This is Shea Cochran - one of my longtime Life Feasters - who joined at the suggestion of a friend when she had zero time, a daughter with an unknown health condition and did not have much time for herself for anything let alone creativity. Here's why she loves the program. 

Photos by Shea Cochrane

Let’s talk about the art of gift-giving. If you’re shopping for a creative soul, you know the drill: we’re not here for basic, boring, or beige. No, we want the kind of gifts that inspire, delight, and maybe even give a little nudge toward the next masterpiece—or adventure. Lucky for you, I’ve done the legwork and curated a dreamy gift guide that’s packed with treasures for the colorful, creative people in your life.

And let’s be real, this guide isn’t just for gifting others. It’s packed with magic you’ll want to treat yourself to as well. After all, you deserve a little something special under the tree (or in your cart), right?

For the Creatives Who Wander Far and Wide
This year, I’ve found the perfect charms to adorn yourself with—little treasures that reflect your far-flung adventures. Whether you’re dreaming of the salty breeze on a Croatian boat, a quiet moment in Morocco, or all the dolce indulgences Italy has to offer, these charms are designed to stir your soul. Bonus point...

Ever wanted your iPhone photos to look more vintage? There are so many apps that can create film-like edits, these days, but I want to show you a Life Feast member favorite.

Why film? Because amidst the heat dome, a contentious election and my desire to not see new horrors on social media these days, I need to remind myself what life was like when cameras were plastic, popsicles were plentiful, life was uncomplicated, and instant gratification meant 1 hour photo labs or Polaroid cameras.    

(me as a small child, 1979)

Plus the textures, grain, light leaks, emulsions, grain and grit of the old film days make our overly glossy digitized lives look more ethereal, moody, patina'd and just plain interesting. 

If you're wanting to give your doom scrolling a creative reprieve with some nostalgic 5-minute film-esque fun on your digital camera roll, watch this quick video on how to use Mextures to do some 5-minute film-like editing techniques.

1) Download MEXTURES  
Download From APP sto...

Let’s start or end your day with calm and alert focus and a 14-second photo meditation at blue hour. Blue hour is that hour before sunrise or after sunset when the sun is low on the horizon and the light is soft and cool toned. It evokes a lovely mysteriousness to your photos (and when you're at a lake, it's beautiful to see!). 

🫁Remember to let your exhale be longer than your inhale.
👃Breathe in and out through your nose.
🧘‍♀️inhale to a count of 5
✋pause for two
📿breathe out to a count of 7

Let me know if you enjoyed this. Leave a comment or a heart over on Instagram. And please share with someone you think is awesome and who might love a relaxing photo meditation, too.

🧘‍♀️A morning meditation practice starts your day with calm intention (much better than starting your day with the outside world’s chaotic agenda).

It boosts your focus, decompresses your nervous system and is an anchor point of relaxation throughout your day.

I was laying in bed this morning on our vacation in Northern Michigan, not entirely thrilled to be wide awake at 5:30am. Matt rolled over and said, “look we’re on on golden pond this morning”. I looked out the window and it was gorgeous out. How he knew this through the blackout shades is a mystery, especially since we’ve had quite a few rainy mornings, up here, but I’m glad he spoke up.

I made my way down to the lake (a 20-second walk) to enjoy listening to the lapping waves while watching the sunrise.

It was beautiful.

So much of photography is a meditation to me, a living, breathing, walking, shooting mindfulness experience, but this morning was even more lovely because I was in such awe of how gorgeous the golden hour light was on...

Here’s a 60 second iPhone photo tip for your Fourth of July fireworks photos.

Use burst mode.

It’s not at all obvious how to do a photo burst. Here are the steps. 

💥open the camera
💥slide the white shutter button to the left
💥hold it there for the whole firework interval
💥later on, open up your burst and scroll through all of the photos in the burst (use the slider at the bottom of your screen).
💥put a check mark next to your favorites
💥hit done
💥you can then choose between keeping your favorites and deleting the rest of the photos in the burst or keeping the entire burst.
💥 bonus: open up your top photo from the selection and make some minor edits. I love to boost the contrast and increase the sharpening.

🏆you did it!

I’ve got 5 other top tips in my blog post on how to take the best iPhone fireworks photos this Fourth of July. 

Please share your photos with me on Instagram. I’d love to see what you create!

PS burst mode is also great for taking action shots of your friends and family.

Want to give your firework photos a GLOW-UP this year? Here are a few tips for much better iPhone photography results.

1. Use a tripod
This is always the recommendation and, quite frankly, I rarely use one. But they do make a big difference in the clarity of your low light iPhone photography. When it's dark out, every breath you take (cue the Sting soundtrack) definitely affect the clarity of your photos. Things get blurry fast when there's no sunshine. Selfie sticks usually have an option for transforming into a stand-alone tripod. And you can also improvise by propping your phone up against a water bottle. If you aren't using a tripod, just be sure to hold as still as possible. The slightest shakes will show up in your photos. 

2. Be intentionally blurry
Some of us (i.e. ME) love some artistic blur (hence why I don't stress over the tripod all that much), so there are fun slow shutter 3rd party apps that you can use to intentionally (and artistically) blur your fireworks photos. I li...

 Listen to our podcast interview with Juliana Naufel and read all about this extraordinary photo embroidery artist. 

 It started with a photo of her grandmother - a woman who ironically had disliked embroidery so much that she bartered writing papers for friends instead of having to complete embroidery assignments in school (presumably in a time and place where schools gave young women embroidery HOMEWORK). 

It was only about a decade ago, and Juliana Naufels was the same age as the beloved woman in the photograph, listening intently to her shy and reserved grandfather as he came to life sharing the stories behind the images in his old photo albums. 

Juliana was also in art school and feeling stressed ABOUT ART.

Yes. art can be stressful too!

And she needed an outlet that had nothing to do with the artistic mediums she was learning in school (ceramics, painting, drawing).

She turned to embroidery for some much needed stress relief and art degree downtime. 

But in a kismet...

"In my career, I've made an art out of creating experiences that I get to photograph. People are always surprised when I say I don't care that much about what something looks like. I want my photos to reflect what I feel more than what I see." - George Lange

For George, every picture is a reimagining of the pure joy he felt growing up in Pittsburgh holding his first camera at the age of 7. Those of us who have loved photography our whole lives (and who grew up with those quintessential Kodak moments, begging to be the one who would accidentally cut everyone's heads off in the group shot), probably remember holding that prized family camera, as well!

But George's photographic fascination went way beyond childhood and his first photography jobs out of art school were for heavy hitters like Annie Leibovitz and Duane Michals (my hero!). 

But being a lead assistant wasn't what he was called to do. George had his own ideas of what he wanted to capture and his tenacious attitude and infect...