Fearlessly Create!

2013 is ending and it has been the year of major changes. All changes are always for the good though. I've learnt a lot about myself. I've come closer to knowing myself better and simplifying my life. And i realize that's what Life is all about - Simplification! 

There are so many dreams we have in our head. We go out to achieve them. And then how much time do we spend in our head? Judging ourselves, wondering if we can reach there, wondering how, worrying about somebody commenting on us, criticizing us, "but she did this and failed", "he said my dream is stupid", thinking your not good enough, thinking your not worthy enough, my mom won't allow, my dad will disown me, i have responsibilities, its not possible and much more crazy stuff like that. How much mental energy does that suck out! Don't you feel like screaming out - Now STOP!

Stop it! Wherever you are, in whatever situation you are, after whatever bad things you have done and regretted, the fact stays - You are a Creator! That's the ultimate fact! Whether you accept it or not you are constantly creating even when you say your not - The difference is your just not aware of what your creating. What you keep speaking in your mind over and over again becomes your reality. Average out the energy of your day, week and that will be the place you are headed. That will be your life. If its good, keep it up if not, something is gotta change. 

Aren't you tired of living your fantasies just in your head? Don't you want to create it and actually be able to touch it, feel it?

If you have done something wrong in the past, forgive yourself.
If somebody else has done wrong unto you, forgive them and forgive yourself for creating it.
If the situation is bad, accept it and build a new reality.
If you don't know how to do something, learn new techniques. There are many people in the world who had your problem and they have solved it. When you want to learn, a teacher appears! 
If your bored of your life, change something, add more fun to it. Take time out, play, read, dance, do what you love.
If your heart is not in your work, get out of it.

But for God's sake Stop complaining! Stop giving excuses. There is always a way! Always! There is a solution to every problem - Accepting, Changing, letting go! Life is beautiful. Create what you love fearlessly. There is nobody stopping you other than Yourself! Accept this and start changing your energy. For 2014 list down all your dreams you want to create and announce it to the world that you are creating this now. Start seeing the beautiful things around you. Start seeing the love you already have in your life. Start loving yourself more. Start appreciating life - its beautiful. Be thankful for all the goodness you have in life and Watch your life change! Its magic. 

You deserve more, your worth much more than you think! So in 2014 please cut the crap and Fearlessly Create! :)

Getting your "gorgeous" out series! - WHY?

So as my confusion cleared and i came to a decision of starting a Makeover Portrait studio in Pune, this last month i have been working towards setting it up. Work is so much fun, i tend to happily overwork :P Living a life of purpose can be so gratifying. We hear and read about it but actually experiencing it is so completely on a different level. 

The concept of being "gorgeous" to an everyday woman is still so suppressed. Beauty has been never considered a necessity, yet we are always pulled towards it. The world runs towards it, yet hypocritically criticizing it. 

Why have a makeover photo shoot when you don't model or act? 

What's all the showoff for and what clothes are you wearing??
What is wrong with you?

Have you started modelling? 

Are you shifting careers? 

Your not serious about your work anymore! 

Makeup karnese koi bhi acha dikh sakta hai? (Anybody can look good with makeup)

All this is so fake!

Yet deep down inside, every single one of you is dying to feel it. 

When somebody compliments you at the start of your day - "Hey, you look so good today", your day is made. There is an instant effortless smile. So quick! You feel charismatic the entire day. You stay in that amazing mood, you don't get as angry at people, you do something good for somebody. So why criticize it?

Yes makeover, styling doesn't change who you are as a person, but it brings newness to the way you look at yourself. You love buying that new dress, you buy those new shoes even if its wayyyy out of your budget, you pour yourselves in hot wax, you pluck your eyebrows, you scrub and remove your dead skin, you have a different haircut, you LOVE it when something feels different. Its a stress buster. Why?? You want to feel beautiful. So painful, yet so damn satisfying.

"Getting your 'gorgeous' out series" is not just a photo shoot, its an experience of a lifetime. Your eyes in the photographs look straight at you or at your own self. They stay with you for a lifetime. They teach you how to look at your own beauty. And when you are able to see your own beauty, your world becomes beautiful.

