On a flight to a destination photo shoot, I met a women who shattered my limited way of thinking. She fumbled to the seat refusing the aid of the flight crew, sat down with the weight of her years, and struck up a conversation with me that I’ll never forget. Elizabeth, widowed, 89 years old, and fiercely independent…is legally blind.

“I see people now better than I ever did before ’cause I can feel them.” She claims that she likes this type of sight better than her 20/20 vision that left her shortly after her true love’s death 9 years ago. I learned that she values her gift of vision, and scoffs at the “blind” label. She is a seer, possessing the ability to use her third eye, the inner eye, to understand the universe. This mystical eye is referred to as the gate that leads within to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness.

Once she described me down to the laptop quietly humming on my knees without turning a milky eye my way, she had all of my attention. Befriending Elizabeth was a gift to me. It opened my eyes. Fate gave me this lesson at a time when I was nervous, feeling inadequate in my craft, worried about executing a series of photo shoots in Destin. It gave me the faith to recognize my own inner eye.

As a photographer, vision counts. We assess the light, ISO, the f/stop, aperture based on what we see from within our view finder. I won’t lie. I suck at mechanics. Real technical know how eludes me and I suffer from fear that some day you all will see that I find the perfect exposure triangle someone else’s holy grail. Done. Fear subsided.

Elizabeth taught me how I see better blind. In a way I’m lucky to be blind, unencumbered by the mechanics of a tool I hold in my hand to capture my subjects. It allows me to see people I photograph purely. To feel them. Take these little boys for example. After being told a dozen times to behave, stand still, hush these fellas gladly embarked in a mock karate bout with me. We shared a secret “you can karate chop me if you want but don’t let the grown ups catch us” moment. And then, they let down their guard with me enabling me to see them be themselves. They just wanted to play and laugh out loud.

Grown ups I photograph want me to understand them just as much, maybe more. Seeing what makes people tick, what makes them unique, what makes them beautiful, that is my gift. And Elizabeth gave me the confidence to recognize it. And to discard guilt for my mechanical ineptitude.

My challenge to you is to refrain from over- thinking and opt for feeling in your photography or whatever you do. I don’t get too wrapped up in pursuit of the perfect photo, the money shot, the award winning photo op, “the get.” For me, photography is about greater understanding between people more than something you do with the camera.  However, I do like “getting” people though. And it sure helps me take better pictures of them. I hope Elizabeth can help you open your inner eye, to see differently, to see blindly better.

At times I find myself Twitter’s round the clock cheerleader. I love this place!

Part of why I love it is that it educates me, introduces me to great friends, and makes me better.  That and it has totally exploded my small business, fleur de leigh photography. So this blog is for the sceptics, the naysayers who think that small business can’t benefit from places like Twitter and Facebook.  Here’s a true story.

Late one evening fully sate with Pinot Noir and bad hair that was driving me crazy, I decided to wield the scissors. I know. I know… Having seen the wreckage the next morning, I tweeted:

Being the savvy marketer that she is, Cindy who manages the Twitter account for Michael’s Salon & Spa (@MichaelsSalon), a beautiful local salon who follows me retweeted mine tweet and ALSO sent me a DM saying. “We’d be happy to fix those bangs for you. Give us a call and we’ll fit you in quickly.” Which I immediately did.  Kinley (shown above) fixed my bangs…free of charge!   Now several months later, I am a faithful client. I switched salons because she reached out deliberately with an act of kindness that CONNECTED with me.  Now Michael’s earns the $150+ month business for my hair care. (being blond isn’t cheap) Thank you Cindy, (@CynthiaDeVelvis) you ROCK!

This is just one way the Big Bang Theory grew business through social media. Here are 3 ways to springboard your local social media connections deliberately.

1. Pointed search: Utilize Twitter search for your local people. (ie; enter words like Dayton, Centerville, hair) and follow people who appeal to you or your brand. Then use tools like Listorious to access lists people have made related to your search terms.

2. Reach out: Having followers you don’t communicate with is akin to window shopping. You get nothing of value in your bag.  Say hello to people. Take time every day commenting/engaging/befriending people (or potential clients) you follow. You’ll find that these people will return your follow, engage with you, and potential become advocates for you.  Beware of the hard sell. Build relationships earnestly that’s what makes friends that sometimes become clients for you.

3.  Be a community evangelist: Share the successes, inspiration, stories of your community (people you follow) through RTs.  Attend or coordinate Tweet ups (where you can come face to face with your tweeple!) Tweetvite is a great way to find or initiate your own tweetup.  Embrace those in your community who are advocates of social media universes like Twitter.

Dig in and try it. While I can’t guarantee your business will prosper for it, I can predict that you’ll probably make a friend or two. Which isn’t all bad

Germinate, Cultivate, Celebrate

I have learned this year that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube function as a petry dish teaming with organic potential for relationship cultivation.  Fertile.  Ripe for the picking. I want to share with you one connection that has bore fruit in ways I never imagined.

