I haven’t really come to terms with what I did the other day. I think only maybe twice has it given me a deep pit in my stomach.
I took all my gear and sold it all. All my lenses, my camera bodies—gone. I don’t know what overcame me that day, but I have desperately wanted to get out of what I did for many years. I was unhappy and felt like I was stuck in a box of weddings and family portraiture. I was not creative and could not get out shooting the same basic shot over and over. I can’t even begin to express my utter unhappiness.
I spent the good part of 7 years shifting my career. I’m going to try to make this short and simple. Starting in 2016, I studied to become a medical assistant and worked as one in tandem with being a photographer. Then in 2019, I went back to school to finish core classes to be able to be accepted into the nursing program at Miami Dade College.
In the year 2020, I lived through one of the biggest challenges of my life. All the weddings and work I was booked for disappeared in a blink of an eye during the pandemic. The universe, in one fell swoop, did to me what I couldn’t do for myself—free me from working as a photographer. For the first time in my life, I found myself with no work. Most people probably would have panicked. I know that I probably should have since I’m not rich, but I was literally so relieved. As fucked up as it sounds, in the middle of a deadly pandemic, I was the happiest I had ever been in years and I knew it was only because I didn’t have to work.
I ramped up my education and finally finished my Associates in Nursing in December of 2022. My last official wedding was March 2023 and my last official portrait session was in June 2023.
So, this brings me back to selling all my camera gear. I didn’t want to have the excuse that I could work because I don’t want to work. I can’t say no not anything or anyone. If that doesn’t tell you how desperate I was to never do another wedding ever again, I don’t know what else I could tell you. (Honestly, I could tell you so much more and go on and on, but I digress.)
I am no longer moonlighting as a medical assistant. I am working as a full time nurse now. I do still want to do photography, but not as something my life depends on to pay the bills. Photography can now be something I do for fun, for joy, and I can finally not give a fuck what you think about it.
I’m experimenting…
and this is just the beginning.