I am still finding ways to convey this to people. Words cannot convey this experience, but only experiencing it can. So i decided to keep this as a regular thing at my studio..Didn't have the guts to do this earlier, but felt confident over time - 

Come and have a makeover and free photo shoot experience. 

Pay a session fee of Rs.2000(makeup artist, styling expenses). 

If after you see your portraits, something inside you does not shift, if you do not feel amazing, beautiful and happy, you don't need to buy any portraits at all. 

If you love them, you can buy as many pictures as you like.  

I am glad to be given such a beautiful gift of being a photographer. Even if it inspires, empowers and brings joy to a few people in this world, i'll feel honored. I'll keep photographing people, showing them their beauty forever. 

Now on, i am consciously going to let only the pictures do the talking. So here starts the series..

Two of the 4 shoots i did this month -- 

Diksha Gupta - Banker

Add caption

Dr. Nivedita Page - Anesthetist

From confusion to clarity - Zeroing down my focus

For the past two months, moving out from a job to a "business", by instinct i listed down all the kind of work i could undertake and by default i started looking for work in all those areas. Corporate videos, documentaries, Editing, color correction, wedding photography, product photography, every single thing that came to my mind. I thought i would be efficient in earning money, because yes we do this and we do that too. Flopshow! Big flopshow. I thought this would be fun and it wasn't. Not one bit.

All my life, in every stage of my life, i have always known what i've wanted. And this time i had no clue. Felt like i had lost my identity. I've always identified myself by someone who has a clear vision of what i exactly wanted. And now i didn't. I felt so lost and i slowly started spiraling down feeling hopeless. It didn't matter what all i could do. What mattered is what i wanted to do and what would i absolutely love to do. I didn't want to take up work just for the money. It just felt too icky! I needed my vision back. So before diwali, i stopped. I stopped doing everything and decided that i needed to get clarity on what i wanted to do. The world could wait till then. I realized all the video production work, i liked it because it was for my own shortfilms. I had a vision and a purpose for doing it. I love the camera but i don't enjoy shooting weddings, i didn't enjoy events, etc,etc. The reason i have shot weddings was because they were my friends. (And i did enjoy it because of that.) So my list started shrinking and shrinking. I came to these set of rules for myself -

1) I will never work for money, Money will always flow towards me by doing what i love.
2) Film making - i will make short films, feature films, only our films, films made by White Hole Creations. 
3) Photography - i love shooting portraits and landscapes. I love shooting women and making them feel beautiful

Here i was, clear on what i wanted to do now. It felt much better, felt very light and now i was excited. A Makeover Portrait Studio! Clicking women and making them feel gorgeous. It would make me jump out of bed every morning to do this everyday. I have been preparing for this ever since. Educating myself of things i don't know about. Techniques, educating myself on business side of things, designing it in a way it would suit my personality, customizing my career on what i am as a person. Life has been good since then. I smile when i wake up and when i go to bed. Its still work in progress but it feels so good working towards it. It feels like I'm living my purpose and nothing is more fulfilling than that. I started shooting some friends, family to build a portfolio. And their reaction after seeing their own pictures was priceless for me. My friend Nivedita said to me "All my life i thought i wasn't photogenic. I'll never be able to say that again. I could never imagine that i could look so gorgeous". Priceless!

I know what many people would say to this. "Yeah not everyone can have a fun career. We need to earn money, we have responsibilities."
Fact - you make your own conditions, your own circumstances. You just need to get out of your own way and let yourself be and do what you want to do. You are going to have everything that you make a priority for yourself. If it is earning money doing what you love, your gonna have it. If you say you can't, that will be the truth for you. And here you can select your own truth. All you need to tell yourself is - It's okay! It's really okay to do and have what you want. You accept this and the world will change for you. No exceptions whatsoever!

