Love the quote that goes: “If you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you want will be the sacrifice.” No matter what your life goal is, patience and perseverance is the key to success. When things prove to be extremely difficult for you to handle, remember to hang in there and just keep on moving forward.

I am going to admit that I used to think a photographer’s job is easy. I thought they are just a bunch of people who are good at taking photos and if I can take decent photos, I can be a photographer too. Now, I realized I am only 50% correct with the aforementioned opinion. A photographer’s job can be very demanding as well. Before a shoot, there are many things a photographer has to take into account. Prior to a shoot, a photographer has to determine a theme for the shoot, do research on suitable locations, check weather forecast, communicate with models/clients, propose a photo direction or mood for the shoot, suggest suitable outfits, hair and make-up. During the photography session, he or she has to direct and give posing instructions to the models/clients. After the photoshoot, a photographer might end up with a few hundreds of photos that need to be filtered. Selected photos will then have to go through post-processing or editing before they are being sent to the models/clients. Another work will be the posting of edited photos to website and social media to establish a solid portfolio.

If I want my photography project to be successful, I need to invest a lot of time to study it especially when I am only a beginner, a lot of time to photograph people, a lot of time to edit the photos and a lot of time to build a successful photography page or website. The entire photography workflow takes time and patience. At the same time, I am very likely going to face criticisms from other people. At this point, I can choose to lose hope or I can choose to stay motivated. Of course, I choose the latter.

When I was a model, I used to not understand how demanding a photographer’s work is but now I guess I can really understand what they are going through and the likelihood of them receiving criticisms. Some people expect a photographer to be a magician. NO, we are not magicians. I do agree that we should make our subject looks beautiful in the photos, but I feel what is more important is the confidence you bring to the shoot that matters the most. It is the confidence you have about yourself that makes you look beautiful. But if someone decided to be inferior about his/her appearance and expects a photographer to create miracles, to me that is no longer photography. We want to capture the real you and preserve the original face you present to us and not use photoshop to create miracles. Embrace your flaws, embrace your imperfections because they can be beautiful in their own ways.

To all wonderful photographers out there,

I SALUTE you!

Nikon D3300
ISO400 55mm f/4.0 1/640sec