To What End?

A friend of mine was over for dinner the other day and we got onto the topic of photography and what my ‘goals’ are. It’s an interesting question and in a world where everyone is constantly trying to start a side hustle to get rich, I should have expected it. For a while, I’ve been telling myself if I could just do a wedding or two a year, that would ‘pay’ for any new accessories or lens I wanted for my setup. The proposition was simple, right? Get decent at portraits, make a few thousand for two dozen hours of your time.

I know I am 100% underselling how much work goes into wedding photography, which is one reason this is not reality. The amount of time it takes to become good enough at wedding photography for someone to actually pay you is tremendous. Time I have realized, I am not willing to put in. Don’t forget about the intense pressure to capture a couples special day as perfect as you can.

In reality, I am just here because I enjoy taking photographs of wildlife. My photography goals are to capture wildlife memories and experiences that I care about it. As I have mentioned in a previous blog post, I used to hunt quite a bit and still toy with the idea but the more and more I think about it, the more I want my hunting to be about hunting for a wild moment not a critter.

I understand that I am in a unique situation where I have a successful career that has supported my family and I - this enables me to not worry about finding side hustles to turn into an income stream. We, as a society, need to get away from turning hobbies into hustles. We need to get back to doing hobbies for joy and not for monetary gain. Again, I understand why folks need to try and monetize their hobbies but I just wish people could (or would) do more things for joy rather than money.

Personally, I worry that if photography becomes a job or chore for me I will lose my desire and passion for it, as right now, getting out into the wild and taking photographs of nature is an escape. No pressure. No expectations. Just me, my camera and whatever I can capture.

Thanks for reading - next week I am in Glacier National Park, which I am extremely excited for, I hope to capture some incredible moments.

Until next time…

-Nathan