Please enjoy this transcript of my interview with Sorelle Amore, an Australian businesswoman and artist living in Iceland. Her still young career has blossomed into becoming a best-selling author, self-portrait artist, YouTuber, and investor.
Sorelle talks about how to progress as an artist, how to progress as a human being, and reinvent yourself.
Transcripts may contain a few typos. With some episodes lasting 2+ hours, it can be difficult to catch minor errors. Enjoy!
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This episode is a gem don't miss it! Sorelle Amore is a YouTuber and photographer seeking art, freedom, and purpose in her everyday life and work. Sorelle shares with us how she managed to create her own unique style, how it blew up because she freed herself from "what everyone else is doing" and how she reinvents herself on a regular basis.
🔥Sorelle's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SorelleIAm
🔥Go say Hi to Sorelle on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Sorelleamore/
I hope you learned something out of that episode! Now go crush it out there and remember to be nice with our planet – we only got one!
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This interview was transcribed by Descript.com.
Pierre Lambert: Good morning podcast and welcome to a new episode on the Pierre T. Lambert show. I hope you’re staying home and you’re cozy because today we have an amazing guest. Her name is Sorelle Amore. You guys have been asking for me to have her on the podcast, it finally happened. She’s here with all of her energy and you’ll see, it’s going to be incredible because we’ll be digging into different topics. One of them is going to teach you how to be unique as the creator, an artist, and how to foster that and why it’s going to yield completely different results. I think just that part is like gold. On top of that, we’ll talk a little bit about her gear. We’ll talk about how to progress as an artist, how to progress as a human being and reinvent yourself. How she did it a few times and how she followed her intuition to be where she is now. Wow. I think it’s going to be packed with valuable information. If anything hits home run with you, make sure you tag us in your Instagram stories, Tweet it, send us a quote. We love hearing back from you guys. Now with that being said, let’s get started. Let’s welcome Sorelle to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast, Sorelle.
Sorelle Amore: Thank you so much for having me.
Pierre Lambert: You’re welcome. Tell us a little bit about where you are right now.
Sorelle Amore: I am in Iceland. It is 9:30 PM and it’s still light because we’re about to hit 24-hour sunlight here and it’s just the beginning of April soon.
Pierre Lambert: Does that mean you have constant, what do you call that, like sunset or sunrise or is it that constant midday?
Sorelle Amore: At around 2:00 AM or maybe midnight. It starts as sunset colors, and because the sun never sets, by 3:00 AM, it starts rising and you have sunrise colors, so from midnight until maybe 6:00 AM, you have the golden hour, which is good for photographers.
Pierre Lambert: That’s what I was thinking. I’m like, that sounds like paradise. I mean, we can get bored after a while.
Sorelle Amore: No.
Pierre Lambert: No? Oh, cool.
Sorelle Amore: Most beautiful sunrises and sunsets you’ve ever seen in your entire life.
Pierre Lambert: Really?
Sorelle Amore: Iceland is magic. Nowhere else in the world have I seen beauty as astounding as Iceland.
Pierre Lambert: Wow. That’s a good selling point. Iceland is weird because it’s like one of the spaces that I feel like kind of blew up with photography, so in a way it kind of makes me think I don’t want to go, just because I don’t like hype stuff.
Sorelle Amore: I understand that completely, but it’s also sometimes a reason why things are really popular and I did it. I mean, I also like going to places that haven’t been visited, I went to Mongolia and I feel like I’m still one of the very first photographers to go there and explore it when I say photographers, I mean public people, you know what I mean, so that’s a very undiscovered place that is about to pop, so I liked that feeling of going and exploring it, but I mean, I have lived on and off in Iceland for four years now, and sometimes I’m like, Iceland, I’ve seen it. It’s so annoying to see it in photos now because people do the same photos over and over again in Iceland, which is a big disservice to yourself as a photographer.
Pierre Lambert: Are you talking about the yellow jacket in front of the waterfall?
Sorelle Amore: Oh my gosh, please punch me in the face. Why would you do that to yourself? Why would you take the same photo that you’ve seen a million times? There are so many possibilities in photography. Unfollow everyone that takes those kinds of photos and just figure out what works for yourself. That’s how my brain always thinks of these things.
Pierre Lambert: Wait, do you do that? Would you unfollow people because you think they’re doing stuff you see too much? I’m curious.
Sorelle Amore: So when I was going through a stage of trying to figure out who I am and what I stand for, I was learning photography and just navigating the space for myself. I started going down the route of doing the same thing that everybody else was doing and then I was like, wait, what? I’m going to do the same thing, thinking that it’s going to get me some sort of different results. How am I going to stand out from the crowd? That’s so counter-intuitive, so I did, I went through a stage where I muted everyone that I was following, so I can focus on my creativity and my expression and figure out what I liked and what things worked for me, so I took time to understand my style and my self before I turned back on these people’s posts, where I could appreciate what they were doing for themselves, but it didn’t then influence my decision of what I was going to take photos of
Pierre Lambert: I will say the words ballsy because I feel like the moment you do that, there are two ways and I guess two people, one way I could see it where you’re like, yes, finally, I’m cutting out the noise and I can focus on me, and maybe there is another part that might be, this is scary.
Sorelle Amore: What’s scary? To meet your friends?
