We have a responsibility as humans to help make the world a better place.
My career in photography started because I decided to give back.
Here’s how it happened…
In 2009, I connected with my friend Adam Braun. Adam started a charity to build schools for kids in developing countries. He called the organization, Pencils of Promise.
We connected and he invited me to Laos. He couldn’t pay for the travel, but something about his passion for the project empowered my decision to pay my own way and fly out to meet him.
For six days, we traveled through the jungles of Laos. We shoot STUNNING imagery for Pencils of Promise.
I never did any of this with the intention of getting anything back.
Six months later, just after my travel book launched, Adam and I did a gallery show with the images from our Laos trip.
During the event, Adam hooked me up with his brother who was promoting an unknown kid named Justin Bieber. Ever heard of him? Justin is just one great example of many of amazing people I’ve become friends with through giving back without expectation or desire for anything in return.
These relationships have been an accidental blessing which has empowered my career as a professional photographer.
Giving back is also important in our day to day relationships. The more you give, the more you get.
My point is that giving is more about the internal action of giving. You can do it.
Giving more is about the internal action of giving.
[smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/nickonken/the-power-of-giving-back” title=”How to Create a Career in Art – The Power of Giving Back” image=”https://nionlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/63_GiveBack_NIONradio_02.jpg” color=”#de4b9b” ]
Some things we learn in this podcast:
- Why giving back was critical for me to create a career as a professional photographer [1:52]
- Giving back without the pretense of expecting anything in return [7:47]
- A mindset for how to be a giver in personal and professional relationships [9:24]
- The energy mechanics of giving more [9:52]
- My challenge for you [10:41]
Links mentioned:
- Learn more about Rocky Barnes
- Learn more about Adam Braun and Pencils of Promise
- Want to give back? Help us build cleaner schools
- Music Credit: Pulse by CRTMUSIC
LET'S CONSPIRE & CREATE
CULTIVATING YOUR VISUAL UNIQUENESS AND STREAMLINING YOUR BRAND'S EVOLUTION
We have a responsibility as humans to help make the world a better place.
My career in photography started because I decided to give back.
Here’s how it happened…
In 2009, I connected with my friend Adam Braun. Adam started a charity to build schools for kids in developing countries. He called the organization, Pencils of Promise.
We connected and he invited me to Laos. He couldn’t pay for the travel, but something about his passion for the project empowered my decision to pay my own way and fly out to meet him.
For six days, we traveled through the jungles of Laos. We shoot STUNNING imagery for Pencils of Promise.
I never did any of this with the intention of getting anything back.
Six months later, just after my travel book launched, Adam and I did a gallery show with the images from our Laos trip.
During the event, Adam hooked me up with his brother who was promoting an unknown kid named Justin Bieber. Ever heard of him? Justin is just one great example of many of amazing people I’ve become friends with through giving back without expectation or desire for anything in return.
These relationships have been an accidental blessing which has empowered my career as a professional photographer.
Giving back is also important in our day to day relationships. The more you give, the more you get.
My point is that giving is more about the internal action of giving. You can do it.
Giving more is about the internal action of giving.
[smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/nickonken/the-power-of-giving-back” title=”How to Create a Career in Art – The Power of Giving Back” image=”https://nionlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/63_GiveBack_NIONradio_02.jpg” color=”#de4b9b” ]
Some things we learn in this podcast:
- Why giving back was critical for me to create a career as a professional photographer [1:52]
- Giving back without the pretense of expecting anything in return [7:47]
- A mindset for how to be a giver in personal and professional relationships [9:24]
- The energy mechanics of giving more [9:52]
- My challenge for you [10:41]
Links mentioned:
- Learn more about Rocky Barnes
- Learn more about Adam Braun and Pencils of Promise
- Want to give back? Help us build cleaner schools
- Music Credit: Pulse by CRTMUSIC
9/23/15
63: How to Create a Career in Art Part 13/15 – The Power of Giving Back
infuse your vision with a fresh breath of creativity and vitality
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masterfully aligning perception and reality through personal branding
masterfully aligning perception and reality through personal branding
We have a responsibility as humans to help make the world a better place.
My career in photography started because I decided to give back.
Here’s how it happened…
In 2009, I connected with my friend Adam Braun. Adam started a charity to build schools for kids in developing countries. He called the organization, Pencils of Promise.
We connected and he invited me to Laos. He couldn’t pay for the travel, but something about his passion for the project empowered my decision to pay my own way and fly out to meet him.
For six days, we traveled through the jungles of Laos. We shoot STUNNING imagery for Pencils of Promise.
I never did any of this with the intention of getting anything back.
Six months later, just after my travel book launched, Adam and I did a gallery show with the images from our Laos trip.
