Personal Struggle

My desire to be a photographer dates back to junior high when I treasured looking at a family picture book. I had to ask people what they did to become successful photographers and then practice myself. I started working for the XPress Media Company when I was ten years old. In 2015, I worked with two media companies during my college years. Xpress and Greenline Media were my coaches. During that time, I developed into an experienced photographer, armed with acute skills and resolve but lacking the mentality to propel me to the next level. As I walked through the photography journey, I learned of my greatest role, which was to keep the image of the profession high. It comes with much sacrifice and the right attitude, which I was not ready for but later developed as this paper explains.

People struggle to be good photographers. A principal concept is a discipline and continuous learning. The environment one learns should be diverse to ensure broad skills in the field Discipline in this field means a follow all the rules, whether written or not, set for photographers. One of the rules, though customary, is the attitude towards the environment one visits as a photographer. Photographers are like missionaries, bearing all, traveling to all the places and meeting all kinds of people. That was my challenge.

My first bad experience was on a Saturday morning in June last year when I received an order to attend a photography shoot in a slum. I had to forge a reason for not going, and coat it with all the reasons, lies and innuendos. However, my trap appeared to have been set long ago. A week later, I had to visit a wedding venue on a rainy day. I declined and requested my Boss, John to reassign that duty to another person. At that moment, John had noticed my dislike to some places on specific weather conditions. I guess my place of stay was the source of this because of its serene and refreshing nature. Changing my environment because of my profession was a grim undertaking for me. It was time to change or be fired for disobedience. My father chipped in when he noticed I choose duties I can attend. He had to remind not to let all the time I had taken to learn photography go to waste, and cautioned me to change my attitude.

I began by reading autobiographies of legendary, award-winning photographers, and noticed that they never went to any beautiful places without withstanding some of the scary, filthy and gory images in this world. I had to change my attitude and take everything as they were. As a personal practice, I had to change from visiting lavish sites and gave my bosses easy time when assigned jobs. For one year, I learned the joy in accepting any environment, as they lead to exceptional experiences in photography. I have to acknowledge that it took long to acclimatize myself to slums but later became aggressive when visiting them. I took it as my responsibility, worked as if I was the only photographer. This is the charge of all photographers, to bear all the adversaries of the environment and give the best out of them.

In conclusion, this experience is a lesson that every person who wants to work in any professional field must bear the uncertainties and difficulties. Weather and change of environment are a few examples for photographers. They must change their attitudes to bear the image of the profession as it was for my case in photography.