# @clairekomarekphoto on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DXsda_WDFg8
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/68406682-clairekomarekphoto-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/a7fb011a29.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-04-29T00:00:26.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** clairekomarekphoto (@clairekomarekphoto) — https://gondola.cc/clairekomarekphoto

## Caption

If you know me personally you’ve heard me go on and on for the last 9-12 months about how I’ve felt so stuck creatively. Opportunities not working out, a lot of turbulence in my personal life, a lot of limbo and anxiety and frankly a lot of tears. It just felt like I was running head first into wall after wall after wall. I faced the worst I’ve genuinely ever felt career wise. I’m still crawling my way out of that a little bit to be honest but as the weight slowly came off my shoulders day by day, I filled it back with creatively and a new motivation to just go out and do rather than sit and think in circles. 

In a life that’s felt majorly out of my control, I’ve always focused on what I can control. I lost that a little for a few months. But in effort to start putting the theoretical pen to paper, I started with this shoot with retro screamers, part of a multi shoot series we’re still workshopping, a new portfolio, and brainstorming ways to put my process into the ether. Which is very vulnerable and a little scary because soccer has been this very sacred thing for me. It provided me a safe space when I was younger. It gave me something that could really be mine. Something I felt I was good at. Something the things out of my control couldn’t tear out of my hands that white knuckled everything that they could. I love what this game has given me, I love how it’s taught me to handle the hard stuff, I love the culture and the people that make it what it is, I love how it transcends languages. I love everything about it and talking about that makes me feel very vulnerable. I’ve never done well with talking about my feelings or laying anything about me out there because the fear of judgement.  I’ve finally come to the conclusion that nobody is ever going to know any of this if I don’t say it. 

So I started to write again, which is something I haven’t done since high school so I’m likely a little rusty but I’ve decided that whenever there’s a story to tell or a process to show or a thought to be explored that it needs a place to live. So I started a substack.

The first little piece about this shoot and why I chose this space is up on my substack now. Linked ❤️

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 85
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 5

## Credits

| Name | Username | Profile | Role |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Retro Screamers | @retroscreamers | https://gondola.cc/retroscreamers | Business |
| Claire Komarek | @ClaireKomarek | https://gondola.cc/ClaireKomarek | Creative Director |
| Claire Komarek | @ClaireKomarek | https://gondola.cc/ClaireKomarek | Photographer |

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