When I picked up my first camera 36 years ago, little did I know anything about life, little did I know that Photography could be a profession. There was very little I knew about anything. Of course I was 12 ... I had a father, but I never had a nurturing Dad to teach me things. Thank goodness for my mom's love. I had to learn basically on my own, but the one bad thing about learning on your own, It's the time you waste by making wrong decisions and then learning from them. That is the only one thing you cannot recover: Time. 31 years later from the time I picked up that first camera, it finally became a profession, it became a business, it became the passion through which I feed my family. But I spent most of my adult life working in Information Technology. Do I regret it ? No , I loved Information Technology with the same passion I did and I do love Photography. But the decision to jump in and prove myself came when my company eliminated my IT job due to a large Corporation merge. Could I have gone and get another IT job, sure no doubt. But when you think back and remember the things you did not do, nothing weighs more on your mind. A regret is the second worse feeling you can have, after wasting the time you have been given here.
But why do I photograph ? , Photographer Sal Cincota puts it in very simple terms in his January magazine issue: "As a Professional Photographer, our job is to document the lives and the moments of our clients through our eyes. They are hiring us to tell a story" Yes, I also take tremendous pride in this task. This applies to any client whether it is a Corporate or a Family Client. The images we create can potentially be seen for generations. Regardless of the client, the image they hired us to create, it's history for them. How powerful is that ? . Imagine for a second the feeling 10 years later when that 8 year old child sees the picture with his/her mom or dad. Imagine the responsibility and power we have as photographers, to stop this feeling in time and bring back the memory of a special day into someone's mind. To remember her mom or his dad as they were back then.
This makes me happy. The reward of seeing a happy client face look at their wonderful pictures, is a rewarding feeling for me that goes beyond the money we charge. There is really no price to this feeling. This is the core of what I do, and that is what's in my mind every time when I am roaming around looking for the perfect location and how to create that image for this client.