my favorite holiday

thirty-second dance party

Thirty-second dance parties are kinda my thing. They're a burst of energy and joy in times when the overwhelm seems like it's going to swallow you whole. At my old fast-food job, after a hectic rush that left everyone mad at the world, I'd always say, "Thirty-second dance party, go!" and everyone would move and groove and let the bad stuff go until the next rush came. It's the best form of therapy I can give away. It's free, quick and easy to do... All you have to do is move.

Stressed? Thirty-second dance party.

Overwhelmed? Thirty-second dance party.

On the edge of burn-out? Thirty-second dance party.

Bored and restless? Thirty-second dance party.

Feeling uncomfortable? Thirty-second dance party.

It's my favorite way to get people to open up at the beginning of a photo session. When the sheepish wiggles at first turn into a full-blown impromptu dance routine to your favorite song, that's where the magic happens. That's where joy abounds and allows me to chase it down.

My self-portrait therapy this week made me feel inspired and alive in all the best ways. I pulled out my phone once I got to my favorite clearing, put on my favorite dance party playlist, and danced in front of my camera like there weren't three other people on the other side of the treeline. I felt free and alive after a week with a news cycle that has been so heavy. Find the joy in those moments when your heart feels tender. Thirty-second dance parties always help me to do just that.

self-care is not selfish

Has this week been weird for anyone else? The season change always sneaks up on me... I spend the first few weeks trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes and then frantically planning for the weeks ahead. I've been napping a lot lately and tossing and turning every night. My brain is buzzing with so many ideas, I don't even know where to start. Autumn to-do lists, personal projects I want to tackle, and ALL THE BUSINESS stuff. I'm on track to up my marketing game and start booking more clients so that I actually feel like a real photographer again. I've already picked out my Halloween costume, and somehow Justin's birthday is next week already. I have mini sessions in Burlington and Waupaca coming up soon that I have to plan for, and then before I know it November will be here and I'll be pushing for holiday photos.

It's no wonder they call fall "the busy time of year."

The best ways I know how to get through the busy season is to make self-care a priority.

Put real clothes on before you drag your laptop out to start your work day so you don't end up wearing the same coffee-stained pajamas for three days straight. It always helps me to actually feel like I'm ready to start working when I change out of my yoga pants and ratty sleep shirts.

Pick up your space. I have trouble buckling down and getting to work unless I've made my bed in the morning (which also helps combat the urge to take afternoon naps) and made sure the corner where I work is at least somewhat organized. 

Take breaks. Grab a cup of coffee and sit outside. Go for a walk. Go to the grocery store, do laundry, run errands—do something to give your eyes a break from the screens. When you start going cross-eyed from staring at Lightroom all day, that's usually my cue to get up and do something else for an hour. The computer work will still be there when you get back.

If you're feeling exhausted and burnt out, give yourself permission to take the rest of the day off. Take a shower and let the hot water relax your knotted shoulders and remind you that you're human. Light a candle. Shave your legs. Brush your hair. Brush your teeth. Use your favorite lotion. Watch a few episodes of your favorite TV show. These little comforts will make you feel pampered and ready to pick up where you left off tomorrow.

Put real food into your body. Drink water. You cannot rely on a diet of coffee and junk food alone. Your body will thank you by actually giving you the energy you need in order to get your work done. Even if it just means going to the gas station and grabbing a premade salad, you will feel so much better than if you just get another cup of coffee you don't need and your go-to gas station munchies.

Day by day, this "working for myself" venture gets a little bit easier. The busy season will be replaced with slowness eventually, but for now, I'm relishing in these small things I do every day that make life a little less stressful.

currently, september edition

writing this in real time after having scheduled posts all week

waiting to go get my hair cut today

singing "September" by earth, wind, and fire because it's the 21st day of September

pushing the Mew cat off my laptop every .5 seconds

relishing in the days where the sun comes out and the mosquitoes don't eat me alive

watching stupid romantic comedies and I just started Sabrina: the Teenage Witch

knitting up a storm while I watch TV

reading gone girl for the first time

reacquainting myself with newborn photography because 4 of my friends are pregnant!

