We recently connected with Roberta Alvarado and have shared our conversation below.
Roberta, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
Overcoming imposter syndrome
I started my career as a photographer at 17. Often, I’ve been the “only”. The “only” female, woman of color, and the youngest in the room. Being that I am doing something I have always been passionate about, I did not allow myself to be squeezed out. I did, however, become very quiet and kept to myself. I let opportunities pass me by. In fact, there was a large magazine publication that asked me to pursue a job with them and I didn’t because I didn’t feel qualified. I had imposter syndrome.
I have overcome imposter syndrome in a number of ways. First, I take inventory:
I observe the feelings and how they show up in my body physically. I once heard this brilliant advice: “if you feel it in your stomach, it’s your intuition. If you feel it in your chest, it’s fear”. We want to follow our intuition. Fear we face. Fear is natural and we learn to accept it. I’m a quiet natured person and I definitely experience social anxiety. In fact, upon self-awareness, I noticed my body language. I found that my body would subconsciously face the door because I was ready to bolt.
Our journey is unique to us:
Therefore, when we think, feel, or work off of our path to try to appeal to the masses, we lose ourselves trying to predict and seek validation from others. We lose our authenticity from that perspective. We cannot feel solid on someone else’s path. That is when we are in unknown territory and we need to find our way back to our own course. From here, we can dissect what our insecurity is. Imposter syndrome is our guidance as to what needs our attention. That attention might be to gain more education in a certain area.
Increase knowledge:
A skill and confidence boosting practice I follow is “A study of”. I have a cactus that blooms twice a year. When I photograph the same subject repeatedly, I am forced to be creative and build my skill set. I shoot from multiple angles, different lighting, exposures, speeds, ISO, etc. I learned how to capture the personality of the blossoms. I’ve learned my cameras very well this way.
Face Fear:
When the insecure feelings are because we are growing and stretching our wings, we are leveling up. We should always be on the cusp of our path going forward to places we haven’t been to before. That insecurity shouldn’t be perceived as imposter syndrome, rather its growth that presents as natural fear or anxiety. Success lives there!
There are many right answers:
I like to remind myself that there are many right answers. I ask myself, which right answer do I want to choose? The answers vary for as many people there are and your right answer is what you choose.
Meditate on intentions:
When we self check in quiet moments, we become more solid in our faith in ourselves if we listen closely and follow through. I always start a project with brainstorming ideas and then honing in on my ultimate intention. I ask myself; what am I trying to say? What are some descriptive keywords? What don’t I want to say? For me, the “say” is visual. I do this continually through my creative process.
I recently completed a solo exhibit of photography and installation art for which I assigned the word “graceful”. When adding new components, I asked myself, “is this graceful?” That kept me on task and I achieved graceful results.
As artists, we aren’t supposed to always play it safe. If something then doesn’t work out for whatever reason, we know we did our best; we didn’t take shortcuts, and it wasn’t because we valued someone else’s perceived path over our own. How can we then be upset with ourselves too much when we worked with such intention.
Remind yourself of past successes. Dwell on the good:
Just as it is important to take inventory when we have a perceived “failure” to learn what we can do differently next time. We also need to review our past successes to remind ourselves of our potential. Did you devote all your waking hours on a project and love the results? Remember that! You’ll do it again! That builds confidence and eases the anxiety of deadlines. You’ll do what it takes again! Persist till you love the results!
Our world accepts dwelling on hard times. What good does that do? Dwell on your achievements, your strengths, your successes! That is where your confidence, the antidote for insecurity aka imposter syndrome, lives!
Surround yourself with like minded individuals whose work you admire:
Mentors, teachers, fellow artists can give you feedback from a fresh perspective, understanding and respecting your aesthetic. You will see we are all reaching, grasping, battling self doubt. It’s a very real and understandable emotion. We are all at different points of our journey and in that discomfort lies some of your greatest, bravest, most authentic work. We are good at what we obsess over. Artists obsess. Reflecting on your dedication is a natural cure to imposter syndrome.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Photography has always been a steady part of my life. In 2015, Paramount Pictures used my image “Old Well Cafe” in the movie “The Big Short”. In 2016, I backpacked through Nicaragua and then Southern Mexico with my camera in hand. The work from those trips became solo exhibits. Among those, I was featured at The California Museum, and most recently at the Consulate General of Mexico in Sacramento. Another current and ongoing body of work is Death Valley and the deserts of the Southwest.
After spending 20 years as a healthcare worker, I had to answer the call to live my creative life full time. I adore how images become more valuable with time. Telling a visual story is vital. Visuals need to compete for attention. The key to being seen is intrigue. When there is a story behind an image, the viewer can tell. It adds depth and taps into emotion and connectivity.
Fresh out of high school, I worked for a photography and design studio. I formally went full circle and returned to my roots. Only this time, the design is website and digital products. New Bird Studio is my pandemic baby. My nickname growing up is Birdie. My artist name for many years has been Freebird Arte. It’s a time of rebirth. The name, New Bird Studio, is a natural fit.
We approach website design as a blank canvas. It is the opportunity for entrepreneurs to merge their passion with the intrigue of art and storytelling. We don’t often hear those terms intertwined. But why not? We all have a story to tell. Customers connect to people, not products. They want to invest in people they can identify with. That is why social media is so impactful and necessary for business now and forevermore.
