Hi, I’m Brian, and I’ve been around 41 years. For most of that time I’ve been a musician, playing in bands either signed or original. I work in a music store in Cork City, Ireland. Two years ago I was in the process of starting a music website, so I bought a camera, deciding I would make my own images for the site.

That’s when the proverbial hit the proverbial. The camera took over. I mean absolutely. At first I thought it was a fad, I’ve been known to go through some serious fads, too many to mention. This one felt different. It felt real, like the first day I sat behind a drum kit at 14 years old.

This new medium has led me on completely different creative path (sorry about the cliché). But truly, it has. I don’t know why it took so long for me to find photography but I am seriously glad it found me.

So, I’ve been moving along, picking up a job here and there, some paid, some free, all enjoyable. I’m not trying to say the last two years have been all fun and games, but when I’m on a portrait shoot, or hanging off some rock by the coast, I couldn’t be happier. It’s the times when the mind takes over that are the problem, that’s when the doubt creeps in. That’s when I ask myself, “Well, what are you going to do? You know you want to take this further. Are you good enough?”

I’ve written about this before in a blog post, so I won’t expand. I’m sure you’ve had the same experience in your life. I don’t think you’re human if you haven’t.

I’ve gone at things half-heartedly up to now. Starting well, finishing poorly. Perseverance is something I’m working on. Two things that happened in the last three days brought the last two years into sharp focus:

Watching a YouTube Video

The video is hosted by @chasejarvis and the guest was @garyvee. I was blown away by Gary Vaynerchuk. So full of energy, full of common sense, and an absolute focus on hard work. It blew me away so much I’ve ordered his book “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.” No, I’m not affiliated with Gary in any way, I’ll leave it up to you to do the research on this guy, I’m sure you’ve heard of him, if not, go look. What he showed me was there’s not point in filling every social media tool with content. It’s all about context, authenticity, and hard work. That’s if you want to get your work out there.

A message on Facebook

Something that affected me greatly was a Facebook post.

To you this might not seem like much, but to me it means everything. There’s a lot of pleasure in making a photograph that has great compostion, maybe a stunning subject, or wonderful colour. Whatever it might have, and however much pleasure you get from the photograph, nothing can compare to making somebody happy. It’s that simple. If you can make people happy with what you do in life, and you can pay your bills, then what more can you want.

All that you’ve read above might seem obvious, and I guess it is. But over the last three days these two events have changed me. I guess you could say I’ve had a paradigm shift. And the reason I think it’s so important, is that I’ve never had one before, and I hope you can have one as well, whatever way it manifests itself.

Thanks for reading my first medium.com post. I appreciate it, a lot.