Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Endings and Beginnings

People who know my personal history already know that I have had several incarnations in my life, from engineer to dancer to arts administrator to photographer. It has been an eventful life. Nobody can really figure out what the connections are, neither can I. :) I have just flowed with the tao of my life.

I have been a professional photographer for five years now, starting off in the performing arts and then moving onto wedding and bridal work. I loved the performing arts but the money there sucked big time. It was a lot of fun with really creative people to work with but the pay cannot sustain a career. I did learn a lot there though. For the last two years or so, wedding photography has been a large part of my work, decent money and quite interesting the way I did it. My wedding work is slightly unconventional and I think that I have built up a following. In general, I have had really nice clients and the work, although hard, has been pleasurable.

Now I am coming to another change. I am shifting my photography emphasis to portraits. I will be stopping work in December this year and will be on sabbatical for 6 months. Part of the break will be for me to reorganise my company, part of that time I will be an intern at a portrait photographer's studio in Chicago.

My friends have urged me to make a clean break from wedding and bridal photography and focus on portraiture. They mean the best for me. In my heart I know that they are right. I am not young anymore and I have to be committed to what moves me most. I guess some people will be sad, but I am going to stop taking actual day photos. Those long hour days just sap too much energy from me. I will be continuing to shoot bridal photographs in my portraiture style but will limit the number of clients I take a month.

There is always a little sadness for the good times when things end but also a sense of excitement for what is to come.

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