Pierre Lambert: Yes, in a way, to be like, I’m going to have nothing to look at, to either inspire or define.
Sorelle Amore: You think you’ll have nothing to look at, but you just cut out one source of information that is being fed into your brain, which is the repetitive same thing that you see all the time. Whereas inspiration for photography for me comes from so many different sources. We’ve got the magazines. We’ve got movies. We’ve got plants. We’ve got the sunsets. We’ve got fashion. There’s painting, music. I mean, to look at the same thing that you want to create. That’s not going to spark any creativity, so why would you do that to yourself?
Pierre Lambert: That is so good. I love that. I’m poking you here just to see how it is in your mind, because obviously, I’m just trying to speak from other people who might be listening and maybe also confused about how to do it without feeling like they’re alone, but I think being alone is a good thing. What would be your biggest source of inspiration once you’ve cut out that. For you, when you went through the process, how was it like?
Sorelle Amore: The biggest inspiration. I think I went through a stage where I was in data collection mode, so I was looking at my favorite photographers and I was analyzing everything they were doing and then I’d spend like eight hours a day sometimes on Lightroom, just trying to replicate their editing style and try to replicate, then I would go out there and try to shoot and replicate the way that they would shoot, so I did go through a stage where I collected a couple of photographers that I loved the style, and then, once I was in that accumulation stage, I started to shed things that I didn’t like at first it was pure replication, can I just do what they’re doing and see if I can do it as good as them, once the replication, once I completed that stage, then I started to shed the layers that weren’t mine and so once I turned all the information sources of coming into my brain. I was then in experimentation mode, so I collected all my information, and then it was execution because I think a lot of people forget the execution stage and the repetition of the skill is important, but you have to lock yourself up and do your own thing and see where your brain takes you with the information you’ve already collected over time, so I think experimentation was where I got my inspiration from because I already had everything I needed and I was just putting it into practice.
Pierre Lambert: That is so good. I think it’s such a great way of thinking and doing it. I’m super honest. I mean, it’s like trying to replicate, so you master the technique and then turn off everything, so you can focus on yourself and express yourself. Is that what got you the, I want to say, fame, and not in a bad way, in a good way, actually, the kind of fame, in the self-portrait world, because I remember seeing some self-portraits. If I’m very honest, anytime I would see self-portraits of photographers, they were taking photos of themselves in the mirror with a camera and I did it in the past, but I would see some very good artists do self-portraits, but I felt like, it wasn’t something I would ever see on social media, and I remember when you injected your style in there, I was like, that’s cool, that’s different. That’s also ballsy because. Yeah, exactly. It’s just so different. I love it.
Sorelle Amore: It’s so different and also, I think there’s a big resistance to self-portraits from a lot of photographers, which is funny because self-portraits are the oldest expression of self-exploration. We have been doing this as humans for the longest time, people were painting themselves, people were taking photos of themselves when the first cameras came out, so it’s just a version of self-exploration, but a lot of photographers instantly, put it into the vein category, which I will admit there is an element of that, but I’m just intrigued by the person, I’m intrigued by the fact that I am in a human body, in this little thing. I have this soul sitting inside of this meat suit and I’m like, awesome. There’s a level of vanity towards it, but, I think Instagram has bread and I’m very well aware that I’m on that, my Instagram is just me. It is heavy doing this for four years now. Everything being about me, is draining, but I know that it gets the best results, and for a while, that was the most important thing. And now I’m transitioning into something else, so I’m just going to see where that takes me, but, with the self-portraits, that was a really fun journey and I still love doing it. That’s it.
Pierre Lambert: I think for anyone who thinks it’s vain, just want to remind them that when they’re 90 years old and they will have no good photos of themselves, they’re going to say, she was right.
Sorelle Amore: Yeah, and you can take self-portraits with family members and capture that part of history and time. You can take self-portraits when you’re really sad and it will flash you back to what you were going through so that when you’re feeling really good, you can remember where you came from. You can capture emotions, even when you have no models around you, and you feel like the photo needs a subject, you can put yourself in it and it just brings a whole brand new dimension to your art, so there’s a lot of reasons why you would use yourself as a prop in the photos to tell a better story.
Pierre Lambert: That’s true and especially now with what’s happening. A lot of people are stuck at home. As you know, we’re producing content on YouTube, and my thing being mostly around photography, I’m preparing an episode on a self-portrait, and that’s where it got funny. In my head, I was like, what do I want, forget about YouTube, what do I want to capture from that moment, because I think it’s super historical, whether it’s cool, or not. I mean, it’s not cool, first of all, but I think the fact that I’m living your historical moments, that’s probably going to be in textbooks in the future and I have never done that in my life before, it has a part of the excitement. And I want to be able to capture that and maybe capture my state of, while I was going through it, it’s like those world photographers that can show you a little bit of what it was like, and we’re so lucky. I mean, we’re asked to stay home, we could be at work and have to leave our families, but I still want to try to do that. I try to share it on YouTube. See if it goes anywhere creatively, but I think it’s what you say about capturing emotions is not just other people’s emotion, but ours.
Sorelle Amore: Yeah. Very powerful tool.
Pierre Lambert: How do you think about recreating yourself because, I just saw your last post was the bikini session in the snow. It was fun. I was wondering, maybe talk to us a little bit about what’s going on in your mind.
