My 2017 Manifesto

I peaked at 190 Instagram followers last week. You can almost hear the crowd go “Oooooh…” right? “190!” I thought, in a sarcastic tone, as I scrolled through my feed past photographers with tens of thousands of followers, garnering hundreds of likes per pictures in a matter of minutes. Oh and look, I’m almost back down into the 180s for followers, and dropping. Well, that’s likely due to the mini spike the quick Follow/Un-follow action all of these “brand managers” and “digital entrepreneurs” cause so that I stupidly check out their profile. I know you’re not really interested in my content! Just like I could care less about inspirational quotes posted over hazy photos of landscapes. But damn it, I do crave your following as well… please don’t Unfollow me! I’m almost at 200! Wait don’t go! Too late… We’re down in the 170s again. I’ve got to pay attention to the Instagram analytics! That’s the problem right there. Yesterday, I posted a photo at 1:15 p.m. That was a mistake. The blue and white bar graph clearly shows that the spike in app presence from my plethora of followers is closer to noon. You’ve gotta get them when they’re on their lunch break you dummy! I could have gotten at least 15 more likes if I had done that! Damn it Rodrigo! Ok, so make sure that whatever you post tonight, you do so at around 6 p.m. when there’s another spike shown in the graph. But instead you ended up posting at 9 p.m. when there’s a lull in presence, and now you’ve fallen short of your usual 50 likes per picture. Damn it again! Must… get… more… followers!!! That’s all that matters. The more followers, the more I’m validated as a good photographer. Maybe I got another few since I last checked 10 minutes ago. Damn it I’m back down into the 170s!

What you have just read above is the kind of state I have allowed my creative brain to fall into. I’m now questioning the efficacy of the collection of hashtags that I’m using rather than smiling at the picture that I’m sharing at that moment. I’m proud of the photos I have taken. I’m proud of what I post. I’m a damn good photographer, and I know that at my core. That should be enough. That has to be enough. I started my journey into becoming a professional this year, a fact that I forget very easily during my small internal fits of follower-jealousy as I look at the profiles of photographers who have been in the game for many years now. I started this journey because while my current job (IT Consultant) puts plenty of food on the table, it doesn’t do much more than that. It took me 32 years of treading along the safe, risk-adverse path to realize that the lack of color in this path will eventually cause a degree of unhappiness that will start affecting my relationships with others, especially my wife and future children. A lack of purpose in your own profession will inevitably bleed into your general state of being, this I know for sure. So I moved to action. I’m not going to pretend that I’m the same story we hear over and over again: “One day I realized I was totally unhappy at my job, so I quit it and started following my passion.” I am, and I am not. My job provides for a very comfortable life, and that comfortable life does provide happiness in itself. So I’m using my job to provide me with the flotation I need as I navigate to my next island. I’d call it Passion Island, but that sounds like a VH1 reality show, or worse.

To be honest, I find myself in a lucky position. I’m not lacking for food, so I’m not desperate for work. Which means I can pick and choose what I want to do. I can photograph what I truly love to photograph! Budding professional photographers may not always have this as a luxury. That only comes along when you hit that 10k+ Instagram followers mark and you’re getting booked left and right, right? But I also know that many photographers today didn’t start out as photographers, but rather in a similar situation that I’m in. In a way, I’m filling the need to book jobs I don’t necessarily want but have to take in order to pay the rent with what’s already paying the rent: my current job! And yes, it’s Information Technology at a giant bank, which practically makes it the definition of corporate soullessness. But it pays a hell of a lot more than the photography jobs that I wouldn’t want to do in the first place. My point is that, this very morning, in between folding one piece of laundry and the other, I have come to the realization I have the luxury of doing what I love in photography, and I don’t have to do anything else. I am the lucky one who gets to do quality over quantity, and know that the quantity part will take care of itself down the road. I allowed myself to fall into the mentality that I must do more, and I must do it now, because I must grow my portfolio, and that’s what’s ultimately important, right? Well, your portfolio is what’s going to get you jobs from people you don’t know. But right now, I love photographing people I do know, people I like being around, and who like being around me as well, as well as their friends and the people they love. Once you add to that the fact I’m already putting food on the table through other means, it begs the question, why should I care about the number of Instagram followers or how fast that number grows? Or about bidding on jobs for people I don’t know and whose style and preferences are completely out of sync with my own and my art? I don’t want to do that anymore.

About 10 days ago we had a frigid front pass through Cleveland. Bone-piercing cold gusts of wind swept the city. Around 4 p.m. I looked outside and saw that the conditions were going to be ideal for a crystal clear and colorful sunset, the kind of sunset that turns the sky into a swirl of pinks, purples, oranges, and deep-sea blues. I closed my work laptop, grabbed my camera, my 25 and 55mm lenses, and headed out toward the downtown pier, where the Rock-n-Roll HOF is located. Originally I thought that the city skyline would be painted with orange, with a backdrop of pink and purple clouds. You’ve seen these types of pictures, I’m sure. Well, it didn’t happen exactly like that, but I captured some cool shots nonetheless. I got in my car and started leaving my parking spot when I saw that the sky hiding behind this giant boat in the area where I was shooting had developed all the colors I was hoping for. I parked again and ran to the edge of the pier, where I could get the shot. Not 10 minutes later I was laying down on a sheet of ice, ice-cold gusts of wind making my face and fingers go numb, but all of this escaped me because I was absolutely loved the shot I was capturing:

This is how I want to feel about every photo shoot I do. I have to realize that the number of followers I have on social media, or the number of likes or comments on the photos I post isn’t going to bring me that happiness. It’s the projects I have the privilege to capture that will drive this satisfaction. The fact that I have the rent already taken care of through other means is a huge positive, and I should be thankful for that, rather than recent it. It enables me to build my business on a foundation of passion projects only, and that is going to be a house I can’t wait to live in.

So for 2017, the mission is to photograph only what I love, and do more of it with less. I don’t need the quantity so I won’t chase that. I’ll chase what draws me in and what I’m going to be proud to call my own. I can trust that, through these avenues, more passion projects will emerge, and eventually the quantity will take care of itself. And if I can learn to do what I love while spending less on equipment and toys, then it’s going to build a strong business foundation. I’m good at this, and I love doing it. If it’s my passion, and my basic needs are already being taken care of, then love should be the primary driver of what I capture and eventually share. Cheers to 2017, a year of growth through love!