Finding beauty and inspiration with Joy Proctor

Creating and documenting with intention are paramount—especially during this time when work is slower. Maybe you’re a photographer who’s bookings have not yet picked up; maybe you’re a designer who’s projects have been put on hold. With my Abundance Plan students, I always emphasize the importance of creating your own work and shooting for yourself. And there has been no better year to do that than this one.

But editing is time consuming. Creating a consistent, cohesive body of work—much less one roll of film—is hard. My collaboration with Refined Presets, launched one year ago, produced sets of presets that take the labor of editing out of your post-production workflow. Creating with KT Merry Presets makes your editing seamless; they elevate your portfolio (and therefore, business), and most importantly, they give you more time to create. 

The Refined Co. x KT Merry Presets allow you to keep creating—no matter where you are and no matter what camera (or phone) you use. Now is the time to find beauty in the little things, to document it and then share it with the world. 

I’ve been doing a bit of that myself lately…

The Importance of Creating

Last month, my family sent a box of VHS tapes to Legacy Box (no, this is not a sponsored post). It was a “one day” project, and—hello, 2020!—one day has arrived.  We finally got around to doing something about all the old, analog ‘home movies.’ Legacy Box took our old tapes and digitized them, so that they can live safely in the cloud and we can watch them anytime. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t owned a VHS player in at least 5 years.

This week, we got the email to download them and, let me say, it was pretty darn awesome. Like film-FTP-awesome (for my film photographers). Most of the videos I had never seen. It was like watching a reality show from the past—and from my Dad’s documentarian perspective. There are videos of us skiing, swimming at meets, Christmas festivities, as well as some pretty hilarious interviews my Dad conducted.

And it really got me thinking.

Thinking about how we create and how we document our lives. These videos are a time portal to a past that I didn’t even remember until I saw them. Seeing family members so young, alive, and happy—it made me so grateful to have these videos. Grateful that my Dad had picked up the video camera and documented all those moments.

With the advent of the iPhone people are documenting their lives more than ever before, but with less thought and intention than ever before. When I was child, Dad had to make sure there was tape left in the camera to store whatever event was about to take place. Now, we take pictures to share on Instagram Stories with the intent of documenting a person, milestone or season, without a second thought. Yearly family portraits are less common than they used to be; most people don’t walk around with a video camera any more, and yet we all have thousands of images on our iPhone.

And so the question becomes:

Which ones really matter?

And what legacy do you want them to leave? 

Creating with KT Merry Presets and Joy Proctor

Recently we spent time in collaboration with Joy Proctor, at her home in Southern Oregon. Although her work usually takes her all over the globe, Joy hasn’t let being homebound stop her from creating. In this recent project, Joy reminded us to “cherish the beauty in our own backyards and reawaken the elegance in our everyday lives.” 

Watch our collaboration here: 

Joy so eloquently reminds us that whether we are traveling the globe or nestled in our homes, there is always room for creativity, beauty, and creation. Joy’s legacy is clearly a beautiful one and I’m grateful for her work that continues to inspire us all.

Celebrating One Year of KT Merry Presets

Which is why I’m so thrilled to celebrate the one year anniversary of the Refined x KT Merry Presets. Whether you are an amateur or a professional photographer looking to hone your image color and consistency, or a creative spirit like Joy, you can continue to create in this season. Armed with just an iPhone and your eye, you can now produce images better than ever with our game-changing presets. 

In Joy’s own words:

In a year when work and thus creativity has come to a grinding halt, it was awesome to find Refined x KT Merry mobile Lightroom presets so that I could edit the photos on my iPhone so that they looked professional!

Creating with KT Merry Presets is easier than ever. Take 30% off the entire Refined Co. website, now through November 30th. I’ve even shared my top five tips for using the KT Merry Presets here. 

Life is happening all around us—in big and small ways—every single day. Perhaps this will be the first Christmas for your son or daughter; perhaps you just fostered a new dog like me! Or perhaps the way that the light is hitting your garden this morning is just too good not to capture.
 
Document the world around you and, I promise, you will be grateful that you did. 

START CREATING WITH THE REFINED X KT MERRY PRESETS—NOW 30% OFF THROUGH NOVEMBER 30TH.