Sorelle Amore: Yeah, so I have been doing and teaching self-portraits and a little bit of photography stuff online for around three years, I’d say, and I’m now shedding that part of my story and it has been super fun. It’s been super awesome, and I still love my advanced selfies, so I’m going to continue doing them because they just bring me way too much joy to give it out. But I became a teacher in the photography sphere, which I don’t feel that is what I am going to do now. It just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like it’s sticking, so I’m getting rid of that because, when you’re swinging from a vine and you want to get up to the next vine. You have to let go of the one you’re holding onto to catch the next one, so I’m seeking the next version of mebecause I think in this beautiful life that we have been stuck doing one thing is just so counterintuitive to me, and I very often shed my skin, and now it’s in a different way because I am now a public figure out, whereas five years ago, I shed a story, my whole life switched and I do this a lot, so I was ready for the switch, but being in the public eye is a lot harder because I have to also tell everybody that’s with me, sorry, but I’m not going to do that any more cause, I just know that there’s something more I can give and I just have to allow myself space, and I can disappoint some people, but ultimately I’m the only one I’m going to live with for the rest of my life, so I have to take care of what my soul says right now, and it says time to move on.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah. That’s cool. Are you a little bit afraid of it?
Sorelle Amore: Yeah, of course. The unknown, what is the unknown? We have no idea. I mean, now the whole collection is sitting in the unknown. None of us know what’s going on at all, and that’s so uncomfortable because, you have zero certainties about what the future is going to bring, but there’s also some sort of beauty because I used to want to plan everything in my life, and then I realized that surprises are nice, and why would I want to know the outcome of my life for the next one year, two years, five years, so, uncertainty, even though this one has been forced upon us, we have two ways of looking at it. One, let’s roll with it, and if your life is not in immediate danger and no one around you is in immediate danger. That’s great. great position, just embrace the uncertainty or you can just panic the whole time and be in despair, which is not going to help anyone.
Pierre Lambert: That’s, that’s a good way of putting it. Let’s talk about the fact that we’re living where everyone’s kind of stuck, no one knows about the unknown, but do you remember a moment in your life where you knew what was coming up?
Sorelle Amore: I mean, I had predictions, so with my YouTube journey, let’s go for that one. I started YouTube about three and a half, four years ago, and for six years before that, I wanted to be a YouTuber, and I don’t know why, and then I just kept on being, do YouTube, and I tried a few times like five false dots to it, cause when you start anything, you suck badly, and then, I don’t know. I just knew that I was going to be a YouTuber. I just knew it in my bone and I didn’t rest until it happened, and I don’t even know the point where I could call myself a YouTuber. I don’t know when that happened. I don’t know. I feel like yes, you can make videos, but that doesn’t make you a YouTuber, maybe when that’s your primary focus, that’s a YouTuber. I don’t know, but I reached that point and it just felt right. I was like, I was meant to be here. I just knew it. I just, yeah, so. That was some of the most clarity that I have gotten in my life to pursue anything.
Pierre Lambert: That’s cool to hear, for anyone who might be in a space where they’re trying hard to get to a point at their thing or they might feel like they’re becoming. Although you had clarity, did you have clarity on what your every day is supposed to do? Or did you just have clarity on your overall goal?
Sorelle Amore: Not at all. I had clarity on the final goal. It was so strong. The feeling towards it was so strong and it was funny because I didn’t have any desire, not desire, I didn’t have any reason behind it. I didn’t have any strategy for it, and I still think it’s pretty obvious if you study my channel a little bit. There isn’t an everyday strategy. It was just what felt right at the moment, and I landed in a couple of really powerful pockets that helped me propel, but I didn’t have a strategy. I just knew the outcome, and then I stumbled and I made mistakes and I tried again and I kept going and then I found. I often hear people saying don’t give up until it works, which is true, but you also have to be a little bit strategic towards it. Trying to just make videos, if you want to be a YouTuber, don’t just take videos of what you’re eating in a day. Study what’s going on, what is working in this sphere, maybe pick a niche. Let’s say, me. Advanced photography, accidentally stumbled upon this because I released a video on how to post, and it’s got 8 million views now, and that is what pushed my photography career forward, and from that, I started making more photography videos, but I found an angle that no one was covering, which was helping everyday people to take great photos of themselves or just learning how to be okay and comfortable in front of the camera. It was a niche that people had not covered yet, and I was one of the first people to do it, but I was actively seeking what would be successful, not just hoping blindly putting out videos. I mean the beginning, I made videos that made no sense, but eventually, I had to put strategies in place cause I needed to grow.
Pierre Lambert: What you’re saying reminds me of a little bit, my, my journey for the simple reason that I did six months of daily videos and I don’t think one person of the people know it, but six months of daily videos almost and they were like garbage, but that process taught me how to edit fast, how to get comfortable about saying nonsense in front of the camera and how to be okay with having zero views or very few, and once, as you say, at one point I laid down things, I’m like, okay, I’m spending too much time on that, and it’s yielding zero right now. It made me grow for a little bit. What can we strategize to make it better or, just to make something that works, and that that’s very powerful? Do you think as a photographer you’re supposed to strategize also?
