Create

I'm a Creator.

Creativity is why I get up every day.

Looking back on my blogs from years ago, it's funny to see how some things have changed and how some things are exactly the same.

I am a big believer in doing things that make YOU happy, in your own time, on no one's schedule but your own.

That is one thing that has never changed!

But now, I am living that.

Every day, my life consists of creativity.

It is endless!!!

And I have so many outlets for my creativity that I LOVE.

I started out on my creative path with music.

Music started everything for me.

I took piano lessons from age 5 until I was 14 years old.

I took music in school. I played in the school band. I played the clarinet from grades 5-8. I played in senior concert band when I was a junior. I played percussion in senior band. I played the flute, I played the saxophone in Jazz band, I played the xylophone, glockenspiel, vibraphone and marimba. I took marimba lessons with the head of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra when I was in grade 7. I played in concerts. I played percussion in the Hobart Wind Symphony at National Band Championships 2009 and we won. Nationals.

In music class, I created songs with my friends. Composing for as long as we could, playing, creating, enjoying.

I learned how to record. I learned how to use computer generated music programs to lay beats, tracks, instruments and voice. I created techno songs.

At home I would tape songs off the radio on to my cassettes, I would dub them onto the second cassette and speed them up to sound like chipmunks or slow them down to sound really low and it was funny.

I would record my brothers and I laughing and singing, then dub that and speed it up and slow it down.

One of my brothers is a self taught guitarist. Another one of my brothers is a drummer. They are very talented.

Sometimes I would go in to my brothers room and play his guitars. I tried to pick up bass guitar. But my fingers seemed to be too small to play the guitar properly so I gave up on that. In 2010 I bought a beautiful acoustic guitar for my house. It never got played and is now at my parents house in a corner somewhere...

One day my brother and I wrote a song called Lies. We recorded it on cassette. He played the guitar and I sang. Hahaha. It was so much fun.

Music was my childhood.

And I loved every second.

I then discovered Photography.

I love photography. I think the concept is absolutely, utterly incredible. That once upon a time, someone had this crazy idea that you could create a machine that all you had to do is click a button and you capture a moment in time.

One click of a button and you capture a moment in time!

To print off and hold in your hands, display on your walls, store in an album, send to your loved ones...

Is that not incredible?!

Photography is one of my creative outlets.

I started out buying disposable film cameras. The kind that could take 24 pictures and then you took them to get developed and the cases got thrown away. You got your prints back a few days later and had to go through all the good, bad and ugly!

My friends and I started buying a disposable camera each, using the whole roll to photograph each other.

It was so fun to go through the process of photography. To find a nice background, set up a shot without having any control of settings, click, wind it back up, repeat until the roll of film runs out, take it to get developed, waiting impatiently to get them back to see what you had created, then seeing the final products. Laughing, cringing, showing your friends. That was life.

My parents had a film camera. Not a disposable one, a proper one. I loved to take photos with that anytime I was allowed.

I bought my first digital camera in 2005. I bought it when I was living in New York. It was a Sony Cybershot. I loved it. The idea that you could pick and choose which photos you wanted developed was amazing to me. I documented my year abroad with my photos and found a way to display them that was called Scrapbooking.

My scrapbook was so thick, the bindings could barely hold the book together. Scrapbooking was one of my favourite things to do while I lived in America. The stickers, the coloured card, the way I was able to position the photos, stickers, little crafty bits and pieces to arrange them in such a way that was captivating to the viewer, was so much fun.

When I moved back to Australia, it was an incredible, colourful, creative way for me to share the experiences I had in America and it was a lot more fun to look at than a plain photo album.

My friends and I, being thrust into the Myspace/Facebook era, started posing. We all wanted photos of us that made us look our best. So people could see us online and like what they saw. We would have photo shoots in our bathrooms, in our bedrooms, have birthday dinners and take every opportunity to have our photos taken, then taken again, until we were happy with the way we looked in the photos.

I thought about that concept. And I became quite obsessive about how I wanted to look in a photograph. If it wasn't the right angle, lighting or if my hair, clothes, body or facial expressions weren't how I wanted it, I would keep shooting until I was happy.

I dabbled in modelling to gain experience in front of a professional lens and met a photographer who was affiliated with the modelling agency. I struck up a friendship with him and we would talk about photography, modelling, poses, setting up a shot and cameras.

I told him I wanted to try to shoot professionally. He offered me his equipment and studio and told me to find a model. So I found a friend and got her to come to the studio. I did her make up and we had a fun photoshoot. My photographer friend gave me priceless tips all the way through. It was fantastic.

