Achievement and the quest for improvement
Today I achieved Associate Accreditation status with The Portrait System - the education system that brought me from simply having a camera set to auto mode and taking fun snaps of my kid and vacations, to where I am today in full control on manual mode with studio strobe lights and directing people who are sitting in front of me as a professional photographer to have their portrait created. Life is wild.
Taking it back to 2017 just briefly, I remember the first photo I took that I really loved. The lens was not auto focus, because it' was an old one that my grampa had given me, and I needed an adapter to affix it to my new-to-me digital camera. The photo was one of my baby daughter, holding tight to her dad’s fingers as he helped her find her feet beneath her. At that time, taking pictures was a fun thing to do now and then. But when I saw that photo of my daughter, I remember thinking to myself “I love this.” The first phase of conscious incompetence hit quick, and I found myself quickly Googling ways to improve at photography. I loved it, but I was driven internally to be better at it. And do you know how hard it is to get perfect at photography? I say this in jest, as a perfectionist, knowing such things don’t really exist.
When I stopped working at my traditional but traumatic day job a few years ago, photography became part of my treatment/healing plan. I wasn’t working, I wasn’t making money, I was just studying and practicing and using my friends and family as test subjects whenever they would oblige me. I was attending conferences and watching videos and buying equipment. I was not confident in my abilities and I was pushing myself to be better because I felt not good enough (in a lot of areas, trauma is tricky that way). I picked it up and put it down depending on what my nervous system could take on any given day, most recently putting it down for the entire summer of 2024 to focus on family and other important things in life.
Photography though, is something I can’t just put down in general. I spent the summer chasing images of my daughter on the red beaches of Prince Edward Island (she hates it, it’s like pulling teeth. Can I just get one or two beautiful shots??). When September rolled around again, I stepped back into the studio with a renewed vision for what it is I’m trying to achieve with this photography thing. Accreditation wasn’t the answer to that question for me, but when I received this news today it brought a bit of clarity.
I’m in this line of “work” because photography is something that I really love doing. I can’t stop seeking out new mentors, new techniques, new ways to tell stories and connect with people. It’s been a measurable metric for me to delineate where I came from and map where I’m going. It’s helped me to heal and given me some direction and focus. I’m setting my sights on getting better at expressing myself and defining the things that are important to me. I know along the way I’ll connect with those people who see themselves in these images.
And if that’s you, I look forward to hearing your story, too, and helping each other grow a little more. 🖤
Images achieving merit this final round of competition for accreditation