I was a freshman in high school when I took my first photography class. At the time, School was the scariest possible thing for me, but I was so excited that it didn’t matter. School became more exciting than boring, which for me was a huge deal. So you can just imagine my excitement when I got my first camera for Christmas. It was then, at 14, that I first remember thinking that I wanted to be a photographer.

But as it does to all of us, life happened. I ended up hanging up my camera. What I had once loved just ended up as just another dusty hobby on the shelf.

To spare you the messy details of losing sight of myself, I’ll skip ahead to about last year.

As soon as I got older, I realized I had to start learning what makes me happy. It turns out happiness isn’t something that just happens to you; you have to work at it. Crazy right?

I don’t think I’ve quite found the secret to happiness, life is long, and I am only 19, but in doing this whole doing-things-that-make-me-happy thing, I found myself looking back at that 14-year-old girl often; turns out she was still excited to take that photography class. So I decided to give photography a real shot, why not? Who am I to deprive that 14-year-old girl of what she wants

So this is me, giving it a real and honest shot.

Over this past quarter, this is what I decided to focus on.

Immediately, I encountered my first obstacle, and pardon my vulnerability here, but it was my own embarrassment. To be real with you (and myself here), I am a self-conscious person, I like to blend in without being noticed, and when you walk around with a big camera, that puts a huge look-at-me target on your back, or at least that’s how I used to feel. This used to cause me so much anxiety that I didn’t want to take my camera anywhere.

This took me a bit to get over, a lot of self-reflection, and some good old-fashioned exposure therapy. I started taking my camera on walks, just by myself in nature at first, then slowly I built up to walks around campus, and around town, before I realized I was going out to the city to take pictures. Slowly but surely, that happiness thing I mentioned started to follow along.

I mean, I still don’t love getting looked at like some oddity, but maybe I am a bit of an oddity, I think everyone is a bit of an oddity in their own way, that’s what makes life interesting, don’t you think?

Once I realized that, I started to get over myself. My new goal became to just take my camera with me anywhere and everywhere, which is now how I have some of my favorite pictures.

I began to look forward to making posts on my website here, and it started to become routine. Posting them didn’t, I cannot tell you how many drafts I have created and deleted over the past couple of months, still working on that embarrassment thing.

But even after all of that, and it may seem silly, it still didn’t feel like being a photographer was within my grasp. No matter how many pictures I took, I just felt like some kid with a camera.

Up until I met Wendy, she was a photographer who came into my workplace to take pictures. We ended up talking, and I mentioned to her that it was something that I was interested in. She asked me to come help her with a few events where she was taking pictures.

I was stoked.

That 14-year-old girl was jumping around the room for joy.

When the first day arrived for me to go work with her, I had just gotten off from working all morning, and honestly, I was beat. Once again, I was too excited to even care. For this event, she wanted me to just watch how things were done, so I did. I noticed every detail I could. I studied the backdrop, the setup, and the lights, but mostly I watched Wendy. I watched how she interacted with the people and the equipment, I watched as she ran around the room taking pictures of the event, and I watched as she took pictures of singles, groups, and couples.

The more that people had arrived, the more I was able to I was able to help out.

After I finished my first event for Wendy, I remember the moment I left was the first time I felt like I could do it, I mean, I could really do it. I didn’t have to take pictures of important people or mountains or have some deep, inspired meaning to be a photographer; I had just done it.

Now I still don’t really consider myself a photographer yet, but I set out this quarter to give it a real shot. I am closer than ever, and one day I will be. I think for now, that is enough to appease that 14-year-old girl.