The Worst, but Ok
As far back as I can remember I’ve always dreaded Sunday’s. I worry about what the upcoming week has in store, upcoming interactions with other people, etc. It just seems to always make Sunday not a “good day”. As a kid this would manifest as physical symptoms, upset stomach mostly. My parents thought I was faking some illness so I wouldn’t have to go to school on Monday and while I wouldn’t turn down a sick day the anxiety would always show up Monday night. The same thing happens now. I ended up calling in sick last Monday and as sure as the sun rises I felt the same anxiety Monday night and spent the rest of the week catching up with what I missed on Monday..Plus I burned a day off for nothing. I do my best to ignore those feelings but it’s been exhausting doing that all my life and it hasn’t made the feelings go away. I’m going to make a concerted effort today to not allow that anxiety to overtake me. I can’t solve/deal with issues that haven’t happened yet so today will be a relaxing Sunday, for once!
In the last month I’ve taken over 3000 pictures! I’m amazed by that and it’s because I’ve made it part of my day. Typically I will take 15-20 minutes in the morning to scour the overgrowth around my house for some macro shots. Earlier this week I lucked up a grasshopper that allowed me to get *super* close and get his good side!
I was able to get several very good pics. The quality of this pic is a bit lacking due to the file size upload limit of OD but I’m very proud of this one! Taking pictures has been very, very helpful to me but also I’m allowing a creative side of me that I’ve suppressed over the years to finally come out. I’m doing a lot of macro work but my main interest lies in street photography and also the way light and shadows play with man made and natural structures. When I see an interesting shadow I’m seeing what I need to crop and how I want to edit the photo to match what I see in my head. It doesn’t happen with every picture, obviously, so I’ve had some very “happy accidents” with pics I’ve taken but it’s fueling a fire inside of me to keep pushing myself to do the 15-20 minutes a day to capture those moments. I really, really, *really* want to take a trip to NYC by train for the sole purpose of hiring a guide/teacher to do nothing but street photography over a weekend. I’m fully vaccinated but I’m still quite nervous about traveling and being around a lot of people but it’s just a feeling I can’t shake. I’ve priced out the cost of round trip train tickets, found a street photographer that also teaches and I just want to schedule it for mid-late October. But what if I drop the cash and covid blows up…But then again, what if it doesn’t?
This leads me into a discussion I”m having with myself about selling prints of my pictures. I’ve really just started taking photography seriously again but I have gotten some really good photos that would translate to print very well, I think. Am I being to over eager for this? I landed in my current field b/c I was always “good with computers” and computers used to be a hobby for me but when I started doing it every day I quickly got fed up and now I’m a burned out husk who literally dreads every single day I have to do the job…Ok, maybe that’s a bit dramatic…lol…but I’m worried if I start thinking about monetizing photography I’ll end up the same way towards it. My tentative plan is to order some prints for myself and see how they look. I’m under no illusion about becoming a full time photographer and actually paying my bills. It’s extremely difficult and I think I would have to take on “grind work” like portraits or some kind of client work which I’m not keen on. I have thought about checking out real estate photography. A good wide angle lens for my dslr and I think I could get some work that wouldn’t require me to actually deal with that many people…It would be awesome for this hobby to pay for, or at least contribute to, the costs of it. Good glass isn’t cheap and I’m firmly in the camp of buy a cheaper camera and dump that money into lenses. With a little bit of planning lenses can be future proofed so there’s room to grow into them.
I typed that whole paragraph and didn’t really get to the point I wanted to make. Someone I really look up to and follow on twitter posted something a few days ago that really struck a chord. “Why not me?” It’s such a simple phrase but it’s a life changing way of think, to me at least. I’m not saying I want to be a famous photographer but…why not me? I’m putting in the work, I’m challenging myself and I’m learning more and more every day. I’ve dabbled in photography for over a decade now and even when I wasn’t actively taking pictures I was reading photography blogs, finding photographers I liked and studying their work. I realize now as I’m getting really serious about the craft how much I’ve learned over the past 10/11 years. In the past I’ve taken pics for “the likes” on social media. I ended up not consistently taking pics after I posted something and it didn’t get enough likes. Now? I still post to facebook, instagram, etc but I don’t care about the likes. I post the type of pictures *I* like and the type of edits that *I* like. If other people like them, great! If not, that’s cool too. The key to this is mindset and consistency. I mentioned earlier I’ve taken over 3000 pics and out of those I’ve put in the “to be processed” folder ~50. OUt of that 50 I’ve editing ~30 and posted ~20. I’m keeping every pic I take and I’m shouting in raw and I’m regularly going back through to see if anything stands out after a few days/weeks of sitting on my hard drive. I’ve found a few that have given me butterflies in my stomach after going back to them.
Ok, well, I didn’t expect this entry to be this long but it’s definitely helped to get the thoughts rattling around my head out in a structured form. Today I’m not going to let my anxiety run my day or stress me out!
Talk Soon