I owe my career success to Amanda Hite and her team at Talent Revolution.  (And I blame & thank her for my addiction to this social media playground. She introduced me to Twitter.)  Amanda, @sexythinker, coined as a change agent has transformed my passion for photography into my profession. She’s taught me that pursuing your passion while almost never easy, is the only way. Her faith in me from the get-go was catalytic and her continued support for my quest of the ultimate career lifestyle unrelenting.  Likewise, I eagerly help this visionary, genuine, rockstar in any way I can.  Our careers are so intertwined that way.  So when Amanda learned that my finances wouldn’t allow me access to the photography industry’s largest international trade show, WPPI 2010 in Vegas with the opportunity to learn about my trade, it’s people and make my online connections  in real life….she made it happen. She booked my flight.  Immediately.

My trip to WPPI is a dream come true and is totally made possible by Amanda, my friends, clients, ambassadors, savants, teachers, and idols at Talent Revolution.  Which.  Freeking.  Rocks!

A few from the TR Team:  Susan Fawcett @culturebabe, Chris Reed @c_reed, THE sexythinker, Bill Campion @culturedude, Kami Woodworth @kamiwood

At this moment, I am boarding a plane to Vegas knowing that Amanda not only believes in my career potential but is willing to take food off her plate to nourish me.   In the last year, she has opened doors for me by social media mentorship connecting me to incredible people like Gilbert Melott, Scott Stratten, Joni Doolan, and Kat Cole.  When I look back at the origins of this symbiotic relationship between me, Amanda and the whole community at Talent Revolution I see that we watered it regularly, provided it with abundant sunshine and fruit now hangs from its branches.

I wish everyone could have their own Amanda.  A champion.  She is the very first person I call to celebrate life’s good stuff because I know her role in it.  (Besides the fact she understands how cool it is when Chris Brogan retweets you and will call you all hours of the night to let you know when it happens.)  Just wanted to take the time to say thank you and to pass around a plate of happy fruit in sweet celebration of the people who grow us.

Thanks Amanda for this trip, your business and your friendship. I encourage you to take a few moments today to let someone know, that you know, that they have provided you sunshine, nourishment and water when you needed it.

You know the adage: A picture’s worth a thousand words.  With e-commerce, your clients have a nanosecond to size up your company from the visuals you provide either on your website or in here-to-stay swell of social media. What words are your clients hearing from your company’s images.

Relevant, intelligent, edgy, relaxed, refined, reputable, fresh, powerful, cool, unified, contemporary…

Brand as a word has evolved from the days of Gloria Vanderbilt to a corporate necessity defining the way companies position themselves in the marketplace.  Today, leaders in industry are choosing to invest in commercial brand photography to succinctly represent their unique brand with images that tell their story instantly and honestly.  With powerful commercial photography comes a clear message for your website, business collateral and social media presence.

Doing commercial photojournalism gives me the wonderful opportunity to make impactful impressions for my clients. In the corporate realm, I get to be an interpreter and storyteller with my camera. I interpret companies brand and take images that represent them for their business marketing needs.  I read people.  And people make the company.  That’s why innovative companies like Talent Revolution and Nextvoice247 hired me to hop up their marketing with relevant images.

Brand Cohesion in the words of Chicago visionary Gilbert Melott, founder of Nextvoice247.

fleurdeleigh: photographs are words captured from VoiceBox | Nextvoice247 on Vimeo.

Being a photographer gives me the pleasure of getting to know the people I work with, genuinely.  Commercial photography is getting a whole lot cooler. Working with the cool folks at Nextvoice247 & Talent Revolution rocked and was a great reminded why I LOVE my job.

Click [here] for more images from the Nextvoice247’s photo shoot.

Leigh Caraccioli

@fleurdeleigh

I am the kind of person that needs to remind myself to breathe.  Take a step back and enjoy the present.  When I do that I realize that I have these beautiful little people and loved ones around me. What I often forget is that I need to take pictures, print pictures that capture my life, my family, my memories. As a photographer with a camera nearly always dangling from my neck…

I like this one. My daughter is being pulled by her grandfather on an antique iron runner sled, while her little brother and puppy are running around dodging flying snow balls. Memory captured.

Pause with me? And take pictures.

Tweet ingredients & proportional mix

Value: 62%

What makes Twitter rock is that is that value packed tweets prevail. If you need info, help, breaking news, industry trends, food for fodder, a good laugh, or a litmus test of what’s hot right now you can find easily on Twitter.  Use search to pinpoint the info you seek.  I strive to provide humor, information, links, and resources for my followers. How else would they know how to properly burn bacon in 140 characters?  Pause and ask yourself…what value does this tweet provide.

You: 21%

There are people that I follow that bubble over with personality in their tweets.  The key here is to let your personality into your tweets but not to let consume your tweets.  When it’s all about you, you need no followers just a good mirror.  Contrary, there are people I follow that don’t allow enough of themselves into their tweets. While informative they have the vitality of a newspaper.  It’s a balancing act. Giving an extrovert a big megaphone can pose challenges. I struggle with the appropriate tweet mix in this category.  You, your social media presence is a brand.  Be you, be real, but be mindful of your personal brand.