Sorelle Amore: I just want to add to what you just said, before I answer that question. I also had a three-month period where I was traveling the world and I was making ridiculous amounts of videos and content, and I didn’t have many views at the time either, so I think that what we both did was important as well, too. It was like acquiring the skills, so we can’t discount that, so I will admit that having that time was important as well.
Pierre Lambert: It is something that we don’t Talk about as much, I think because people are like, how do you get all those views? Well, first of all, I could go pro. I press record, put it in my fridge up in the fridge because in some cases you do that, and then I did that for six months and no one watched it, and then I was like, maybe there’s a problem.
Sorelle Amore: Yeah. All of that. We all have to stumble for a while and acquire the skills, which is not sexy, and with photography, are there strategies? Yes. I mean, you want to figure out what your niche is and what niche you love straight away, but I highly doubt most people will know that until they test a million different other niches and they take photos, they go to a photoshoot and they book clients and they figure out that it was horrible. I never want to do that ever again.
Pierre Lambert: Has that happened to you? Do you have a good one?
Sorelle Amore: Well. I did an internship when I first started photography, so I was meditating and I just said I was a business person, with zero sense in me, I thought, and then I was meditating for 10 days doing silent meditation retreat, and I just sat. It said the only message that stuck was to contact your friend Sasha and ask to be her intern in photography. and I said, what? Photography? Okay. Sure. Whatever. Fine, so I did, and I ended up interning for her, going from being a marketing manager, making good cash, and then all of a sudden I was making very little most of the time, I think for the first three months I wasn’t making any money, so I worked for free or very minimum amount of money, just being a slave. She was amazing, but I would just do anything. Anything she asked me, I would do it for three months, and then she started paying me a little bit later on a more solid income once I started acquiring skills, but I was in observation mode just watching her for like six months without taking photos, and for the last three months of the internship, I started taking photos, so it was a nine-month internship, internship at first, and I forget why I brought that up.
Pierre Lambert: You brought it up.
Sorelle Amore: But then, I got to see what it was like for her to work with clients, and I took some photos of clients, and I enjoyed that process, but there was nothing that gave me as much joy, and I don’t know why as self-portraits, the obsession with this was dumb, but I loved it so much that I would put most of my effort into figuring out how they worked mixing it with nature, cause I like nature shots, but I had to figure that out. I did maybe a couple of shoots for other clients and I still liked it, but there was still not the highest level of excitement and joy as when I could just work with myself without any constraints, without any, and I could just create for myself, so I guess it’s like finding whatever sparks, the most joy in you and trying to pursue as much of that as possible.
Pierre Lambert: That is so good. Can I go back to your meditation retreat? How clear was the message? I’m trying to understand. I’m still trying to understand my intuition and I’m struggling, so tell me.
Sorelle Amore: How clear was the message?
Pierre Lambert: Was it a thought that kept coming back to you? It was like you should contact that person, or was it something that slowly built out in your mind? If you remember.
Sorelle Amore: Do you meditate?
Pierre Lambert: Yeah, I do. Everyday.
Sorelle Amore: Okay, amazing. How long do you meditate for?
Pierre Lambert: Lately, I went back to Wim Hoff. So I’m doing two rounds of breathing, and then I just enjoyed the high after, while meditating, but for a while, it was about 10 to 20 minutes every morning, so I still do that, but with reading.
Sorelle Amore: Cool. I think my message was extremely clear, but it could only come through because I was in this space. When you go to Vipassana, you have to do 10 days of silent meditation, they don’t give you a choice of doing less than that, because you don’t understand, you can’t detach your mind properly from the rat, the mental psychosis that you have running constantly, the thought process that is on automatic, you have to be able to let go of that, and they figured out that 10 days is the best time to do it. The message that came through was extremely clear. It was so loud and so profound, but that was only because I was in that space and now I booked in for a retreat, but it’s been canceled because all of them are canceled.
Pierre Lambert: Because everyone has to do it at home.
Sorelle Amore: Exactly, but I’m in a stage of my life now where I know I need that again, every few years I just need to recalibrate, and I need to be able to hear my soul speak and with so much noise outside, constantly telling us what to do and external stimulation. It’s very hard to know yourself. I don’t understand how you can figure out who you are without silencing the mind, and to me, the best tool has been Vipassana, which has changed my mind, changed my entire life, and retreats completely.
Pierre Lambert: That’s good. I’m going to ask it’s a little detail do you feel after a certain amount of days, like there’s some progression in your mind where you’re like, that’s cool, and then it’s like, that’s getting long, I don’t want to be here, and then it’s like, I don’t have a choice. Well, how does it go in for you?
Sorelle Amore: It’s the most painful 10 days of your entire life. To me right now, I still haven’t had a retreat where it was enjoyable. I’ve only done two, one when I was like 21, roughly one when I was 25 and they all changed my life, so now I was ready for the new one but, not the time right now for me, but it’s the first nine days, some of the most excruciatingly painful things that I’ve experienced personally. Some people love it and they know what they’re doing and they’re fine, but I found it to be horrifically difficult, and then finally on day nine, the sensations I felt within my body were something that I had never experienced before, and the stillness and the acceptance of what is and hearing myself, not even, not hearing myself, but just an inner knowing and an inner truth of the being that you are. You unlock something within yourself.