and taking newborn pictures tomorrow for my friend Becca

riding this wave of inspiration and productivity while it lasts

loving that fall is finally here and I can pull out my sweaters and scarves again

trying to curb my spending until after Halloween

wishing everyone a very happy friday

chase more sunsets

Since quitting my fast food job, I could not tell you the last time that I actually watched the sunset. I've gone adventuring during golden hour with my camera, but I'm always back inside curled up with Lightroom and Netflix by the time the sky shows its true colors and the sun says goodnight. I miss fawning over a pretty sky and pretty light. It was a part of my day that I didn't even realize I would miss so much until it's gone. The goal for the next couple of weeks: Chase more sunsets.

feels like fall

The temperature may or may not have been in the 80's over the weekend, but at least it's starting to look like fall. The last of autumns flora are being displayed, and they have approximately 2394820 pumpkins at the grocery store. Pumpkin-spice is being thrown in everyone's face whether they like it or not. The leaves are just starting to change, slowly from the tippy-tops all the way down. The world is coming alive one last time before winter says hello for 6 months. Are you ready?

ring-a-ding-ding

As a wedding photographer, I'm always trying to work on my detail photos. I'm in the process of saving for a macro lens to make my rings shots pop, but for now, I'm just rolling with my 50mm and my ring box. This ring is another piece from Civion store! The simple details on The Aurora Ring made me want to add it to my jewelry box... I'm a sucker for clean lines and flowery details, and I can't say no to rose gold. You can still use the code ANNA25 at checkout to receive 25% off your order!

fall down seven times, get up eight

...Except sometimes it's really more like, "Fall down seven times, cry a little, eat some comfort food,  take a shower, get some sleep, then get up eight."

Nobody showed up to the Portrait Day event I hosted with Next Stop Kids Shop. Not a single person. Those same feelings of imposter syndrome that crept up on me in my first semester of art school are back. I remember wandering the aisles of Utrecht, looking at a lot of the things I knew I needed but was too overwhelmed to buy. Being eighteen, on my own for the first time, armed with supply lists for three classes and not a lot of cash was my first glimpse into this messy life milestone called "Adulthood."

I don't know how to use any of this stuff!

I am a fraud for not knowing paper types or how to draw.

Savannah and art school and those days when my life revolved around charcoal drawings and art history flashcards feel so far removed from me now. Clumsily lugging giant portfolios of unused drawing pads on and off SCAD buses, hanging out on Smoker's Bridge, and Sub Shoppe Tuesdays belong to another Anna. But the imposter syndrome feels like pulling out your favorite winter coat from storage. Wrapping its warmth around you feels familiar, like a hug from your favorite relative you only see at holidays.

If nobody will pay $20 for my pictures, who the hell is going to hire me for a wedding?

The only promise you can get out of working for yourself is that it will be a lot of work. You have to have the strength to pick yourself up when you inevitably fall. Dust yourself off. Fake it til you make it through the imposter syndrome and impending anxiety about what you're going to do next. Sit down and reevaluate. Write down why you are doing this and who you are doing this for. Make a plan from there. And when that plan stops working, do it again. And again. And again.

friday introductions

Friday introductions are usually more of an Instagram thing, but I've been getting more blog traffic lately so hey! I'm Anna Gutermuth. I'm an aspiring wedding and portrait photographer that just has a lot to say sometimes and takes too many pictures to not have a personal blog. I shoot with a Canon 6D Mark II DSLR and an iPhone 8+. I've been blogging on various platforms since middle school. I started this blog in 2011 and never looked back. I was born and raised in southeastern Wisconsin, did a 6-month stint in Savannah, GA for art school after I graduated and had to drop out after the economy tanked, and now I live in north central Wisconsin with my boyfriend Justin and our two cats, Whiskers and Mew.

Photography has been my "thing" since high school. In 2010, I completed a 365-day self-portrait challenge and uploaded everything to Flickr. I started this blog in 2011, mostly as a place to post my rolls of film when I used to actually shoot film (RIP all my film cameras), photo shoots, and document the adventures I took with my friends. In 2013, I started ~fashion blogging~ because it was the cool thing to do. I ran around with my camera and my tripod taking outfit photos and then would come home and wrack my brain trying to remember where all of my clothes came from and developed a sort of shopping problem. Over the years I have moved away from fashion blogging and dabbled in things like scrapbooking and knitting and painting. Now it's the things that make my life magic or whatever is on my mind, and I'm trying to do some self-portrait therapy once a week. This blog has always grown with me through the years, and I will always be thankful for that.

