When the SOAR! scholarship was announced many of us vowed that even if we weren’t one of the recipients we would follow along as the chosen three worked their ways towards that bright sun in our sky: professional photography. Well here I am, the tag along who wasn’t exactly invited, but who hasn’t yet been told to bug off either. Me Ra’s first assignment was to write about your beginning thoughts. So here are mine.
6 weeks ago I promised myself that I was going to follow my dream of starting my own creative business. I was not sure exactly what that would be, and I thought that I would try a few things and see which one took off. Maybe I would write a book of simple, cute clothing patterns for boys. Maybe I would turn some of my sketches of quilts into patterns. Maybe I would plan for a summer on the craft fair circuit selling my home sewn goodies. Although I had just sold my fancy sewing machine to buy my first digital SLR camera, I was not thinking of portrait photography, because honestly, that is for people who went to art school, right? And even though I enter photos in the county fair every year and have won a few ribbons and have never entered anything that I have sewn, I am a sewer, not a photographer, right?
Well, Me Ra Koh told me that I was wrong. That even though I did not go to art school I can still learn portrait photography. And even though my 35th birthday is just around the corner, I can still reinvent myself any way that I choose. As I watched Me Ra’s video introducing the SOAR! scholarship I knew she would change my life. And she has. I have never before thought of myself as a photographer. And now I do. A complete stranger to give me permission to dream. So I did.
My dream is to be a portrait photographer. Yes, being a SOAR! scholarship recipient would be amazing, but my dream is bigger than that. So I’m going for it. And it feels so good. It feels good to want something for myself that is also good for my family. It is a little bit crowded right now squeezing one more thing in to my life, but all the other things are slowly moving over to give photography more room. It is not going to be a quick transformation, but that is good, too. I’m going to take this journey slowly and savor every step of the way.
Way to go Samantha! Keep stepping forward a little more each day. You have inspired me to get my beginning thoughts down too. Now I just have to get a blog going:)
Thanks Natalie! I hope we can all continue to inspire and support each other.
Hey Samanha, We are all SOAR! recipients in the way you described, Yes? Great job on the blog. I can’t wait to hear more.
Love your beginning thoughts!!! Always inspiring to see someone embracing the questions and journey 🙂 Thank you so much for sharing!!!
I think we are both doing the 365 project on Flickr–hooray!!
xoxo
Samantha, that was wonderful!! Thanks for sharing your begining with us all.
Liane