"Do What Scares You"
What scares you?
Pursuing a career in photography scares me. Starting a website scares me. Posting my pictures publicly scares me. However, if you don't do the things that scare you, how will you ever grow? Going a day without coffee also scares me, but I probably won't be pursuing that.
It seems almost customary for my first blog post to start off with the typical question of how I got into photography and why. When I was thinking about the answer to this question, I had a very quick and boring response. I bought my first camera less than a year ago on a whim and started taking pictures. Turns out I love it.
End of story. Quick and boring. But then I started thinking back to my childhood.
Growing up, my life revolved around music and video games. As I quickly scanned my childhood memories, I didn't think there was anything else I did outside of those two hobbies. Then I remembered when I was in high school, I picked up one of my parents' digital cameras and I started shooting things around my house. Most of the things I shot were basic objects shot at odd angles to make it look artistic. But in reality, they were just regular objects shot at such an angle your neck would hurt as you attempted to figure out what you were looking at. I liked it so much I even created my own website! This website had a very basic layout, with only one page featuring all my photos. I never shared the website, nor did anyone even know about it, but I was still determined to upload to it and spend hours "perfecting" it.
Fast forward to 2006 to the next stage of my photography fascination... my Europe trip.
In 2006, after graduating from high school, I went on a band trip to Europe. My parents let me take their digital camera. This was the first time ever being overseas and I was beyond excited. I took pictures of everything... and I mean EVERYTHING from buildings and sculptures to landscapes, people, and food.
Then I took the picture below..
I took this picture on the bus while we were racing through the countryside. I don't even remember where we were, but I remember how happy I was with this picture (keep in mind, this was one of my first times seeing mountains... I was pretty excited). After my trip, I had this picture set as my computer background for months! It's not a spectacular picture by any means, but at the time I was very proud of it (that sunset over the mountain does look amazing though--lots of potential).
Exploring Venice, I took the picture below. I can't remember what compelled me to take this picture (probably the colours) but I remember being so ecstatic about this photo I submitted it to an online photo contest! I don't think I won anything but again, I was very impressed with what I had captured.
After my Europe trip, I went to University to study music. I still enjoyed taking pictures but I never even thought of pursuing photography. Music was what I was devoted to. There was nothing else I could be good at... right?
Fast forward to 2014 when I moved to Vancouver, BC. Music was still a passion of mine but I couldn't seem to find any motivation to put in the work needed for me to pursue it as a career. I kept forcing myself to keep working at it since "this is the only thing i'm good at." To help myself relax and get over my "lack of motivation," I did a lot of hiking. Every week was a new hike. On my hikes I began to take more and more landscape photos (with my phone) and really loved capturing the scenery. In 2016, I landed a job with a great company, which allowed me the opportunity and in 2017, I decided on a whim to buy a DSLR package.
That's my photography background. After looking back on it, It seems as though life was trying to tell me something. It's been over a decade since I last created a website so I've come full circle! I'm looking forward to the future!