The Price of Status: What It Really Takes to Get Published with Sandra Åberg
Release Date: 10/16/2025
She Made Hundreds of Thousands—Then Walked Away: How India Earl Reinvented Her Business & Life
Play It Brave Podcast
What happens when you build the business everyone else dreams about—and realize you don’t want to live that life anymore? India Earl had become one of the most recognizable photographers in her industry. She traveled the world, had clients waiting years to work with her, built an enormous audience, and created an education business capable of generating hundreds of thousands of dollars. From the outside, it looked like extraordinary success. Inside, she was exhausted. India originally hired D’Arcy because she thought they were going to make the business even bigger: better funnels,...
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How to Multiply the Money From Every Job
Play It Brave Podcast
What if one job didn’t have to equal one payday? Most of us finish the work, get paid, deliver what we promised — and immediately start hunting for the next client. But there may be far more money sitting inside work you’ve already created. In this short episode, D’Arcy shares a simple way to look at every finished job through three lenses: NOW — the money it makes today. AGAIN — how the same work can be sold, packaged or used again. POSSIBLE — the referrals, reputation, relationships and future opportunities it can create. You’ll hear what this looks like for photographers,...
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How I Made $7,000 in Print Sales in One Hour
Play It Brave Podcast
I charged $4,500 to photograph the wedding. Then the mother of the bride logged into the gallery and, within about an hour, ordered $7,000 in prints. And she came back and ordered even more. That experience completely changed the way I thought about what happens after a photographer delivers the images. We spend so much time trying to book the next client that we often forget there is revenue, marketing, referrals and future business sitting inside work we've already created. In this episode, I'm breaking down how I've used galleries, physical prints, albums and vendor relationships to make...
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My Ode to Dolly
Play It Brave Podcast
What did Dolly Parton believe about herself before the rest of the world believed it too? In this tribute to Dolly, D’Arcy explores the beliefs underneath an extraordinary creative life: letting yourself want something enormous, refusing to tone down what makes you different, knowing when gratitude doesn’t require staying, continuing to create when the market moves on, and making something simply because it needs to exist. The question underneath all of it: what do you already know about your life that you keep asking the room to approve?
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How to Tell a Story People Can’t Stop Repeating — with Scottish Storyteller Eileen Budd
Play It Brave Podcast
Eileen Budd comes from a long line of Scottish storytellers. Her grandfather came home from the war with shrapnel in his legs, took a job driving a tour bus, and out-earned every other driver in Scotland — because he told stories while he drove. Nobody discovered Eileen was legally blind until she was eight, so she learned the world by ear: story by story, told out loud, passed down. In this episode she tells three complete folk tales on air — including the three rules for surviving the Queen of the Fairies — opens her Travelling Folk Museum of donated, two-hundred-year-old objects, and...
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Why You Can’t Stop Being Productive
Play It Brave Podcast
Why You Can’t Stop Being Productive Why can it feel easier to keep working when you're exhausted than it does to simply stop? In this episode, D'Arcy looks underneath overworking to the unconscious patterns that can make rest surprisingly uncomfortable. Sometimes the issue isn't that we're “bad at resting.” Rest isn't creating the anxiety. Rest is revealing the anxiety that activity was covering. Scarcity tells us there isn't enough time, money, momentum or opportunity, so stopping feels irresponsible. Being useful gets rewarded. Being capable becomes part of our identity. And eventually...
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The Women Who Hold Us: Self-Trust, Receiving & the Power of Female Friendship with Kara Campbell
Play It Brave Podcast
There is an awakening happening in women right now. It isn’t simply about making more money, building a bigger business, or becoming more successful. It’s the question underneath all of it: Is this actually how I want to live? This week, D’Arcy sits down with her friend Kara Campbell — coach, gatherer of women, and founder of the Momentum mastermind — for a conversation about what happens when women stop proving, controlling, and doing everything alone... and start trusting themselves enough to receive. Kara shares the 63-hour labor that shattered her illusion of control and gave her...