Pierre Lambert: That is great to hear. The reason I’m asking is because I’m very much interested in all that because I think, first of all, it makes us better human beings and second of all, it also helps on the daily life level to cope either with things or even if you want to take it back to creativity, it just helps you free a little bit of your creativity and I find so many ideas when I meditate. I don’t necessarily remember them, but I just go with the belief that the most interesting will stay.
Sorelle Amore: Which is exactly what it is, because I think a lot of us try to hang on to every single idea. A lot of us, have endless ideas. All of us, have multi-million dollar ideas, but we never bring them to fruition because one, there are too many ideas that float around in our brains. Doing everything is overwhelming, but then the best ones always do stick and they keep coming back, either represented and painted in the emotion of joy, but you just freaking love doing it and you’re obsessed by it, or this constant thought that just won’t leave you, and you’re just like, why? Go away, and even if you take one day to explore this weird thought that might not have anything to do with anything that you are working on right now, just one day, cause what have you got to lose? And then it might take you down this beautiful path that circles back somehow magically and then voila, you’ve unlocked something about yourself or your career or your relationships that I just magic.
Pierre Lambert: That is so cool. I think. There’s a little bit of a shift in like mindsets, I would say around, especially as we progress in time because a lot more people talk about, for example, like tools like meditation or what, or even breathwork try to access or be able to get connected a little bit more to ourselves, and I’m kind of excited about that because I feel that it’s something that I never heard about it, when I was young, meditation was like one of the things that they do in the Himalayas, on top of the mountain with one food and an eco, on the other hand, that’s what was my idea, or you had to be a monk or whatever, and I’m kind of excited, it’s spreading. I felt like just for creators or photographers or anyone who tries, because creating is the essence of going deep inside yourself and that they get expressed. Right. I don’t know where creativity comes from, but in a way, it comes from nowhere else, but inside you. You can’t pull it in a baul and give it to someone. Here’s creativity. Try it. It’s good.
Sorelle Amore: Yeah, and all of us have it. I think some people think that they don’t. That is the biggest story. I was by the complete belief that there’s not a single tiny part of me that is creative, that I bypassed me and only got my brother and my sister and my mom and everyone else, but not me and that was just a lie that I was telling myself. I limited myself from that, from experiencing it because I just hung onto a false story and creativity does come from the depths and it doesn’t have to look a certain way. It doesn’t have to look like a photo. You’ve seen it before with a yellow rain jacket. That’s not creativity, man. That’s just copying. We can all express our creativity in the weirdest most bizarre ways and that’s the beauty of being a human.
Pierre Lambert: When we talk about being humans and caring about creating things and sharing them. Do you feel that there is a benefit in being vulnerable when we’re sharing work? I listened to that very interesting podcast the other day between Tim Ferriss and Brenda Brown. I already knew Brenda Brown’s work around vulnerability, and then I had Chelsea Kauai on the podcast and she was talking about courage and all that may be thinking, and as artists, when we create our work, how vulnerable should we be, and maybe it’s good because now you’re in a public figure mode. How close to your feelings or sharing stuff, are you ready to go? And, should you go according to Sorelle, right now?
Sorelle Amore: According to me. I don’t know what it’s like to not be me, so whatever comes naturally to me, I just have to do it, and when I started my YouTube, it was really with my heart on my sleeve. Like, this is me, this is what I do. I was me, and then I did absolutely get hurt and people poked at me and they poked at my heart and it hurt, and I cried and it shut me off a little bit for a while until I realized that now I use negative comments as free therapy. If someone says something to you and it hurts you initially, you’re just like, oh, that really hurts, and then it could stick for days and days, and then you have two options. One, if it sticks and eventually after you’ve allowed it to sink in and you digest it and you realize, there is some truth to that. Then you have the ability to fix that about you, or there’s another way that it could come through and you’re hurt for a while and you so angry that they don’t see the true you and how could they be criticizing you, and then you realize, that’s I don’t believe anything that they said, so why am I upset and you start honing more into who you are as a person, and you become more concrete in who you are, so now whenever I get bad comments, I can filter them out. I’m like, not mine, there’s some pain in that. They’re kind of correct on that. Even today, someone, this is how vulnerable I am now. I went through a stage where I shut myself off, but then I realized that wasn’t making me happy and I was putting on a front, on YouTube, and my photography works. It was fake. I’m living one life, and if I’m not living the authentic life of me, then what’s the freaking point, and today I had someone saying it’s kinks that you’re using your body to get extra views and, I mean, I look at my feed and it’s all me, I’m very comfortable with my body, and my initial response was, shut up. I am very comfortable with myself and I love my body, and it’s annoying that society is like, be stupid comfortable with your body, but not too much, don’t show it off too much, so there’s a fine line trying to work out what you can share, what you can’t, but then there was a part of me that was actually, He also has a good point because I think I have believed subconsciously or maybe consciously that my look or my body is the most enticing thing about me because I haven’t fallen in love with my mind yet just yet all my soul and I haven’t figured out a way of expressing that into the world, which I think has a lot more benefit than just photos of myself in a bikini. I’m literally in this stage now where I’m trying to figure out more as a woman, as a mature version of myself. What I want to bring into the world and what other messages I want to spread, so it was free therapy now. Being vulnerable, I like it, but it’s only because that’s how I operate in the world, forcing vulnerability is not going to work.
