“Don’t let the fear of your own power stop you from living the change you desire.”
Once I had a dream and I made it happen. I believe anyone can do it. Welcome.
be
the
Magic
Photographer, writer, online educator. Mother and wife. A soul of an artist pursuing creative business for the mundane life.
I am a full time mother and wife, an artist, a photographer and coach, an online educator, pursuing a dream I once had. To make a living doing everything I love. It took me many years to figure it out, get confident, know what I have to offer and what I’m good at, and translate it into what I actually want to give out to the world. I’ve put my love for written word into writings for my audience and love for beauty into timeless photography. I poured my values and worldview into my business and today I live what I once dared to imagine. Here's what I can tell you so far:
Keep your vision close to the heart, stay true to your values, know where you’re going without needing evidence along the way and have strong faith. Build resilience, don’t be afraid to fall and be ridiculed. Understand the mind, trust your gut feeling and develop a strong sense of righteousness. You will learn everything else along the way.
For the past 20 years I have been mastering the art of photography, and for the past 4 I have been honing the craft of brand photography. For the past 12 years, since starting my first small business, I have learned about online business, branding and marketing, through courses, books, free and paid content and try and error method. Now it’s a passion of mine and time to pass on what I learned.
It would be a pleasure to lift your business to the next level.
A BRIEF HISTORY EXPOSURE
A computer science engineer by title, a creative at heart, an artist soul. Lover of spiritual paths. A dreamer, over-thinker and late bloomer turned creative coach.
Wonder how that happened? Well, I don’t think there was a specific point in my life when it all started. From what I remember, I was always a creative at heart.
Collecting napkins at the age of 6, stickers at 9, to collecting rocks, and shells, and pine cones to this day. Got my first diary in 4th grade, and that is when I started writing. More blank pages I collected than I actually wrote, but over time it added up.
For me it was always about finding ways of translating the invisible and giving it a form. Short stories, poems, paintings, prose, photography. Flowers and branches picked up along the way back home in a vase, captivating beauty I was carrying all along. Nature of all things has always kept my interest in the natural world, the mystery of the invisible realms stirring my soul.
It was never one thing. My interests were and still to this day remain wide and deep as the ocean. I’ve been in dancing and sports, rock climbing and mountaineering, jam making and bread baking. I rode bike for more than 500km to the coast, and almost 1000km on a little 50ccm motorbike.
From pilates and yoga to aikido, from meditation to Christian contemplation, I’ve been always collecting bits of insights and experience to deepen my human existence. I moved around 25 times in three countries through a period of 30 years, changing 6 elementary schools.
To this day my interest vary from psychology, spirituality and theology to computer science, modern business and technology, to gardening, cooking, painting, literature and metaphysics. Writing and photography, obviously. Funny enough, never did I know what I wanted to become when I grow up. Today I know I was myself, all the time, not needing to become, but to uncover. And to recover, from a world I was trying to confine myself to, a box I was trying to mold around.
I was lucky enough to love and to feel love from others. I was lucky enough to always look at a glass half full. I was lucky enough to always know there was better time ahead. And lucky enough to know that everything shall pass. I always believed in a higher power, and God was gracious enough to vividly show me it’s existence.
Today I live with my family in a small village in the Istrian countryside. We moved from Croatia’s capital after 30 years, wanting to live a more peaceful life surrounded by nature. A hard move, but the most rewarding.
The way I see it now, I had other choices. I could have been anything else. But the whole universe conspired to bring me where I am today. An invisible Spirit was alongside me all the way, making sure I was taking one step at a time. Every step was the right one.
I believe the same is for you and there is a reason why we meet this way.
Curious for more?
Let me take you a bit down the memory lane.
I never knew what I wanted to be when I grow up. There was so much to choose from. How do I choose just one?
I was spending more time in my own world of imagination, play and thinking than anything else. I still do.
I always knew I wanted to help people in some way. That’s why I was attracted to psychology in high school. But my teacher never saw my potential, and I was more interested in human behaviour than in neurons, which she was teaching.
I loved the written word and writing essays from scratch was my favourite. This is where my imagination, emotions and worldview could come together. Fun fact: when I wrote my graduation thesis at the end of high school, the teacher didn’t believe me that I wrote it myself. That was when I first realized I had some hidden power inside. The same happened when I was applying to a job a few years later. The email I wrote got me the job (and not my expertise or background) and I got more confident in my writing.
Fun fact: there was no Chat GPT in 2002.
I started exploring photography at 18. I took my family analog camera and was desperately trying to figure out how to get art photos with an automatic camera. It never happened.
I bought my first digital camera around 22. I invested my tax refund money to get an Olympus E-500. I started honing the craft which has been a big part of learning about myself throughout the years.
I studied computer science for far too many years without having a single subject I was interested in. I liked basic web development, which was basic html and css, which I already learned by myself through internet, and funny enough, I enjoyed Economics and company organization, but I sucked at it.
Passing my final exam in C programming was needed for me to learn I can do anything in this life if I set my intention and action into it. I got a heavy B. This is where I found out I had more strength then I knew.
I spent most of my twenties exploring, experimenting, studying, reading, adventuring and occasionally working different jobs to make money. I was very dependent on my parents. If I could change something around that time, I would, even though I have very little regrets.
There is a missing folder on my hard drive for an entire year with no single photo from that time. I’m not quite sure what happened. Perhaps I just wasn’t taking photos for a year. That is a really nice lesson: when seen from a perspective of 20 years doing photography, one year is not really important.
In 2012, when I was 29, I started my first small business, called Miller’s daughter. My dad was a miller, and I’ve had my own soybeans and wheat flour. I was making soy milk, sweet almond-carob and hazelnut-cocoa spreads sweetened with honey, along with granola, oat bars, different kinds of bread and pastry. I was known for the best brioche in town.
I met some amazing people around that time who inspired me to walk towards the inner realm that was slowly starting to open in my real life. I am forever grateful for all the insights, people and inspiration I had over that time.
At that time I made entire photos collection for a raw cookbook that was published.
I met my husband when I was 31. I knew since the begining I was going to get old with him. We’ve had everything but an easy start. At 33 I gave birth to our son, a God given blessing, a precious soul, my greatest teacher.
When our son was 2 years old I started thinking what I would be doing when he starts kindergarten when he turns 3. Plans were slowly unravelling.
I had a very stressful thing at the office I worked in at the time, when I realised that working just any job wasn’t for me. I quit.
I was 29 when I first said out loud “I’m a photographer” while my whole body was trembling. I was earning almost no money with photography, but I knew I needed to get myself out there and start talking about what I do.
Around 2017 I ran into Beth Kirby in the online space following many other super talented creatives and in a matter of weeks I figured out there was a way for me to make money while doing what I love doing the most. I just needed to figure out what and how.
I started a blog, Oil on paper, thinking I would be selling handmade goods, like smudge sticks and cotton bags. But Life had other plans.
I had no idea what I was doing and for the years to come I wasn’t making almost any money, except for occasional photoshoots. My main focus was still around my family and household, and I lacked focus and a firm decision for many years. I was constantly questioning myself, overthinking everything, thinking too much upfront, battling with perfectionism and that was keeping me slow and in place.
However, things were adding up over time. I had a lot of faith and a firm connection to God. I can’t explain it better. That was my anchor in the times when nothing made sense and I kept working to the best of my ability.
