What Moves Me To Make Photos

Once upon a time, that was not actually that long ago, I was convinced that turning my love for photography into a career was 100% not possible. Sure, I loved taking photos. Actually, more then loved. I was epicly moved by joy every time I pulled out my camera. But my overly practical brain convinced me that passion wasn't practical enough and "the arts" was not a viable career path. What it was really saying is I'm so freakin' scared - so wait!

But here I am, pursuing adventure and my passion. Some days it still surprises me. It took a long time, and a couple close misses, but when I finally realized how ingrained photography was in my life I knew I'd always be compelled to make photos.

Photography is how I see and experience the world

Hiding under my childhood dresser are albums stuffed with silly snaps from my elementary years. As soon as my 9 year old hands got hold of a camera I've been doggedly documenting my friends, much to their annoyance. And I kept everything! Prints that are way underexposed, or accidental pocket shots, and tons that are too blurry. I even still have my first corrupted hard drive filled with unrecoverable silly shots and experiments from my early digital days that I'm unwilling to let go of. I like to think of that disk as my lost years - 7 years of lost photos from before I learned how to properly back-up my work (7 years worth of reasons why you should be printing your photos! But more on that in another post).

After all this time living day-to-day life through my photos, it has evolved to be how I see the world. Everywhere I go I notice how the light falls, how strangers walk in and out of my view, and in my mind I'm creating little frames around these moments.

STORY TIME

Early in our grand adventure I started getting intensely disappointed by the reality of the photos I was making. I'd shoot daily as we wandered but weeks later when I'd review what I'd shot the disappointment would set in cause the gems I remember snapping just weren’t there. Eventually, I realized the gem photos I was looking for on my SD card had never made the journey from my eye to my camera. I was seeing beautiful moments in our travels and forgetting to actually pull out the camera and create the photo I saw in my head.

Weeks later I still had the memory of the photo but no physical trace.

With or without my camera I spend my days making photos. It's been a wild adventure to accept that this one constant in my life is probably not going anywhere soon. But now there's nothing to stop me exploring this passion!