Pierre Lambert: I liked what you said. Forcing, it’s not going to work. I just want to go back to that comment. I feel like even if I were to go naked on my feed, I would never get someone telling me you’re using your body for abuse. Like. It’s one of those experiences where I tried to be as mindful as what maybe other people might be feeling or living but I understand that my life is as Pierre right now is so different than the life that you have been living from birth until now, so I will never be able to experience one person that what it might be, but from my point of view, I’m like, when you said that, I’m like, it’s such a thing that only women will ever feel. I will never be able to feel that unless we reversed society and I’m an Amazon camp and everyone thinks my body is amazing, you know?
Sorelle Amore: Yeah, there is extra pressure for females, men. This is a hurdle that we do have to jump through and because we have been painted as like females, your worth is your beauty, and this is the most important thing, but also if you showed off too much, that makes you a slut or you’re cheap or whatever. So we have this weird navigation that we have to do with this physical form and realize that we are a lot more than that, and we still have to deal with the comments that are telling us that.
Pierre Lambert: In a way. I think I would have replied to that guy. Don’t be jealous, man.
Sorelle Amore: I love my body. I really love my body, and you know what, just what you said before, I’ll be 90 and I’ll be looking back on my photos being happy, so ultimately, I’m happy that the path I’ve taken, but now it’s an extra stage to just dig into the mind as well, but I’m not going to stop with my photos. Don’t get wrong. I’m just going to add another layer of Sorelle.
Pierre Lambert: That’s awesome. I’m surprised you’re not already in love with your soul and with your mind because it’s everything that got you to do whatever you’re doing, whenever you’re doing it. It’s just you. It’s so fun. I don’t know. I just see it as super fun and that’s my progression in life, I see soul as being something really funny. It’s like, Hey, Sorelle, try to remove your body. Now, what’s left? What’s left in the room? Are you still there or, is there no one? And then you’re like, oh, that’s kind of fun vlog. If I can still even think about it, I’m probably still there, so what do I look like? Who knows?
Sorelle Amore: Oh, wow. That’s fun.
Pierre Lambert: Even though you have a different appearance, you’re still gonna have the same type of fun because it’s rooted deeper or higher or whatever you want to say. That’s why I kind of find it. Cool, but I’m halfway towards my exploration either.
Sorelle Amore: We’re all landing.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah, exactly. It’s a work in progress. The closer you are to not being the closer you are to being, in a way, that didn’t make sense, but it does.
Sorelle Amore: No, it did make a lot of sense. I love that.
Pierre Lambert: I want to go back to hate on work. I was I’m checking my awesome Facebook feed today and not thinking. I was trying to prep for the podcast and then saw a notification, I couldn’t hold it, then checked it and obviously, there were a bunch of weird comments. People were fighting and commenting because I put out an AD in French because I have a photography class in English and people were asking me for the same in French, and since I’m French, I’m like, okay, fine. I’d do everything in French, then I put in a now, then, this guy was telling me my art is ugly and that I shouldn’t be teaching anyone and that is a scam and whatever, and then people were like fighting against them after, which was kind of fun to read, and then I just comment like, dude, you do realize it’s art. First of all, it’s objective. Second of all, there are so many people and I see it and I’m sure you see it with your students or else. People who come to us and they’re like, I’m too shy, either to be in front of the camera or even to just share photos and they’re like, no, I don’t feel confident sharing those photos because X, Y, Z, and those people who go and come and tell on seeds and have no place, no one asked them anything. I don’t feel obliged to say something, but I do like to say something and remind people like, Hey, remember it’s subjective. No one cares if you like his work or her work or my work, what I care about is am I happy when I do it? Do I get joy out of it and do my clients, if I’m a pro like it? Now, what do you think? Like, sorry, that’s cool, bro. But don’t put it out there like that because a lot of people are going to be afraid to share anything. That’s what my, my rant on the hate.
Sorelle Amore: It’s good. I also heard, will you find ever, the highest performance in the world? Let’s just take Peter McKinnon for a second. Will you see him posting on any groups anywhere about how he doesn’t like this, or shedding hate here or there, or let’s take Tony Robbins? Let’s take, Elan Musk. Let’s take anyone that’s mega-successful. They have no time, so whoever is writing these comments, they have ample time. They have nothing to do with their lives and they are just dedicating hate and spreading hate, So it’s more of a reflection on them, ultimately because no, high-performing, no one grand, no one with a great hot, with a great spirit is ever going to tear another human down, basically in that kind of a very lame sense of writing a bad comment on their Facebook feed. Like, oh, wow, look at how much you succeeded that day, so there are going to be hate haters. A hundred percent. You’re always going to get haters, and if you’re not getting haters, you’re doing something wrong. That is how I look at it, so prepare yourself.
Pierre Lambert: That is a very good point and can you talk to us because when you blew up, statistically speaking and someone was giving me that image, let’s say you have an audience of 10,000. That’s maybe a big village, and then you have an audience of a hundred thousand. It starts to be a small city and you have a million, Sorelle, you’re like Metropol and there’s a lot of crime in those big cities, right? That is a lot of crazy people in New York. There are a lot of crimes going on and 12 million people are living there or whatever the number is, so someone was explaining, the more you grow. I think it was Tim Ferris that was talking about, he was sharing a very scary and interesting topic around that, and he’s extra statistically speaking, you will have those people. Did you face that Sorelle?
