uplighting? Which is more empowering? SO many of you have signed up for the Overcoming Comparison and Self-Doubt and that lets me know that a lot of people are feeling these feelings. Go grab that course! It’s free! I made it free because my underlying goal in sharing so much with you all is that I want as many women as possible to realize their creative potential. More women with power is good for this world, our daughters, and our sons.
Reach out to me on DMs if you are struggling! I feel like this phenomenon hits women harder than men. Men seem to be able to celebrate each other’s successes with ease, likely because they feel less scarce by the nature success in our society- it is easily handed to men, uncommonly to women. A female business owner who is killing it is a rare bird.
Let’s change that- the first step is realizing your own power and success is not going to be lessened by the power and success of others.
