I got the chance to visit the world famous Studio Harcourt in Paris, France, a place that I've been wanting to visit ever since I moved to Paris 5 years ago. Although they do have tours the studio is  still very hard to get into for a visit. So when the opportunity arose I jumped at the chance to peek behind the elusive Harcourt veil. 

The studio was started in the 1930's and was famous for is signature black and white photograph and its continuous lighting technique inspired from cinematographic lighting styles. They had an exclusive contract with MGM studios and photographed the who's who in film and after 75 years, it still known for it's elite clientele. My work is heavily inspired timeless and classic black and white photography so it was a real treat going behind the scenes and seeing the mastery that is Studio Harcourt in action. 


The first slide show is a look at the make up and dressing room. Designed to look like a scene from Beauty and the Beast with the light fixtures being hands coming from the wall. 

The next series is a demonstration of how they build the lights for a photo shoot. Lights range from 8 to 12 depending on the subject. They always start with all the lights out and build up from there. 

And the final result after all the lights have been placed, you're left with the beautiful, elegant and timeless signature lighting of the famous Studio Harcourt. 

If you are ever in Paris, and would like to have a session with the studio, you should budget 2000 euros for a 3 hour session and go home with one photo that you will have forever. 

What do you get when you mix a vintage police uniform, a dancer and high heals?

You get the genius that is Brian Scott Bagely, Paris burlesque dancer extrodinare and a dear friend.  

After doing a show for Louis Vuitton, he was left with a costume he just had to put good use. So he called together a last minute dream team. 

A leading lady, a videographer, a photographer (that's me) and a few other people to help on the set of his upcoming music video. 

My job to was to get some behind the scenes shots, some video stills and mini photo shoot between filming. 

We had so much fun on set, mostly from the crowd that gathered as we were shooting who all had the same reaction of seeing a dancing, sining police officer in heals!

You should feel really proud of all the steps you've taken to make this year the best yet. So far we've...

• Challenged ourselves with bigger goals.
  
• Organized and made sure we had well rounded goals for our mind, body, spirit and career.
• Taken the time to make our goals tangible and keep ourselves accountable.
• Found a goal setting partner. 

The last bit in my goal setting process is staying positive and regularly visualizing archiving each goal.

The Law of Attraction, Visualizing and The Secret are a few things that have been in vogue for a while now. However, I think a main concept of that advice has been lost to many, visualizing will mean nothing without action. 

In the goal setting process we created, we negated that by writing our action steps first in order not to get lost in wishful thinking. 

Being positive and inundating yourself with positive reinforcement is paramount to keeping yourself motivated to achieve all that you want this year. Make a Pinterest board with things you want, positive quotes, people you admire, places you want to see, even people you want to emulate. Make this the place you go to escape all the negative energy in your life and avoid all the naysayers that will inevitably show up and distract you from your goals.

I always use Picasso as an example, if he didn't believe in himself, no one else would have. The same is true for you, if you don't put in the time, energy and sacrifice needed to make yourself better no one else will.

It will be hard, it will be challenging and at times you'll want to quit; I'm here to tell you to embrace these moments, this will be the time where you'll have the greatest chance to learn exactly what you're made of and just how bad you want to archive your goals. You'll grow a thicker skin, you'll become more determined and you'll achieve greater things. 

We cannot learn from success. We absolutely cannot learn from success, because success is something that has to be built, success is something that has to be achieved. We can only learn from our failures and one day become successful because of them. 

Think about that.  The real value to our future success is our current and past failures. Life is the great equalizer, we all start at level zero, and everyday we have to figure out a way to get to that next level.

I can't tell you the amount of people that I meet who get stuck on one level and most likely never figure out how to grow, how to overcome a plateau, because they want to blame anyone and everything for their failures instead of looking at themselves and asking "What can I do to change my situation?" 

Something else I see creatives do all the time especially in photography is practice. I meet photographers all the time who tell me how much they love photography and that they take photos everyday then show me their work and I have to close my eyes to keep them from exploding in my brain. 

Practice will not make you better. Better practice will make you better. If you keep practicing bad technique, you are going to be really good at being bad, you have to put in the time to learn better techniques in order to get better, period. 

I've given you all the tools that I've learned in the years about creating a successful goal setting process, I hope you will be able to use it as is or find a way to adapt some part of it into your creative life.  

By now you should be feeling pretty good about the upcoming year. Everything you need to do it is laid out right in front of you. 

You have a direction, a plan and a road map to make this your best year yet. Treat yourself to something special for all the work you've done so far. 

You are still missing one key thing in the goal setting process and this is my secret weapon. 

Don't go it alone! 

Find a goal setting buddy, someone who will be a positive influence and help keep you on track. 

For years I did the goal setting process alone and although it was still helpful, by the end of the year I found that I'd fallen short more often than not. I would get things done in the career section, but nothing for the body section. I let a year pass without giving a second thought to my health and what is success if you aren't in good shape to enjoy it?

My goal setting buddy is Matt, one of my dearest friends from my publishing days in New York City. Matt was my shinning star at a time in my life when everything felt bleak. When I said I wanted to move to Paris, it was Matt who helped me hang images of my dream city all around my desk. He suggested that we start learning some French words and we would practice our list at lunch. Matt believed in my dream more that I ever did and because he believed in it, I started to believe in it too. 

At my work computer I had made it a habit to look at the prices of tickets going to Paris, for months I would come into work, sit at my desk and the first thing I would do, was look up airline prices. Then I would immediately close the window because I thought I would never be able to do. It was a silly dream, and I was growing embarrassed that I had even shared it with Matt. 

With Matt's help, that silly dream became more and more real, I started to think that maybe I could move to Paris, and I started looking at tickets and apartments. Things just started to snowball from there and I wanted Paris, more that I wanted anything else. More than my career, more than my boyfriend, more that my apartment and all the things inside it that I owned. My "good on paper" life was becoming more and more like a 1000 pound weight that was drowning me, and Paris seemed to be more and more like my lifesaver. 

It's an afternoon that I will never forget; it was a particularly stressful day at work and all I wanted to do was cry from how unhappy I was, so like always I looked up the price for tickets to Paris. That day was different, that day I did something I had never done before and I looked up the price of a one-way ticket. With all the encouragement that Matt had given me in the 2 years we had worked together, I was ready, ready to give it all up and take my chances. My hands shaking, I took out my credit card and and bought my one-way-ticket to salvation.

Within the following week I would break up with my boyfriend, put all of my stuff for sale on Craigslist, give up my apartment and tell my friends and family that I was leaving. 

You see, even though I didn't have a job, a plan, a place to live, and didn't know a word of French - I had the one thing that I had needed all along, someone who believed in me, when I didn't even believe in myself. 

Even though I now live a good 4,000 miles away and 6 hours ahead we still find time once a week to talk on Skype. We help each other set goals for the next year, suggest possible revisions, suggest action steps we can take and we keep each other accountable. We share stories of success and learn from where we've fallen short. 

This has been the single most important factor in my goal setting habit, having that person who wants to see me attain my goals and helps me stay focused thought out the year. 

Do whatever you need to to find someone like this in your life. If you don't feel like you have someone like that in your life then put a post up on Craigslist, find or start a Meetup group, a Google Hangout; whatever you can to find that one person who will be your North Star. 

This is such an important part, if you've exhausted everything else and still can't find someone, then send me an email and I'll help you with your goals - even though I may not be able to ever repay what Matt did for me, I can surely try to pay it forward.