How to stay inspired

One of the necessities of being a blogger is to constantly stay inspired. Inspiration is what drives me to scout new locations for every shoot, style interesting outfits, shoot and edit my pictures in a creative way. But you can probably imagine, that staying inspired all the time is hard and nearly impossible. So what do I do then? Where do I search for an inspiration to keep me going? Those are the topics I wanted to cover with you today.

I am using this shoot to illustrate the topic of inspiration for a very specific reason. This location and the idea didn’t just happen, I searched for them both online and in real life. I was sitting on the rooftop of the Empire Hotel after one of the first days of New York fashion week and was browsing on Pinterest hoping to find an interesting idea for one of our future shoots. I typed ‘New York fashion editorials’ into a search bar and kept scrolling. (Tip: browsing through past fashion editorials and ad campaigns on Pinterest can give you so many ideas.) And then there it was! A shot from Vogue’s 1959 issue and I was hooked! It was shot in an astounding location with the Chrysler Building (my favourite NY building) in the background and I was desperate to know where it was (scroll all the way down to see this image). And then it started – for several days I was looking around me wherever I went hoping to understand which location gave that amazing view, I kept zooming in and out on Maps and I am not sure we would have achieved any results if it wasn’t for a random encounter with three old New Yorkers while having lunch in The Butcher’s Daughter. They sat at the table near us and, like it often happens in NY, we started chatting. They happened to be real New Yorkers (one photographer, one videographer and one actor) and after chatting about random things we thought of showing them my Vogue picture to see whether they could locate it. AND THEY DID! They told us exactly where to go to find it (a 10 minutes walk from Grand Central Station if you are interested). And voila – this shoot is the result of that story! It wasn’t easy, it didn’t happen by chance, but I had an amazing journey towards it! This is what I really like about blogging, it not only teaches and trains your eye to notice beauty around you but also takes you outside of your comfort zone and throws you into amazing situations and places.

On the other hand, wanting to constantly be on top of the game with your shoots, outfits, posing and Instagram feed can be quite exhausting and hard at times. There are millions of talented and creative people doing an amazing job these days and finding your own voice can be not an easy task. My best advice would be to stay true to yourself, your taste and your ideas. Take inspiration from others but don’t just blindly copy what they do. Take an existing idea and dress it up to make it your own. This shoot we did copied a lot from the original one, but it’s ok when your inspiration comes from something done in 1959, but it wouldn’t be as interesting if I just blindly copied something another blogger did a week ago. Do you guys see what I mean?

I also have to admit that I struggle for inspiration quite often. I also get restless and bored with the way I do things and crave change a lot. And then it usually takes few days for me to reassess everything, calm down and realise what it is that I want to do differently this time. It affects everything, from the colour theme of my Instagram feed to my posing and the layout of my blog. And even though I can become quite a frustrating person to be around while going through that inspiration struggle, it’s what motivates me to keep evolving and hopefully reaching the next level little step at the time.

And as for the places to search inspiration from, I would say, Pinterest, Instagram and blogs for the digital side of things and for the rest of it – your eyes! Keep your eyes opened when you travel and go places. Nothing can or will inspire you more than the world around you!

I would love to hear where you find inspiration guys, so please share in the comments below.

Julia xo

Source: Pinterest

Photography by Patrik Lundin

BANANA REPUBLIC suit
ALEXANDER WANG heels
TOYSHADES sunglasses