I bought my first DSLR in 2008. It was a Canon 40D. It cost me $2200. I wanted a good camera for when I went back to America for acting school.

I didn't really know how to use the camera, so I just started shooting things, anything. I came back to Australia and didn't really use the camera. I was more interested in Film Making.

Acting and Film Making took priority and Photography went on the back-burner.

Until, I was on a film set one day and a man was taking stills for the film. He was shooting with a Canon. I started talking to him about cameras and told him I had a 40D. He said "Bring it tomorrow". So I did, I took some photos on set and he gave me the best piece of advice.

"That is a good camera. Don't waste it."

So I started again on the path of Photography. I posted on my Facebook asking for anyone who wanted to have a free photoshoot. I got lots and lots of interest. Sometimes I would have 2 sessions in a day.

I loved to meet with my friends, some who I hadn't seen in years, and have fun being creative with them. I loved exploring lighting, angles and the interesting dynamics of the relationships between photographer and camera, photographer and model, model and camera.

The camera is a loved one and an enemy at the same time.

Everyone wants to look their best in photos.

This was something I knew a lot about.

As a photographer, your relationship with the camera is all love. The camera is the creative tool you have to express what you feel, what you see and what you envision. When you take your vision and add a camera, your photos are the product of your creativity.

A lot of my models would say to me "Don't show anyone my bad photos".

The relationship between model and camera is unsteady. The model is weary of the camera. Almost like the camera is going to "break up" with them. They want the camera to love them, treat them right and make them feel good about themselves. Just like they would want in a real relationship. They don't want the camera to make them look bad.

It is very interesting to watch these dynamics.

The relationship between the photographer and model, especially the first time working together, usually starts off hesitant. One of my jobs as a photographer is to make the model feel comfortable.

I am not going to post, show or print any photo of someone that looks bad.

1. Because I don't want to be known as a bad photographer

and

2. I know how I want to look in a photo. I am so specific and picky about photographs of myself, I know how to take a photo of someone that makes them look their best.

Once I start shooting, the models ease up and start having fun. It might take a little time, but by the end, I'm pretty sure, most of my models can say they had a fun shoot with me.

I love photography and part of the photography process is editing.

I love editing.

Personally, I HAVE to edit my photos as soon as physically possible after taking them. While I am in the zone of the shoot and also because I am so excited about seeing the finished product.

I love being able to take an already great photograph and tweak it, to make it look even better.

I started out editing my photos in Microsoft Paint!

I also feel like I am showing my age a little bit in this blog... haha :)

I edited in Paint for a long time. Then I bought an iMac. Apple changed my creative life!

I started editing in iPhoto. Well! All the possibilities that gave me! I was in creative heaven!

I had such a fun time figuring out iPhoto, changing the contrasts, hues, saturation, noise control, shadows, everything!! I loved it!

I moved to Canada. I bought a Canon 7D which has HD Video capability. Again - creative heaven!

I started to learn how to use Photoshop. Creative. Heaven. Endless possibilities.

My photography has come a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG way since the disposable camera days and I shoot with a model every single week of my life now. I love being creative with a camera. I love the possibilities. They really are endless.

Film Making was somewhere in the middle of all this!

I bought a small JVC Everio video camera that had a 20GB harddrive installed. All I had to do was shoot, plug it in to my computer and upload!

If you hadn't realised, I fell in love with technology and the incredible capabilities it holds!

I filmed my friends, I would just film, everything. Capturing life. My brothers and I made a short film called Domestic Violence. It was supposed to be a current affairs, guerrilla style documentary. It turned out more of a comedy. Filming and editing in Windows Movie Maker was so much fun.

I loved editing, piecing together the scenes, making the transitions, opening credits and closing credits.

I started creating photo DVD's. I would put a series of photos in a sequence, input transitions and add music to create the exact feeling I wanted for the particular setting.

I have created wedding, engagement and funeral photo DVD's. All very different feels, all very effective ways to portray the variety of life's events.

I filmed a promotional video for a personal training website. I loved it. I also think it turned out pretty good.

On the production side of film, I worked as a Production Assistant on a TV Pilot and on a commercial for Dr. Pepper. It was the start gaining a really good insight of that side of the industry. I worked as a Casting Assistant and a Wardrobe Assistant on 2 other productions.

While I love the production side, being in front of the camera is what I truly love the most.

Acting.

