Ahoy steemians!

I just wrote about 267 lines to begin with, but after not being happy with any of them, I decided to just keep it short: Hey, I'm finally here! :D
I know nobody’s got time, especially not to read something from an unknown person when you don’t know if my article will, in the end, be interesting for you or not. So here’s a quick overview:

Hard facts

• My full name is Valerie-Maria, but most people call me Val. I live in Austria.
• Since my parents weren’t happy with ‚I’m a creative person and I can think a lot, I’ll just do what makes me happy and hope that I won’t end up under a bridge‘ at all, I’m currently attending university, where I am majoring in Business Law. I'm also working as a professional photographer.
• Most of my knowledge is about creativity (a skill that’s essential these days, because it can bring you joy and money without depending on someone else’s choice about whether or not you have enough university degrees to be the coffee maker), photography and setting minds up in a way that makes you more productive, successful and happy. That’s what I’m going to talk about on Steemit.

Some time ago, a friend of mine introduced me to Steemit. I was immediately fascinated by the idea to reward people when they create quality content and I ccouldn't wait to be a part of it! :D

So, small talk time’s over, I hope you’re ready for some personal insight. Let’s go!

If I had to point out two things about me, that would tell you most about what I’m doing, what’s important to me and made me the person I am today, it would be creativity and overthinking.
Creativity made 8 year old me, struggling to find friends, sit in front of a computer for many, many hours and retouch photos I took on Photoshop, to use them on websites I programmed myself. Think about storylines for videos I could make. Take acting lessons for five years. Apply for a high school that specializes in photography, graduate from it five years later and receive a photography diploma. That’s what I do now: Photography (Or, as some other people would say: Press a button on a rather heavy object that costed me a fortune :D)

©Lena Horvath

Overthinking, and the fact that I couldn’t control that my brain appears to be doing it all day, was overwhelming for me first (actually, it still is). The feeling, that it’s not normal to question absolutely everything in not only a scientific, but also emotional way, led me into quite a dark time for some years when I discovered the thought “I will never be satisfied with just the way things are, but always, always question them and eventually find a way how they could make me unhappy”.
At some point, I figured out that I could also focus on the complete opposite. I couldn’t change the fact that somehow, my mind is addicted to break everything down into its tiniest components. But I could decide which components to focus on.
That’s when I started to become happy.

So these two facts lead to the topics I want to talk about here on Steemit: First, obviously, creativity, especially photography. I’ve been working as a people photographer (mainly beauty, fashion and photography) on a freelance basis and for agencies for a few years now.

Two years ago I also started to get into nature photography, especially horses (one of my absolute passions) and landscapes.

I’d love to share my photos, behind the scenes and tutorials. But I definitely won’t just focus on photography related topics. Tips to overcome creative down phases, how to engage your creativity, engage your business with that, marketing ideas and creative life hacks for your everyday life are also things I could talk endlessly about, so that’s what I’ll do!
I’m not sure if covering completely different topics works out on Steemit, but I would also love to write about the stuff I learned and figured out about mindsets and life in general, how to be happier, more productive, achieve your goals and free your mind.

I tried to keep myself short, but to be honest, I’m not very good at it - as you might have already figured out ;) Thanks so much for giving me your time and attention, I really appreciate that.
I hope you enjoyed this small insight into my brain and that some of my posting ideas could be interesting for you! I’m so stoked for your opinions and thoughts about what I’m sharing/gonna share with you!