Good manners: 14%

Visualize Twitter as a big cocktail party and employ your good manners. Be conversational, be a good listener, share the good stuff you hear (retweets!!), say please & thank you, and be charming.  Shed the auto DMs as they feel as insincere as a stranger handing out business cards enmasse at random.

Karma: (unmeasurable)

Good Karma matters. Last year I was the victum of a random act of viral niceness.  A “big deal” on Twitter gave me kudos, sent me many handfuls of cool new friends/followers, and eventually became a IRL dear friend. It felt good & I was hooked, thank you @unmarketing. The turning point is when you realize what you can DO for another here. If you take away one element for your tweet formula, make it this:

Make today matter. Make some else’s day. You’ll find it’ll make your own.

Twitter is an ideal arena to do good for others by giving recognition, introducing new followers, giving blogs and websites airplay, elevating and unifying your industry. Voila!!  That’s it.  Hope you weren’t expecting E=MC2.  As always…I love hearing from you. Please leave a comment about your personal formula below.

Leigh

(and for you mathy-mathy people…yes, I am aware

He and the crew at Showit are making my to-do list grow like mad.  1) update website 2) watch tutorials & how to’s 3) add website to facbook 4) create gallery slideshows 5) have Darrin Ballman, my mentor, come over to help with all the the above way to technical stuff. Personally, I have been amazed with their service, innovation (almost like mind reading what tools we need) and commitment to making photography cooler & easier.  Trust me, they are on fire!

Off to play with some of the new ShowIt stuff now.  Here is a slideshow Darrin put together with Showit from Emily & Ben’s wedding we shot together.

Before I could finish the lyrics to silent night, the season passed me by. Had a marvelous time photographing the darling families this season. Eventually, I’ll get around to revising the website to include my most favorites of all the season.  Eventually.  Feels like I just got the tree up…

If you are a family photographer during the holidays you may have felt the blur I did and you’re probably vowing to do it differently next year.  And you’re probably, right now, reaquainting yourself with your own family

More from the Hearn gallery here.

When I received the call from my childhood best friend, my emotional levee broke.  She called for reassurance knowing that I’d undergone a needle biopsy of my own.  “Think positively. They are probably just ruling out Cancer.”  With cracky voice, she agreed and assured me she would call back tomorrow with the results.  No call. I knew.

This is the part where I wish I could claim valor, strength, courage. I wish I could tell the story of a friend who zoomed down to Cinci right after finding out my best friend had breast cancer.  Tell you all that I was there at her double masectomy and after with support. Instead, I failed her and me.

Breast cancer looms large in my psyche stalking like the grim reaper patiently waiting.  Unlike Heather, I got good news a clean bill of health from my doctor after biopsy analysis.  So I am safe for now.  Having a maternal grandmother (my namesake) fight and lose to cancer before I got to meet her will leave a mark.  This is me trying to justify why I cowered when Heather got her news.

Now she is doing very well and I am coming to terms with my not being a good friend then in the face of my own fears.  In her honor and my grandmother’s, I have started Project Pink Photos.  Just me right now. Hopefully others in 2010.  What I can do for people, like Heather, is take family photographs at no charge.  This year I have selected a handful of individuals affected with breast cancer and offered them my photography service.  This way I am doing something for them and doing something to overcome my own inner fear.

More from Heather’s family gallery here.

Later this year, I will compile a gallery of these special images and share with you all inviting you to do the same in your neck of the woods if you choose.  You will hear more from me about Project Pink Photo in the spring of 2010. Till then, I hope you all stay healthy and wrestle your own fears back to size.

Leigh

We know he’s a diverse businessman, but to see how his mother and father’s meager wig business shaped him is enlightening. We know he’s an inventor, but to learn that his mother was his first unknowing guinea pig is endearing. We know he’s the “storybook” man, but to hear his voice as storyteller filling the pages with his own vivid imagery and unusual circumstances is delightful. His memoir brings to light the man below the surface with poignant clarity and charming humor.

The Accidental Millionaire is the story of the mutable man who upends life’s negatives into positives.  The book covers photography, family life in L.A., invention, love, remorse, business best and worst practices. It reads quickly, yet you’ll pause to laugh loudly and to jot down sage advice. An exerpt:

I learned karate so I could kick more schoolyard ass, but what it really did was prepare me to be calm in times of business turmoil. I bought my Desert Survival Kit to prepare me for homelessness never came, but the self reliance I learned in that adventure has served me over and over. When you’re passionately preparing for one thing, the universe may be preparing you for something else. As long as you’re actively and creatively preparing for something, you’re usually on the right track.

I applaud those who have the courage to peel away pretense and expose their true selves.  It’s refreshing to read how in the face of adversity, pliability is everything. Gary’s memoir is taut, touching, and authentic.  You don’t have to be a photographer to appreciate his comic often metaphysical approach to life at large.  The Accidental Millionaire is a worthy read indeed.