I started acting, as most people do, in Drama class at High School. I liked it, didn't love it. I was in a few plays, had the lead in Cinderella but it never really jumped out at me as something I wanted to do.

As lots of teenagers do, I worked and would spend most of my pay by going to the Cinemas.

I loved going to the Cinemas! Movies became a big deal in my life and I found that I loved to watch comedies and horrors.

A significantly large amount of people in the world, at one stage or another (at least to my knowledge) have the desire to be a Movie Star.

My desire to be a Movie Star was probably invested in me as soon as I saw my first film. But it didn't show itself to me until I lived abroad.

I made a friend who is a Comedian. He said to me "Lolly, you have to be an Actress. You have the right attitude, the right look and the right comedic timing. This is your destiny. You have to do it."

So, I thought about that. Considering the career path I wanted to choose, I knew it wasn't going down the Math, Science, Chemistry, English route I had studied at school.

I hated school, I knew it was a waste of time for me.

I learn by doing things.

I can not learn by being held captive in a classroom.

I am a creator.

My friend told me to write a list of everything I wanted to be. Not what anyone else wanted me to be, what I wanted to be.

My list looked like this:

Dancer

Actress

Film Maker

Musician

Photographer

Life Coach

Motivational Speaker

He then told me to put that list in order of what I would enjoy most.

My list looked like this:

Actress

Photographer

Film Maker

Dancer

Musician

Life Coach

Motivational Speaker

He then said "So you want to be an Actress?"

"Yes", I replied.

I will never forget his words. I repeat these words often to my friends now to try and help them as much as he helped me.

He said "Then you have to go for it. With everything that you have. You need to give acting everything you've got and if you don't succeed, at least you know you gave it everything. Then you can move on to the next item on your list without regret."

From that moment, acting was my goal.

I enrolled in acting school in Hobart. I took class there for a while. It was based on Theatre.

I found an acting school in Los Angeles, CA that I wanted to go to. So I worked, I saved, I enrolled, I went.

I went back to Australia and found a small casting agency. I did a few commercials and was a featured extra on a documentary telling of when the Irish women were banished to Tasmania.

I thought it was the best thing. I loved acting in Film.

That was the same production that I took my Canon 40D and was told "not to waste" my camera. It was a stepping stone and an eye opener for what I truly wanted for my career. Film.

I had written blogs about wanting to be a Movie Star. People I grew up with laughed at me when I told them that's what I wanted to do. I remember the people who supported me though. I know who my real friends are.

So then came the long, informative, interesting road to acting in Film.

I relocated to Canada. The 3rd biggest Film and TV industry in the world.

I've worked hard.

Within 4 months, I got a background agent, a principal agent and my very first Film Credit.

I am still here, working on my dream and everyday I have the incredible blessing of being able to wake up in a country that has so much promise and opportunity for creative people like myself.

I booked the lead in a short student film. The director and I became good friends. She is young, but has an incredibly mature head on her shoulders. She is also as passionate as I am about her creativity.

We talked about writing. I said that I had a lot of ideas but didn't know how to write a script. She said "Just write. Your draft copy will always suck. Don't be afraid to fail."

What a profound statement!

So one day, between auditions, I sat down and wrote a script. The formatting was horrendous and I didn't really know what I was doing, but I got the basic idea down.

I took it to her and she loved it. She said "Let's write it up and work on it"

So she taught me how to use Final Draft, a script writing program. She taught me how to format a script, how to write character descriptions, how to tell my story.

It felt like she had just handed me a camera and shown me how to take a photo!!!

I had discovered another creative outlet!

I have written 2 short films, co-written 1 and yesterday I wrote 35 pages of my first independent film script.

I have a few friends who want to get productions going, a friend who is very talented in video production and wants to start filming things.

We have planned to shoot next weekend.

This is my life.

I have endless creativity.

I made this my life. I chose it. I make appropriate changes every day to make it a reality.

My mind is always racing, thinking about what to create next, how to create, interesting, different ways to create and capture all the ideas I have.

I am so blessed to have all the opportunities I have.

Don't just follow your dream. Turn it into a reality!

YOU have the power to do that.

I chose the path I am on now. And because I am doing what I love every day, I find it so easy to be passionate, driven, focused, motivated and excited about life.

God gave us the Earth. God gave us life. God gave us talents. We need to use them to benefit the lives of others. Do you think He wants us to fail? Absolutely not.

Change your life.

Do what makes you happy.

Live the life you want and don't let anything or anyone stop you.

You are in control.

CREATE.

Lolly XxXxXx