Define your career with your passions

With everything we are doing in the modern world you would imagine that being multi-talented is one of the top things all employers are looking for. Certainly, in the experiences I’ve had the ability to do more than just one thing has always been important.

Which makes it all the more baffling when others look down on you for not specialising. The idea of being, in my case, a photographer and a writer is so odd that I’ve had sneers aimed at my duality. The latest incident happened only a few weeks ago, with what I must admit is a much more successful videographer than I am in ways that I never hope to be.

The conversation was heading towards what we know, what our experiences have been and what we are currently doing. Which is a simple enough answer, I am a copywriter at my full-time job but a photographer whenever I feel the urge. I still dislike taking posed pictures, family photos, wedding shoots or even baby shoots. We’ll get to why that is later.

However, as we talked he and his wife leisurely mentioned that I really need to decide what I want to be. Do I want to be a photographer, a videographer or a writer? At first, I was struck, I found myself thinking that hell, I do have to decide what I want to be, I’ve been faffing about for almost 15 years now, jumping from photographer to writer whenever the urge hit me.

Leaving me with a set of skills that in the eyes of others must look half baked and left in the sun for nothing but vultures to wonder over. Luckily, I left the conversation shortly after this and while driving to pick up my mom I found myself getting livid, with myself and the audacity of someone else questioning my skills.

I am the first to admit that I am not the greatest writer, nor have I won any awards in photography worthy of note. But I am still bloody proud of the things that I have accomplished, not just the ones people have seen. I struggled through years of high school learning what I liked and focusing in on them, going to college with two very distinct passions that the lecturers at Varsity College (not just Peter Bayer) helped refine and entering the world with skills both refined and alien to each other.

With these two skills I started with both feet in the mud and chains on my shoulders. Each step forward has been a fight and struggle, with few hands pulling me up to see what I can be. It took me several years to realise what kind of writer and what kind of photographer I am, and with both I am still learning new things every day. For someone else to come in and question not only my skills but my passion? It has set me on a new path to show we are not limited to just one thing in our lives.

This, I know, is a very millennial way to look at life. In years past I can imagine that splitting yourself into many things and skills would mean a life of struggle and poverty. However, this is not the 1950’s where you are doomed to live with the cards life has dealt you. This the 21st century, no one should ever feel stuck in what they are doing, we regularly learn of people who changed professions in the latter half of their lives. Finding new passions and expanding on them.

When I look at the path I’ve made behind me I am rather proud of what I’ve done and even frightened of the things I’ve survived. My ability to write has been with me from the moment I needed to complete an essay for English in grade 4, all the way back in 2003. Using the English language as just another part of my body has always relaxed me and, given the chance, I can write babbling paragraphs of nothing for hours without getting exhausted.

This comes into conflict with my need to disassemble mechanical parts, which is something I inherited from my father and the rest of the Moolman cast. But in time I learned how to use this curiosity to my favour, understanding a language is not at all dissimilar to disassembling a small engine.

It wasn’t until I discovered the journalism club at my high school that I really discovered photography. Armed with a Kodak digital camera that ate AA batteries the same way I eat Doritos. I took pictures of athletes running, school trips and maybe even a few rule breaking events. I loved that camera, it served me for almost four years, I learned how to take pictures with a camera that was outdated when it got released.

When I finished matric I was faced with a problem, none of my marks were brilliant, I was still a teenager torn between worlds and I needed to study something. I wanted to study something. I could not study mechanical engineering as I had planned all my high school life; maths, it turns out, you could not learn by simply reading the book repeatedly.

At this time I had already polished my photography skills to a level where I was charging people for basic shoots. The writing side of things was a very different story though, I only had the skills I learned from basic second language classes. Within the first few days of 2012 I was thinking of going to study photography and perhaps even get a degree, however, the absurd costs were an absolute block.

After searching, and a well-placed ad on the radio, I went to Varsity College, signed up for the journalism course and rapidly discovered that school English and proper English are two very different things. I struggled at first but eventually found my place and continued to grow my photography skills.

It was at the end of 2011 that my father bought a constant companion for me, my Nikon D5100 and the two lenses that accompany it. I still have and use this camera and I still love it like I did the first day I received it. Though, it has seen quite a few bumps and some of the focus is lost in motor sounds.

While studying, finding my passion became harder and harder, some said become a photojournalist and focus on people. So, I did some of that and I learned very quickly that I do not enjoy taking posed pictures, I’ll do it as a favour and for a price, but it’s not where my passion lies. The same could be said for pure news writing, nothing has ever been as difficult for me as sticking to one style guide and using that day in and out.

I received my Diploma in 2015, went into the world and continued to build my skills. It is at this time that I found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I’m still defining this, just for the sake of focusing myself. I posed this question to myself, who in the hell wants to do the same thing every day for the rest of their 50 to 60 years of life?

My passions are in writing and photography, writing in creative ways and taking pictures of the world around us and how we interact with it. No one has any right to tell me this is stupid, and I honestly feel sad for people that live with the idea of being one thing only.

Now, I am not saying that working in one industry is bad at all. But, if you turn 60 and you’re still a machine operator then you’ve lived an unfulfilled life, if you are the one stable thing at your job then you may have become stuck in the worst way possible, for me. If you love writing become an editor, write a book or compose poems in your spare time. If you’re a photographer why the hell force yourself to only ever taking pictures, try making a video!

For me this means that I will write by day and take pictures by night. With things that are upcoming I may even find myself becoming a videographer as well. Hell, with the technology of today anyone can be a videographer! I will be a writer, a photographer and much, much more.

If others want to define their world in black and white, choosing a side and sticking to it forever then so be it. They can live their lives looking down on others, stuck in their own prisons of self-made worth. I’ll wave at them as I pass them by, I may never be as rich as Nick Brandt or as notorious as Tolkien but damn it all to hell if I don’t make my own path to the top, doing both of the things I love doing.