Before I go any further, I would like to tell you that this blog post will be pretty personal. It will not contain any tips or how to about photography. If you feel OK with this, please feel free to read.
I personally believe that every one of us has a passion for doing something we dream about. But, I also believe that passion can be vanished and gone from us too. Not everyone can maintain their drive and passion for doing things they like to do. It fades away due to many reasons. For example myself, I started photography since I was 14 and now I am 20. According to that, it would be 6 years of developing my skills but It’s really not. My path of photography is not that easy. There were a lot of things that killed my passion and stop me from continuing with photography.
I got my first camera from my brother when I was 14 and I fall in love with it since then. When I was 15 I had a chance to go abroad to Australia, learn so many things, took many pictures, and when I came back I thought that being a photographer is what I want to be. So I had a talk with my mom about it, but she simply said “no”. In that moment, I was not sad because I was young so I thought that my mom’s word would probably be right but I definitely lost my confidence.
These are the pictures I took when I was around 14 years old
At 16 of age, I had a chance to be an exchange student in the USA. I asked my mom for a small camera, she was ok with it because it was just for a hobby. A year in America gave me back my confidence. I was able to travel to many places and took many pictures. I was being myself and developing my photography skill. It was the year when I thought I knew for sure that photography is what is best for me.
When I came back to Thailand and got into college, my passion faded away again. It was not about my mom, It was that I felt so insecure about my photography skill. I felt like it hasn’t got any better and that I would not get any better. Also, the faculty that I am in gave me a variety of possible career options, so I was kind of hesitate about my future. I thought I would go with other jobs like journalist, creative, etc and keep photography as a hobby.
After that, I was trying to move my path from photography to other field but to be honest I was not really happy. And during that time, I came across the video on YouTube call “Do you feel like quitting photography” by Jessica Kobeissi. This video made me came back on the photography world again and after that, I continue to develop my skill by practice and watching tutorials. It has been a year since I watch that video, and now I realized that no matter how many times you think about quitting photography if it is really what you like and passionate about, you will go back to it eventually just I do. I realize that if photography is not what I really want to do, why do am I still doing it now and not stop it a while ago. It has been 6 years of up and down with photography, if it is not for me I would have stopped it long ago. I feel like 6 years can prove that I was born to do it.
For, those of you who feel like quitting photography, it’s OK to feel that way. You can stop and lose confidence but remember, that feeling is temporary. You will not quit photography forever because if you come this far there is no point of going back.