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How I Went From $4,500 To $10,500 in 6 Weeks
Play It Brave Podcast
Sometimes your work grows faster than your identity does. In 2012, I had spent years charging $4,500 for wedding photography when a dream client called me just 27 days before their Sundance wedding. When she asked what I would charge for the weekend, I heard myself say a number I'd never said before: $7,500. She said yes. Two weeks later, I booked my first $10,500 wedding. I didn't suddenly become twice as talented in six weeks. The work had been happening for years. My skill, eye, experience and judgment had already changed. My identity simply hadn't caught up. In this short episode of Play...
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How I Lead My Clients Through a Major Transformation
Play It Brave Podcast
You can know exactly why you do something and still keep doing it. You can know where the pattern came from. You can have journaled about it, talked about it, analyzed it, named it—and then Tuesday comes around and there you are, doing the thing again. Because understanding a pattern and changing a pattern are two different skills. In this episode, I'm taking you inside the work I've fallen completely in love with: how I lead a client through a major Breakthrough. Not a quick mindset shift. Not another affirmation pasted over something you don't actually believe. The deeper work of finding...
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You’re Not Lazy: Why You Can’t Jump from Stuck to Motivated
Play It Brave Podcast
If you’ve ever tried to force yourself out of procrastination, you know how well that works. You can know exactly what to do. You can have the time. You can want the result so badly it aches — and still find yourself answering emails, returning something to Nordstrom, or deciding the junk drawer has to be dealt with right now. That isn’t laziness. Laziness would be doing nothing, and you are doing a great deal. You’re just not doing the one thing that matters. Which means the problem was never your character. It’s the state you’re in. In this first Rewire Friday, D’Arcy...
info_outlineToday I’m joined by my brilliant friend, fashion-and-wedding photographer Sandra Åberg, for a real talk we’ve both been having off-mic for years: does being “published” (Vogue, Harper’s, Martha) actually mean you’ve arrived—or is it another industry illusion that keeps creatives chasing validation? We swap origin stories (Milan fashion sets, Sports Illustrated mayhem, and stumbling into weddings), talk integrity lines, and share the unseen mechanics behind advertorials, vendor lists, and “top” roundups—what’s paid, what’s earned, and what actually moves the needle in a creative business. We also dig into the soul of the work: why connection with your couples matters more than a logo, and how to protect your creative magic in a content-driven world.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you should pay to play, whether that “Vogue cover” on Instagram was an ad, or how to define success on your own terms—this one’s for you.
In this episode, we cover:
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The myth of arrival: Why “as seen in…” is social proof—not a finish line.
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Paid vs. earned press: Advertorials, vendor lists, and “Top Photographer” roundups—how they really work and what they’re good for.
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Integrity lines: Finding your yes/no around paying for placements, ads, and algorithms.
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From fashion to weddings: Sandra’s Milan years, mentorship, and the moment that shifted her values.
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When the dream feels empty: Sandra’s Vogue Japan cover—and the unexpected loneliness on the other side.
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What books/awards/followers really signal: The strategy behind best-seller lists and big platforms.
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Connection over clout: Why knowing (and liking!) your couples changes the images—and the experience.
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Working with planners: How to keep creative chemistry when gatekeepers run the process.
Creator vs. content creator: Guardrails for protecting your artistry in a metrics world.
Defining success: Visibility, vulnerability, and being seen for who you are—not what you’ve published.
Part two lands soon: “Be a Creator, Not Just a Content Creator”—plus details on our intimate Italy experience designed to rekindle your artistry (and yes, we’ll talk smart, values-aligned pathways to publication).
Question for you: Where’s your line between integrity and appearances—and what does “playing it brave” look like in your visibility strategy right now?
Meet Sandra
Sandra Åberg is an internationally acclaimed photographer known for her ethereal style, poetic storytelling, and deeply emotional imagery. With over 15 years of experience, she has photographed for Vogue, captured celebrity weddings, and built a reputation as one of Europe’s leading names in luxury destination wedding photography. Founder of both Atelier Åberg and her namesake brand, Sandra is not only a visual artist but also an educator and mentor, inspiring photographers and creatives worldwide to dream big and build a life they love.
Connect with Sandra