Sorelle Amore: Well, of course, a hundred percent. We all do, and again, if you don’t have the haters, you are just being in the middle land. Your work is going to be nothing if you’re trying to please everyone. The main person you have to please is yourself, first and foremost, are you enjoying yourself? Are you enjoying what you’re doing? And everything beyond that, I mean, it should not, but it will affect you. Long-term you have to come to a state where no matter what’s going on on the outside, you are just like, no, this is my lane. I enjoy it. Thanks. But a hundred percent, you’re going to have people writing to your clients saying your work is horrible, I want to refund, your work sucks, why are you doing this? It will happen. A hundred percent, so you just have to be like, okay, cool. Here’s a refund. Thanks.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah, it’s part of the job when you signed up for it. It’s like, Hey, don’t forget about that. That contract part. It’s interesting. I love that. Let’s shift gears to a little bit of gear. What’s your favorite thing, to work with lately? In terms of or video.
Sorelle Amore: I always have the same thing. I have my tripod that I love. Serowe, TX 40, I think it is or something along those lines, and then I have my Sony A7S too, and I have a Sony A7s 3, recommendations from Chris Hau. He loves that camera, and I do too. It’s really good. Low light performance? Horrible, but I use the 16 to 35 millimeter G master lens quite often, and then I have the 24 to 70 G master as well, then I have my road microphones for audio and that’s it, and I have my phone as a remote trigger for my photography, but that’s all my gear.
Pierre Lambert: When it comes to phone with Sony. We have the ability to focus on more phones. I don’t get it. I’m still confused.
Sorelle Amore: It is interesting how many people have problems with the focus? I get that question so much. I have no problems with it. I know where I’ll be standing, but maybe, this comes with four years of doing this. I know where I’ll be standing. I know where I’ll put the focus point, and then the older focus on the camera, once I trigger the remote control from my phone, it just focuses me, and viola! If it doesn’t, then you just put an object in place of where you will be and then just focus, manual focus, and then remove the object.
Pierre Lambert: Yes, that’s how I’ve been doing it, but I got a little frustrated because the Nikon lets you focus step from your phone. What is happening to me?
Sorelle Amore: Also self-portraits, are the most frustrating thing in the world when you’re first starting, they are so difficult and I love watching videos. Some people have tried to do the advanced selfie challenges and put them on YouTube, and it’s so fun, cause everyone always concludes, Wow. This is a lot harder than it seems
Pierre Lambert: No. It’s so easy. You’re just going to take your arms and put them in these shapes. That’s it.
Sorelle Amore: If there are any other photographers right now, listening, rolling the eyes, try it. Good luck. See how easy it is and then come back to me.
Pierre Lambert: That’s good. It’s one of those things and I think that’s when stuff gets really good. It’s when it looks easy. It’s like, there’s some mastery going on. If you look at push hand competition, I don’t know if you’ve heard of that. It’s Tai-Chi and there is a discipline in Tai-Chi that is push hands and people are in front of each other and their hands and they have to push each other’s hands and put the opponent on the floor and it looks so dumb. It looks weird. It looks like they’re high-fiving, but in like a split second, you don’t know what happened, there was someone on the floor, five meters from the other one and you’re like, wait, what? It’s just the most fun stuff to watch lately, how did that happen? If you knew Josh Waitzkin that wrote, the art of learning, a very good book, he talks about how it works and, and how they deconstruct that, and that’s where it gets interesting is, when you think something is so easy, its means that, that person that’s doing it is doing it at such a level that it’s completely natural for them, and they’re able to get the subtilities of things and I’m going to go on that but, he was talking about like how like Kung Fu masters or whatever. They like to say, we can slow down, and people kind of see it as a magic trick, but what they’re trying to say is that, they understand so many movements and what is happening, that they can detect the slightest change in muscular tension and it’s like you think about it the first time you’re going to take a photo. Right? You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re pressing on the button. You feel like taking, putting settings on is going to take an hour, and then the second time it’s going to get faster and faster up to the point where the settings are something you don’t think about, but you can see the differences, the tiny differences, and so you do it super fast, but everything is so granular in your mind. You experienced it. It makes it slow down for you, but everyone else is at a normal speed. I don’t know why I went there.
Sorelle Amore: Because of wisdom. That’s why.
Pierre Lambert: I never understood it until that was explained. It was like, that makes sense. Your perception of time is different depending on how you understand the action that is happening.
Sorelle Amore: A hundred percent, because now I’m, starting to learn music and I’m trying. I mean, even, I don’t know what chord progression is, I don’t know how to do chords and I’m trying to do this. I’m sharing my music in this group that I’m part of with Andrew Quang, I’m learning music through him, music production and all these people are like perfect compositions of their first track and then there’s me, that’s just banged on the keyboards, and it took me so long to do it, and it’s beyond horrible, but I’m just glad that I’m doing it because I understand that the learning stage is awkward, but yes, it might. Do you know what I mean? Like people could do this in about one second. What’s taken me to do to two hours.
Pierre Lambert: It’s so funny. When you get good at something would be, you get lazy to try something different. Do you find it, you have to push yourself or it’s not a fairly natural where you, you get excited from the challenge.