Mornings spent with a hot cup of coffee and taking a walk around the backyard are my jam. I love thirty-second dance parties to get you to loosen up and let go of whatever tension you are holding in your body. I pretty much watch Grey's Anatomy and Gilmore Girls on a loop. I'm not a big movie buff, but I quote Mean Girls and Bring It On in regular conversation whenever I can. My favorite emoji is the sparkle emoji. Yellow is my favorite color. I'm always the first person to shout-out, "Look at the sky!" at every pretty sunset. It's so nice to meet you. I'm glad you're here!

on my walk

makes me feel legit

I finally bought myself an actual camera bag instead of just wearing my camera around my neck all the time! The inside is roomy enough for me to carry my camera body with a lens attached, my external flash, and an extra lens. I also take advantage of the huge inside pockets to store extra batteries and chargers, extra memory cards, lens caps, and my "Wedding Emergency Kit" which is basically just sunscreen, hair ties, safety pins, a sewing kit, and like a million bobby pins. This purchase has 100% made me feel more legit when I show up to a shoot or whenever I'm just taking pictures in public out on my own. (I'm also thinking about grabbing another one in a different color to use as an everyday purse.)

And I know I'm like 3 years late to the enamel pin trend, but these were too cute not to collect along the way!

Bag is from Amazon
Pins are from Get to Work Book, Femfetti, and Amazon (1, 2)

happy tuesday

living with "intent"

I bought a Get to Work Book when I made my One Little Word for this year “Intent.” I wanted to be intentional about my life, something that has only come naturally to me in times of trauma or crisis. Lists are how I compartmentalize and deal with hard feelings. I have been here before: obsessively writing things down in a planner so that I don't forget. The Back to School crazies do this to me. To-do lists, project notes, grocery lists, monthly goals, and intentions... They all get scribbled down in this giant notebook that has sort of become essential to building a life and staying somewhat sane in the process. Apart from the day-to-day, I know I need to get better at setting goals and also putting in the work to actually accomplish them.

But actually planning for a future feels like scary work. Making a 5-year and 10-year plan feels so daunting when you don’t even know what the rest of the year looks like now that you quit your day job on a whim, and your busy season is over with your side-gig. All of my albums have been delivered, photos sent out, blog posts scheduled. An empty calendar now sits ahead of me with the most daunting question hanging over it: What's next?

There just has to be more than tracking which My So-Called Life and Gilmore Girls actors I can spot on Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. Using my Get to Work Book has forced me to take the time each week and write out my to-do lists. Plan my days. Put my routine down on paper, fill in the must-do’s, and plan the fun stuff from there. It's a pull of give and take, putting your head down every day and actually making sure you are putting in the effort to get all the stuff on your list done. Don't get sucked into Netflix shows and scrolling through Instagram when you could be working on the magic that is building your own business.

Having intent is half the battle. When sitting down at the beginning of the month, all I could focus on was the giant black clouds hanging over the beginning of the month, the anniversaries of the beginning of my bad days. That first week of September always knocks me off my feet emotionally. My written intention for the month is, "Having the strength to let go of negativity in the pursuit of joy." I still want to be able to find joy in the face of the unknowns on the calendar and in life. Anything is possible in September. It's the season of a fresh start in the middle of the year. The season change makes us shift our intentions.

The positive, business-wise? Autumn is every photographer's dream season. The colors, the layering and styling potential, weddings and people getting their holiday cards ready. I should be all over it, but I don't know how to market for it. I have a half-finished knit blanket sitting next to my chair that seems way more appealing to work on than mini sessions: setting dates, figuring out pricing, picking locations, and opening it to the public. It seems overwhelming, but I know I can break it down, do the math and get it out there in the world.

Ready? Set? Here we go.

overwhelming sense of good

'80s music, sunlight, coffee, that late summer feeling. It's all connected to an overwhelming sense of good.

she's on her way

Signs that fall is coming: the ground cover in the backyard starting to turn at the end of August. it's raining a lot. watching the "flickr plant" we were all obsessed with as teenagers this time of year start to pop up. actually wanting to wear jeans and leggings again, even though the humidity thinks it's still summer. savoring those first few sips of coffee every morning. sleeping with a comforter at night with the fan blowing on high. my friends are messaging me about fall pictures. today is the first day of school. high school sports are on the radio again. dollar general has their Halloween section fully stocked. pumpkin spice is back at the grocery store. all I want to buy are cardigans and "back to school" clothes. Grey's Anatomy comes back in 23 days. I'm feeling restless with inspiration and creative energy, despite how the last few days have made me feel. There is change in the air. Can you feel it?