During the event, Adam hooked me up with his brother who was promoting an unknown kid named Justin Bieber. Ever heard of him? Justin is just one great example of many of amazing people I’ve become friends with through giving back without expectation or desire for anything in return.
These relationships have been an accidental blessing which has empowered my career as a professional photographer.
Giving back is also important in our day to day relationships. The more you give, the more you get.
My point is that giving is more about the internal action of giving. You can do it.
Giving more is about the internal action of giving.
[smart_track_player url=”https://soundcloud.com/nickonken/the-power-of-giving-back” title=”How to Create a Career in Art – The Power of Giving Back” image=”https://nionlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/63_GiveBack_NIONradio_02.jpg” color=”#de4b9b” ]
Some things we learn in this podcast:
- Why giving back was critical for me to create a career as a professional photographer [1:52]
- Giving back without the pretense of expecting anything in return [7:47]
- A mindset for how to be a giver in personal and professional relationships [9:24]
- The energy mechanics of giving more [9:52]
- My challenge for you [10:41]
Links mentioned:
- Learn more about Rocky Barnes
- Learn more about Adam Braun and Pencils of Promise
- Want to give back? Help us build cleaner schools
- Music Credit: Pulse by CRTMUSIC
9/23/15
63: How to Create a Career in Art Part 13/15 – The Power of Giving Back
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Emanate is a creative-direction-led photography experience for entrepreneurs, speakers, and thought leaders in a moment of expansion. This isn’t about better photos. It’s about aligning how you’re seen with who you’ve become. For seasons of rebrand, visibility, and next-level leadership.
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If your message keeps shifting, your brand feels inconsistent, or your presence doesn’t match your capability yet. This is where you build the foundation before you scale.
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For founders, creatives, and leaders who want a trusted long-term partner. This isn’t coaching or traditional consulting.
It’s an ongoing creative partnership focused on bringing your personal brand identity to life.
Your brand. Your website. Your visuals.
All shaped as a direct extension of who you are. The work also includes a bespoke process of identifying and aligning the right experts when needed, so nothing gets built out of sync with your core.
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Brand guidelines are static rules for the surface. A Brand Brain is a living codification of identity a team or an AI can generate from. The difference, defined.
We trained six styles of kung fu in one month. Sampling that widely taught me how a creative actually finds the practice worth years: breadth first, the pull as data, then depth.
Travel makes you more creative because unfamiliar places wake up your perception. Why the effect works, and how to bring the sharpened eye home with you.
Your brand photos lag behind you because you kept evolving and the images stayed frozen. Why the gap opens, how to spot it, and what closes it.
The kung fu school had rules: locked-in weekdays, dawn starts, push-ups for lateness. A month inside taught me that constraints you choose are what make depth possible.
A daily creative practice is making one real thing every day, however small, to stay in a proactive state. A working definition, and how to build one that lasts.
AI describes your brand by averaging your public record. How to codify one identity, repeat it everywhere, and get the machines to echo you back accurately.
I’ve photographed Justin Bieber several times and seen fame up close. His stripped-down Coachella set showed the thing I keep relearning about creative work: production amplifies, and only artistry carries.
You recover from creative burnout by treating it as a nervous system state: build real down-cycles, read your own signals, and return to the work you love.
A magnetic personal brand comes from coherence and one clear through-line. Here is how entrepreneurs build one, in order, and the trap that keeps most brands scattered.
I spent a month training kung fu in Wudang at 47, the oldest and slowest learner in the room. What being a beginner again in midlife taught me about pace, comparison, and starting anyway.
You develop taste through thousands of reps of looking closely and deciding what works. A photographer’s honest answer on how taste gets built.
You make a personal brand more coherent by naming the identity underneath it, distilling a one or two word through-line, and bringing the four layers into agreement. The full path, in order.
About the Blogger
I was born in a low middle class conservative religious family in the suburbs of Seattle. Art was and always has been my passion, and more than that a way of life. Starting as a graphic designer, I taught myself photography, built a commercial/editorial business shooting for the worlds biggest brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Adidas and more. I've also had the opportunity to photograph the world's biggest celebrities like Justin Bieber, Usher, Jessica Alba and more. I've curated a lifestyle around creativity and have learned a lot along the way which I get to share here.
I was born in a low middle class conservative religious family in the suburbs of Seattle. Art was and always has been my passion, and more than that a way of life. Starting as a graphic designer, I taught myself photography, built a commercial/editorial business shooting for the worlds biggest brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Adidas and more. I've also had the opportunity to photograph the world's biggest celebrities like Justin Bieber, Usher, Jessica Alba and more. I've curated a lifestyle around creativity and have learned a lot along the way which I get to share here.