I made a series on our White Hole Creations facebook page - Getting your "gorgeous" out! Posting the shoots. I'll be blogging my photoshoots. Some with stories, some letting the pictures be a story. I also plan to put up my work in progress of building up my studio. I can't wait to create and keep creating and learning forever. This is fun! :)

White Hole Creations Reel 2013

Finally updated our production reel for 2013. I am starting White Hole Creations in Mumbai & Pune and as many of you all know my friend Samik has already started it in Kolkata. Our ultimate goal is to make feature films. Along with that we will be open to making corporate films, documentaries, experimental films, photography, music. A new step in my career, its all scary and exciting at the same time. Stepping out of a secured salaried job, it feels good to live my dream finally doing what i love. I hope with this i can reach and touch more hearts with my art. I feel in this life I am meant to be an artist and every work i do from now on will be an extension of myself. I wish to be a channel where art flows through me into the world in whatever form it wishes to. Dedicating my life to art fully! Bless me :)

White Hole Creations Reel 2013 from Sheetal Petkar on Vimeo.

My best friend's wedding! :)

My best friend got married on 2nd July, 2013. Nivedita is my friend since the time when i didn't even know what friendship meant. She made me proud. She is my super achiever of the year. 3 years back she fell in love with a guy named Nehal. She wished to marry him but only with her family's blessings. She loved her parents equally. She let go of neither her family nor Nehal. She stood firm with her vision, with her dream in the clouds of doubt and unpredictability. Her parents loved her equally and they agreed. Family and friends enjoyed the wedding and I have never seen her look so Beautiful ever! She taught me something from all this -

 Never make a big deal of your problems. They get solved if you let them solve themselves. Believe in yourself and don't compromise on your dreams. Its not an accident! You get what you want. Nobody can strip you off your experience if you see it so clearly.

I love you Nivedita and I am the proudest friend!

And yes i forgot to mention - Cherry on the top was that the next day of getting married her MD Anesthesia results were out and she topped her college. Dreams do come true! :)

Work your Heart off!

So today i feel compelled to write..This is for acknowledging the people who have inspired me and i will never forget them till the end of my life --

We pass by so many people everyday. Right from our family, neighbors, complete strangers, shopkeepers, colleagues and the list goes on. At the end of the day out of all strangers, do u remember anybody? Mostly no..sometimes yes. Some strangers just leave their mark on you. And i am not talking about the regular jerks because they aren't worth your attention even if they get a lot of it. I am talking about those people who inspire you. The ones who might be doing the most menial job with his/her full heart, integrity and with a smile. The ones who speak nicely to you no matter who you are. Its not just the money we work for, its the sense of achievement, the feeling of knowing you worked passionately and you did well, whether anybody commends you or not. You might have loads of money and not be happy, but you will definitely be a very very happy person if you work with your heart in it. 

Location : Madh Island, Mumbai

I have been lucky enough to be able to do what i love in my professional time as well as in my personal time. And boy how peaceful that feels at the end of the day! It doesn't matter what you have in life and what you don't. Because you will always want something in life and that will never end, which is alright. But that does not have to delay your peace and happiness. What you do and how you do it defines "You"! That is what you are and nobody in the world can take that away from you. I will never forget that security guard with a long long mustache at a hotel in Pune who directs the cars to the hotel's parking in the most entertaining way or the lift man in Switzerland operating a lift which was 45degrees inclined to ground level leading into the caves. He came out of the lift, welcomed us in and escorted us out of the lift and dropping us till where the caves started with the most charming personality, hospitality and the loveliest smile i have ever seen. Isn't it inspiring that he does the same thing for the entire day, everyday of his life so passionately? Isn't it amazing that you might be with a person just for a minute or two and he might inspire you for life?

Location : Madh Island, Mumbai

Earn your daily bread but what will bring you closer to yourself is doing what you love, loving what you do and doing it with integrity and loyalty. And also what is important is commend the people who do it. If they inspire you let them know. Give a smile and say Thank you! Not for their sake but for yours. You were inspired today and you will inspire someone in your own way. If every single human being does what they do with passion, can you imagine the quality of everyday lives everyone will live? Inspire and allow yourself to be inspired. Work your heart off! 

Location : Madh Island, Mumbai

O Schweiz! - a visual documentary

Our unforgettable trip to Switzerland..We witnessed the purest form of Earth! Heaven!

O Schweiz! from Sheetal Petkar on Vimeo.