Attention: Those Wanting To Reduce Stress And/Or Expand Their Creativity

What If, By Using Your Camera, You Could Be More Creative,
See Things More Expansively and Yet Be More Focus

My biggest mission in life has always been to support others in believing in themselves, their individuality and their creativity.  When I taught art, my biggest goal was to eliminate the “I can't”s that I always heard, “I can't draw [a straight line]”, “I'm not creative”, “I'm not good enough”. 

My resolve was undoubtedly strengthened when I was told by my first art professor to “drop out of school and join a local guild to satisfy my housewifely ambitions.” I chose to ignore her “advice” and went on to a successful career in public education.

My name is Sheila Finkelstein and my first paycheck, when I started teaching more than 25 years ago, went toward the purchase of a Pentax camera, the second in our family. My husband Sam was the photographer in the family, and he started with a Kodak Brownie in his early elementary school years.

Summers during high school and college were spent traveling with two cameras around his neck. The second Pentax meant I could use it AND he had a second camera to use with different lenses - one for close-up; one for wide-angle.  I can still picture  him with the flash and his light meter, taking it up to people’s faces or held out to the landscape, measuring the light, then moving back, patiently waiting for the “right” shot.

“F” stops and other settings were Sam’s language AND, years later, having taken wonderful pictures of my own, despite having them explained countless times, I still blank out when it comes to any of the technical aspects of settings.  How I love my “pixels and Shoot!” 

It handles the settings for me and I can take as many photos as I wish.  I, of course, could in “those days” also, since Sam was also brilliant in darkroom work and a sweet and generous soul who was more than willing to shuffle through and print all the worthwhile photos I had taken.

What Started Out As A Hobby Has Now Taken On
A Whole New Meaning

During my teaching career and beyond, I mainly used my camera for documenting events and student artwork.  Several of those thousands of photos I took, prior to digital, were published in national art education magazines. In recent years, I have experienced using the camera and photography for dimensions far beyond simply documentation.

Later on I'm going to tell you how using the camera can be used for stress relief as well as empowerment and personal growth, but first I want to tell you something about the training I offer.

Introducing: Through and From The Lens Seeing Course

In this course you will learn how to:

• Experience the camera as a tool in expanding your creativity adding excitement to your life
  
  
• Increase your self-confidence so that you trust your decisions in your daily life
  
  
• Achieve focus and connect with what’s important to you, experiencing more freedom in making decisions
  
  
• See from a multitude of perspectives creating new openings in your business and personal relationships

• Shift “I can't” to “I can”, learning to trust yourself and produce results in projects on which you’re working




Imagine Being Proud Of Photographs You Take, Hanging Them On Your Walls, Posted In Facebook, Or On Your Blog

There came a point as I was documenting, for myself, the story of a major beach reconstruction in my town, when I got clarity on what was exciting me in what I was seeing.  As I began photographing that the connections I was experiencing, the mood of it started coming across in my pictures, connecting with others as well.  After a taking few thousand photos (prior to digital) I was able to experience myself in a whole new more powerful way.
I knew right then that I wanted to share this experience with others.

Imagine You and Your Family And Friends Have Fun, Sharing Experiences While Seeing Everything Very Differently

When I moved to Florida, the camera opened up yet another dimension.  My beloved husband, Sam had Parkinson’s Disease and we moved to be geographically closer to our sons and their families. The fact that we were now living so close to a few beautiful Nature spots aided in the transition. Being able to share my camera, and different ways of seeing things, with my granddaughter, was an added treat; plus she took some great photographs. 

Although Sam was able to continue our walking and enjoy photography, the effects of PD had him no longer able to effectively use a camera. He did enjoy pixelsing things out to me to photograph. it was fun to observe how, although we often saw the same “faces” and other images in trees, rocks, buildings and more, there were always slight variations in how we what we perceived. The experience actually enhanced our mutual pleasure since there was no “right” or “wrong”.

Imagine Always Having A Friend Available, No Matter What...
That Friend Being Your Eyes, Your Way Of Seeing And Expressing Yourself, And It's All OK

It was at this point that my camera became my best friend. As we walked with my camera, Sam and I began to connect with other nature lovers with theirs, thus making people connections. I also found that walking with my camera offered a tremendous opportunity for stress relief. 

When practicing photographing ANYTHING that catches my eye, there is a shift in focus. The thoughts that were battering around in my head disappeared to make space for the new. Also, being behind the camera, gave me both the control and power that I felt missing elsewhere. The opportunities expanded in the subsequent viewing the pictures on my computer monitor. 

The experiences were so rich for me, and the photos so abundant, that I wanted to share so others could also be inspired by the possibilities, and new ways of thinking, seen in both my photographs and their own. That’s when I decided to start teaching a course to others. One of my biggest joys in life is when participants, and their friends and families, get excited about things they start seeing both through the lenses of their camera, the lenses of their eyes, and the resulting expanded filters from their experiences

Imagine Having Fun Discovering Images in Nature,
Your Kitchen and Elsewhere -
Images To Which You Never Before Paid Attention

In Through and From The Lens Course you get to fully experience your own power and creativity.  As you start observing what does catch your eye and reflect on what’s most intriguing you, you begin to get a new understanding of your own behaviors and, possibly, that of others close to you.

A couple of years ago, I decided to feature on my blog a photo a day of a different vegetable and then thought, “Why not photograph a layer a day of the red onion on the counter.” Deciding it was a great idea, I immediately starting cutting into the onion.  I quickly stopped myself, thinking,

“Sheila, this is how you do your life. You jump right in, sometimes without much thought, and your plan was to do a layer a day.”  So I stopped and started peeling. I wound up with some wonderful photos AND put it together as a photo/story, “THE ONION STORY: Peeling Away The Layers of An Onion, Analogous to Peeling Away The Layers of Ourselves.”

In the final class we work with a self-chosen fruit or vegetable.  In a recent course, one of the participants looked at the photograph of her final orange peel and realized that’s the way she was feeling about something major going on in her life. She, who never wrote before, chose to look at her photos and do some writing.  This released something and she’s now more richly appreciating the positive things in her life.

I Want What You're Offering

"I’ve learned so much about seeing That’s the reason I took the class to start with.  It was looking at your photos and your vision helped me to become a better photographer. Now I see differently. I will never see the same way again.  And that’s what I wanted when I started." Blaise Allen, www.blaiseallen.com

I'm Ready For The Course

Special Bonuses

More on Through And From The Lens - Openings and Fun

The focus in this course is developing community and leading you to discover the unexpected in that which we see, or think we see, every day. As you begin to share your photographic discoveries and then experience the of others with theirs and yours, new worlds open up.

Personifying the onion, shown above, is one example which led to using vegetables and fruits during the course - a means for honoring and looking beyond what we ordinarily take for granted. Seeing objects, people, situations with new eyes, also opens up new conversations with people in our lives.

Minimal technical "knowledge" or expertise is required. The "connections for what's important" to you occur as you look through your viewfinder and focus on your subject.

In addition to an expanded view of your world as a result of this program, with a few camera pixelsers, as well as basic design tips, you will be creating memorable photos. You will have the freedom to also take countless pictures and see how they relate to your life and way of being.

Yes, Include Me

More Testimonials

“I notice my breath more, my interaction with other people and my environment.  “When I was able to see how I looked at life differently, it made me more creative… Now when I get stuck, like in business or writing, I realize I can just begin to step back and look at things from many different pixelss of view and step outside the box! It is amazing how a photography metaphor can transfer into so many other areas of my life! It’s creativity that leads to success.”  Morgine Jurdan, www.communicationswithlove.com