REFLECTIONS | It's been one year


It's been one year when I picked up my camera and started my career as a photographer. 

Before I get into this post, I wanted to share some back story to this. Something significant happened in my life a little over a year ago and when it was over, I've rekindled myself back to square one. That nerdy quirky side of me is still ever so present and the other side of me, the creative side picked back up again.

I'll be completely honest with you, I get pretty bored a lot. I don't just mean by that I'm uninspired and be lazy all day doing nothing with myself. What I mean is that I really get tired of something and move onto the next big thing. But those things I've done doesn't just fade away, they're still ever so present. There's a science behind it and it's quite fascinating. Really cool article if you're interested reading about it. For anyone who know's me, you should know what I'm talking about. For those who don't, I'm constantly on the move and hunt for something new to do and want to excel at it all while having fun with it. In this case, right now, photography.

Ok, back to my intro sentence, "...it's been on year" yup, I mean it. I never went to school for photography, no way. I went to school for computer science and I became a developer. Pretty much a code monkey day and night. You're probably like "Wait, what?" I bought a DSLR because I've always wanted one and then I started to research online about everything about photography, ground up. You'd be surprised how much free knowledge is just sitting out there on the internet. It's ridiculous. I taught myself the basics and I started to go out and shoot photos.

When I got my first professional gig, it was from my friend Brittany for Brooklyn Boulders. She asked me to shoot photos for them and signed a contract. It was kind of a big deal for me. I was like "Whoa, this is serious stuff." I recall editing my first photo set and looking back on it, it was so terrible! From the colors, white balance, clarity of it, etc was all off, all of it! Today, I laugh at myself because looking back on it, I really sucked. But you know what? I really developed deep understanding of post-processing and everything that went along with it on every photo I took. 

Looking back on it all now, I met some amazing people along the way from the first time I shot photos to today. They saw something in me and my photography, giving me a chance to do something good with it. Whether it be it was for them directly for business or just a fun photo shoot, I felt honored to be shooting it. To the people who I've worked with and everyone I've shot photos for, thank you, you've made my year very special. More photos to come. If I could, I would slam a beer with you as a thanks but we can always do that later!

I'm going to keep doing what I do because I just don't specialize in one or two domains of photography. Fuck that, I want to do it all.