So you’ve been reading my blog and last week I mentioned the writing project I began in 2020, back in 2020 I made an entire blog post dedicated to the project to make me accountable, to make it real, and most importantly to keep me writing.
So yes, I am currently writing a memoir about my first decade in photography. I am not usually a story teller with words, images are my medium so I needed an accountability post because more often than not this is a project I want to just stop. I mean writing is hard. It is so very hard and I have no idea how those who put out numerous works a year find that motivation. Writing is hard.
Also self doubt makes it fairly hard as well because I am basically unknown by like 99.9% of the world, so who would want to read a memoir about my life??????? A conundrum as my subconscious self is like WE ARE DOING THIS! It drives me in my sleep and guilt trips me when I take too long a break from writing.
So the thinking about who would be interested tripped me up in the beginning and finally I was like well it doesn’t just have to reflect on my life. I am a self made photographer, I have very little in the way of formal training and have learned most of what I do through trial and error. A lot of photographers start in the same way so why not combine the my journey story with things I have learned and picked up??
Now it isn’t a how too book, or an in depth manual because there are so many of those in existence and frankly I am not sure I am able to write something so technical because I have never formally studied photography. I have never sat through classes where they teach photographer math… aperture and ISO. I just learned in the field with the photographs I missed because I didn’t know how to get them.
And that’s what I bring to the table. I never studied at renown schools, I am not of the great well knowns, but I have managed to learn, follow my dream, and create amazing images I only could dream of a decade ago. And as I didn’t have that formal guidance many of those I writing this for may find themselves in the same place I was. So that is what keeps me writing and keeps me from letting my self doubt about a memoir stop me from writing.
The BINDER- This contains the first half of the book… Excuse the terrible cover photo I ran out of ink -\O/-
And the moment you been waiting for in the blog post….. A sneak preview from Chapter 1
“It’s a magical time of self discovery, being a kid with the future bright before us, waiting for us to walk the path to discover who we are meant to be. We get to wake up every day and show up to the path we choose to walk with all the of the ups and downs that come with it.
Psychology says that we will walk as many as five different paths in our life time, and while I am not sure I necessarily believe that; I do believe we only get to be a beginner at anything one time and what you do with that one time will determine if you stay the path.
For me the path that hooked my heart was art and eventually photography. The idea of creation and bringing ideas in my heart to life has become a life long passion. However the artistic path is not necessarily the easiest path to follow as there are no true guidelines, I am quite literally chasing my passion.
I am an observer and a documenter of life, my job is to see the world differently, to see how light falls illuminating a defined cheekbone or to see the reflection of bustling city life in an idyllic library window. I have had the opportunity to be apart of moments greater than myself and even document moments in history.
A camera is a teacher, but the greatest gift it offers is teaching us to become photographers and how to truly see. The camera provides glass eyes and it is how I come to view the world.
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