Sorelle Amore: This one’s tough. This one I’ve wanted to learn music for 19 years and I have not. I’ve put it off and off, cause I’m really scared of this one, really scared. It’s super uncomfortable, and even, I was meant to do two hours of study today, but I just freaked out. I think I’m just self-sabotaging myself from this, but, I’m just going to try my hardest. I’m one of those annoying people that is sort of good at a lot of things, which can be nice, but then it also is hindering to myself, so I just learned how to surf recently, and I stood up, I caught some really good waves and now I’m lazy because I should be getting a surfboard and surfing here just to ingrain my skills, but I keep putting it off and I’m like, later because I’ve already kind of semi achieved that goal, and I just have to push myself further to just be like, no, don’t relax and get that surfboard and go surfing, so you can make this a skill, not something that you forget about in a week, which I also did with speed reading. I did it. I did well, and now I’m slowly forgetting that
Pierre Lambert: Do you think you to hack yourself, you want to put bigger goals or not?
Sorelle Amore: No. I just want to focus on my goals. It’s not about big, it’s actually about just doing the small details a day in and day out and making sure it becomes part of your constitution not just like something that you can say you’ve done, which is just so dumb. I’ve operated from that space a lot being like, but I can do this. Can you do it now? No, so lame, like I’m just cheating myself.
Pierre Lambert: That’s what we do constantly every day. That’s like your best friend and your biggest enemy is yourself. You can convince yourself of anything. I tried to catch myself on that one.
Sorelle Amore: Yeah, I’m just now trying to find the greater good in everything that I do for myself and everything else and if you already gonna put the effort in, you might as well just concrete set that in and not waste your time but make something of it.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah, very important. It’s like, you’re already going to the pool. Why don’t you swim for an hour? You are already there. Stop looking at your bag. It’s not going to magically appear a clown. . That’s awesome. I want to be mindful of your time and do you have anything? Everyone’s like, I don’t like to say stuck because that sounds like you can’t progress when someone says, oh, we’re stuck inside. It sounds like, there’s no progress possible, but let’s say for all the people who are enjoying their cozy time at home, what would you challenge them to work on or like dive into while they are a little bit immobilized.
Sorelle Amore: It’s such an individual thing, but, once you’re restricted with going outside, and I think the consciousness of the world is forced to look inwards. I think all of us are now at a point where we have to assess ourselves. We’ve been locked inside in our homes. You can’t free yourself, so surely you can do some photography here and there, exploit creativity but I think a lot of this is understanding yourself more. This is how I’m seeing it right now. I’m celebrating the fact that I have to, I have no choice, but to go within and figure out what is mine, what is not mine, and I’m seeing it as a recalibration piece. That’s what works for me, whatever works for you to get you through this period. But hopefully, people just don’t waste it on social media and things that drain their energy, cause this is beautiful, I want to say opportunity, but I know that there’s a little pain in the world, but it is an opportunity for those that are willing to put in the effort to upgrade themselves as well while also knowing that there are people that are going through pain, both can exist at the same time.
Pierre Lambert: And I think there are so many changes through pain.
Sorelle Amore: Yes, absolutely, and it’s painful right now being stuck inside.
Pierre Lambert: Yeah. I was telling people, I’m on a different vibe. I had like 360 videos to edit. I’m glad that everyone’s stuck. I feel like I’m not missing out.
Sorelle Amore: Yeah, it’s true. It’s a good time cause everyone is on the same wavelength, so catching up on old work. There’s so much that can be done when you’re stuck inside, but it’s up to the personal and as well, I think we live in a hustle culture, that’s always like do more, but you can also allow yourself to be a complete blog cause this might be the first and only time in your life that you’re allowed to be a blog for a while. Operate, just operate as much as you can right now. The only thing that to me is would be a waste, but I’m just speaking from my perspective is if I wasted my time on social media and it gave away my attention and my power. Sometimes you need Facebook videos to uplift you and make you laugh or something, and I get that but take out videos, but just don’t waste all of this precious time that you have now been given.
Pierre Lambert: I think we can leave everyone with the upgrades and stuff. I kind of like that it’s upgrading yourself to work. I wouldn’t say it, that’s okay. For the reading system, there we go, just need needing to say. Where can people find you in case they’re probably lost in a cave and never heard of you?
Sorelle Amore: Find me across every single social media platform as Sorelle Emma.
Pierre Lambert: Thank you for inspiring everyone to be themselves.
Sorelle Amore: Thank you so much for this. It’s been great.
Pierre Lambert: Well, guys, thank you so much for listening, and go thank Sorelle, for being on this podcast and sharing her insight, I think it’s been incredibly valuable, at least for me. I hope for you too. If it has been remembered, share it in your stories with that being said, have an amazing day, and don’t worry, it’s not the end of the word, just because we’re staying a little bit longer inside. It’s not a bad thing. We can progress in areas, we thought we couldn’t progress in. Have an amazing day. Bye.
The Pierre T. Lambert Podcast is where Pierre interviews the best creatives in the world to share their tips and stories. Enjoy & spread the word to your friends about this podcast! Pierre T. Lambert is a travel & adventure photographer & YouTuber followed by over 1,000,000 people. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.
