In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t been taking photos for very long. I can remember one specific photo I took back in high school with a borrowed camera. It was relatively early in the morning, the sun was still low in the sky, and I was walking out to my Jeep at the end of our driveway as a car sped down our gravel road, leaving clouds of dust in its wake… but other than that I didn’t give photography a thought until college.
My freshman year of university is when Instagram was created. I remember starting to share photos of what was happening in my daily life, but I never thought of it as “photography” as much as just sharing snippets of life. I had the slightest bit of OCD which led to me looking for symmetry in my photos whenever I could. But I really didn’t give it much thought.
Years went by and I traveled around the United States a bit. Taking buses to different states or planes to different coasts, I still only shared bits and pieces on my Instagram of what I was doing and seeing. A photo of my niece in Louisville, a tree covered in hoar frost in Georgia, a photo taken by my brother of me sitting in Coach K’s spot on the bench in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Again, still not giving the “photography” side of things any thought.
That is, until, a phone call in June of 2014. I was back on campus at my school a month after graduating just to see some friends. I don’t remember the exact conversation of the phone but it had one major message; “We want you to come be an intern in Maui.” I started giving photography a thought.
After seeing so many videos and photos of Hawaii over the years, I knew that if I moved there I’d need to invest in something more than my iPhone 4S. So I bought a GoPro Hero 3+ Silver. I began practicing as soon as it arrived taking photos of the youth sports team that I was working with. I was hooked.
It took me awhile but I slowly started upgrading my cameras. My year in Hawaii was mostly documented with my phone and GoPro, and towards the end of my time there I was able to purchase a secondhand DSLR from someone I knew. Not only was I now giving it a thought, photography was my main thought.
That’s where this journey began. That’s where my Instagram changed and it was no longer just a fun way to document my daily life. I started looking at it as a business prospect, I was able to convince brands to send me products in exchange for photos. Photography took me around the world; Indonesia, Aruba, New Zealand, Nicaragua, and more.
This little symbol is a representation of that journey. It’s an exposure meter of a camera, and every time I see it, I will think about photography and the wild journey it’s taken me on.
PS - I would be remiss if I failed to mention that I got this piece done in a little tattoo shop in Korçë, Albania. My friend Collin had come to visit and one of the stops on our adventure around Albania was to get tattoos. Funny enough, and bringing this whole experience full circle, we did not pay for either tattoo. The reason? Through my photography - and social media accounts - I promoted the shop in exchange for two free small tattoos.