We start with a commercial photography session, then build a website around it. An example is New Bird Studio client who is a coffee manufacturer and loves to take early morning walks along the river with a hot cup of coffee. We photographed this morning ritual. We included the products and photographs of him in his element for the ecommerce and “About Us” pages. It is a beautiful website that he loves to share. It’s memorable and his clients feel a connection to that experience. Who doesn’t love a hot cup of coffee on a chilly morning?
We also tend to work with artists that need a website to display their portfolio and sell their work and services. They like working with a fellow artist and know that exhibiting requires keen editing skills.
In addition to all of your photography needs and website design, we create logos, digital products, social media marketing, and creative brainstorming sessions! New Bird Studio is all visuals in one nest.
In healthcare, I was able to help people every day and leaving was a bit of an identity crisis. I love what I do now because it is still helping people every day. This time I get to help people in achieving their dreams!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Practice, Practice, Practice and have fun!
Nothing beats learning, pushing your own boundaries, pushing your equipment, and learning some more. I highly recommend the “study of” mentioned earlier. Choose a subject that you are excited about. When the cactus blooms it is like Christmas. They are nocturnal blossoms so I only have a small window of time before they are gone. I do not pick them. I’m challenged with taking beautiful images where they are from angles so as to not include what is distracting or undesirable in the background.
I consider myself a minimalist photographer because I do not like to be weighed down with a lot of equipment. That isn’t even feasible when I travel by backpack. Consequently, I need to do everything I want with the equipment that I carry. I need to know it well. Yet I’m always learning. That’s a constant.
Connect with your heart.
When you are looking through your work you will notice your body tells you when a visual is impactful. Sometimes we rationalize it away or overlook that. When I feel that feeling of being emotionally impacted I stop and take note. Then I have to discern why. Is it a personal connection to the topic or is it because the work truly is striking? For example, if it’s an image of a loved one I can second guess if the physical feeling is due to it being a great image knowing it most likely is the subject matter. This practice also makes art so much fun. The body knows.
Learn your strengths and weaknesses
I have always had to be aware of my shortcomings. In my healthcare career, I had to deal with constant interruptions and then pick up where I left off. I carried post-its in my pocket early on and would put a post-it on what I was working on so that when I returned to my desk I knew what had the post-it was where I left off. I deal with ADHD and only recently found out. I sought answers through therapy because I didn’t want to get in my own way. I needed to take some items off of my plate. Learning about myself was key. I was weighed down by many traumas. I love what I do so much that I sought therapy so that I can be better at what I do and make room for success.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
Life has taught me to surrender and embrace emotions as largely natural. I don’t want to turn them off as much as acknowledge their existence. For many years I was a working machine minding everyone else’s needs and emotions ignoring my own because I operated in survival mode.
Art allows for an emotional outlet. I know that when I am taking on a project it will start with feeling overwhelmed. I have all these ideas and possible directions I could go in. I will lose sleep as ideas toil in my mind all night long. Maybe I am strange in that I kinda enjoy that. Not to worry, I know I will narrow it down.
The natural tendency would be to write it all down. Personally I do not. I let it all live in my head and toss it around. My ideas find a path and then I am taken off and on that path multiple times.
I give myself time to toil ideas, marinate in them, and then solidify them and proceed with faith. Know your creative process to help combat feelings of being overwhelmed.
Remember that there are many right paths to great results. Not just one. You’re choosing a path.
To stay on course I attach words and music to the project. I will listen to the music that I’ve attached while working. I will also say the word/s often. An example of this is my current Death Valley work. In this case, my words are from a line in a family favorite book “ Life Doesn’t Frighten Me At All” by Maya Angelou with art by Jean Michel Basquiat. Maya writes, “I can walk the ocean floor and never have to breathe”. That came to me over and over while taking photos with a model. Death Valley was once the ocean floor. I didn’t have to make sense of it at the time. I free flowed knowing I’ll know later. What I didn’t know at the time is that I was processing an experience of once almost drowning in the ocean when I was around 12 years old. That is why that line was always so important to me and I didn’t understand til just 2 years ago. The images convey becoming one with the strength of the surroundings, an abandonment. When the undercurrent of the ocean took me, I had no choice but abandonment until it decided to spit me out. If, when in Death Valley, I had forced knowing or overly dissected my thoughts I could have inhibited the creative and therapeutic process. Sometimes seeking control creates feelings of being overwhelmed unnecessarily.
We are emotional creatures. Some emotions we like, some we do not. No avoiding that. It’s the nature of the beast. As artists we are probably even more emotional. We have to accept that because within it lies our gifts. Although within reason because we don’t want to self sabotage. We want to be the best version of ourselves so I highly recommend therapy and a healthy support system. I know that isn’t always accessible. I used my art as my therapy all these years til the opportunity presented itself to do both. I wish that was an option we all could have and easily access.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.NewBirdStudio.com
- Instagram: @NewBirdStudio @RobertaAlvaradoPhotography
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roberta-alvarado-0b3653ba/
- Youtube: @newbirdstudio1074
