I started Make Room with the intention to grow creatively, to pick up new skills, and to make time to rest and be refreshed. I previously touched a little bit on how it began, but here’s the full story.
Over the past few years when work would get really busy, I always wished I had more time to “breathe”, and the fact of the matter is I probably did - I just needed to be more intentional with how I spent my time, rather than letting the flow of things take me wherever it wanted to take me.
Around May last year I thought it would be cool to start an Instagram account called Make Room. Really, I wasn’t sure what I would post on the page, but I started drawing up logos for it. Then work got busy again and I pushed it aside.
Over the following months Make Room would pop into my thoughts from time to time, but really, I didn’t think I had the time to start anything new with so many things going on work wise.
To give you a bit of a backstory, I am a wedding photographer, and have been shooting weddings full time since 2016. My journey into photography and weddings is touched on here, and I mentioned that the name “Two Front Teeth” was the name I used for my blog, back when blogging was all the craze. When it transformed into a wedding photography business, I decided to focus on wedding related content, and I was no longer writing posts on my travels or what I ate for breakfast, haha!
My lockdown life “upskill stash”
When COVID-19 restrictions were put in place, I couldn’t shoot weddings any more, and knew I had to consider doing other things. It felt really uncomfortable thinking about pivoting the business into doing things for the sake of surviving, just to get some sort of a cashflow going. I knew God wanted something better for me. During that time I felt Him say, why don’t you start “Make Room”?
The painting I ended up using as my logo. I’ll explain what it means in another post!
Suddenly it clicked! And over the next few weeks Make Room just made more and more sense, I started writing out plans and mind maps, I would lie in bed and see in my head what the logo should look like, and what the colour palette should be. Knowing nothing about painting, I bought some paint and brushes and started painting the logo over and over again. At that point I hadn’t told Alicia anything about Make Room, and she kept asking me what I was doing.
So here we are, with nothing much more than an Instagram account, and a website. It has been a platform for me to post whatever I like, with less restraint, which has been refreshing. A place where I can talk about things I’m passionate about, and share with you the struggles and victories.
Making time to think about how I’ve been doing my job and how I can improve will certainly help me get better at shooting weddings, but at the same time open up potential for work outside of weddings. My interest in making images hasn’t always been solely on stills, but also moving images. I figured if I created content based on what I’m passionate about, doors may open for me to collaborate with brands or businesses that have a similar ethos, or values that are aligned.
I have other dreams for Make Room down the track, and I’m really just taking it one step at a time for now. In short, I’d say Make Room is a personal blog about my journey to make room, as well as a launching pad for me to explore opportunities outside of weddings.
Leave a comment