LocalNavy433 Photography

Hello all and thank you for coming back to read my story, and if this is the first post that you are reading how the hell are you?  I have been on this road trip of learning to become a photographer for the last four years and this is an account on my road trip from the start to where I currently am right now.  I had a goal of getting one hundred thousand followers on instagram, because I read a few posts when I started this journey that people had done just that in their first year.  I took that as something that I could do. Yes, it was going to be hard but I was up to the challenge.  

I found out the hard way it was not what is going to happening the first year. You see it takes a lot of hard work to get that type of following on social media. The journey is more fun when you set goals to help you along the way.  It was a few weeks into studying how to take a photo and grow my social media accounts that I soon learned that it was going to take a long time to get to one hundred thousand followers.  So I lowered the goal to get one hundred followers at first.  This was a goal that I could hit in a short amount of time.  It turned out that getting to the first one hundred was going to be easier than I thought because we all have supportive people that will help you with what you are doing.  That allowed me to put more effort into my photography rather than worrying about growing my followers. 

I had to figure out how to compose an image better to get people to look at my work.  So I set off learning different techniques of composition that had a visual flow to them.  I was watching a video on composition when the person stated that you had to take a lot of images to get good at the craft/art of photography.  So I changed my mindset from getting people to follow me into taking more photos.  I set a goal of shooting eighty-thousand images in a year (again leaping before I knew better).  

I set out shooting every sunset and every sunrise that I could.  This was how I planned on accomplishing this task that I gave myself.  One thought  that I had all the time was I am going to get better no matter how long it was going to take me.  I knew in my heart of hearts I was going to be a great photographer.  I still have a long way to go to get there but that is the fun in working on one’s passion.  

Speaking of passion one thing that I learned is that passion is a part of your soul. If you are wanting to accomplish something as hard as being photographer you are going to have to work really hard.  So I started to take the approach from lessons that I learned as a wrestler.  Those lessons were, you only have control of one match at a time, you can only control your moves on the mat, and you can only depend on yourself to accomplish your goals.  So I brought that methodology into my photography practice.  I was working on getting better one image at a time.  

The first image is the hardest to take and I had already done that so I was on the right track.  When you are out shooting every sunrise and sunset you learn that the images will come easier as you take more.  I think that I took on average 100-150 images of everything that I could see during the times I was shooting.  Some have the “eye” for seeing images from nothing and while I have an eye for seeing an image I had to teach myself this over time.  Taking photo after photo was the key in teaching myself how to get the “eye” that others had.  This method is starting to pay off today but man it took what seems like forever for me to learn that lesson.  

Working on photography was my everything at this point and time.  I was always watching videos on how to better myself and that is when it just hit me one day I am a photographer! That happened for me a year and a half after I started the road to eighty-thousand images.  It took me longer than I wanted but I hit that goal.  I then started to only shoot on the weekends because I was here I had made it without getting the 100,000 followers.  I didn’t need them to prove to myself that I was a photographer I was there already and that is all that mattered to me.  This my friends was the hardest lesson that you have to learn when you choose to become a photographer.  

The whole time that I was trying to reach a goal I had become a better person because I found myself again. I had forgotten who I was because I was wrapped up in living for others. I had forgotten why I was doing something because I was busy doing for others. Photography brought me back to that young man standing on the edge of the mat with no one around him to help. You see when you are in a wrestling match it’s just you vs the opponent. The same can be said about photography, because it’s just you and your camera working on being the best that you can be. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. My passion for photography is why I am writing this.  My goal is with this post is to help other who make goals realize that it’s ok not to reach those goals. It’s ok to reset your goals to help you reach those new goals. Take the time to work on you and the goals will be reached with time. With that being said my next post we will go over what it takes to learn astrophotography.  Thank you once again and enjoy y’all see you on the next post. 

Feel free to give me a follow here and on my social media accounts on Facebook, and Instagram at LocalNavy433 Photography to see my latest images.