Work work work work work work work!!

Lately I always find myself browsing wedding photography websites, especially the film ones. If you look in my browser history, it's always full of these sites. Should I? Am I worthy? I get jealous of people the same age as me who are in the business, making good money already. And then I feel sucky because I am not anywhere right now. I am broke, with debt even. I know that the wedding photography market is saturated, but the thing is, there are only a few photographers who are actually good at it. Those who pass my standards are a rare lot. I've only found one who shoots film - Nelwin Uy, and his set is inconsistent for me. I haven't seen any Filipino wedding photographers whose pictures make my heart skip a beat - no one like Jen Huang or Jose Villa. Yes, I love natural light and bright, dreamy colors. I'm thinking: I could do better. If no one is producing those types of images here, it would have to be me. Hell yeah. So that's what I'm holding on to: my taste. Ira Glass said it best:

“What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story.

It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

However, taste is not enough. I need to practice my craft and actually get shooting, not spend all my time browsing photography websites. Must schedule shoots, then. Fight my way through.