Scared

by jpetersphoto

I’m scared… No make that terrified. Before I tell you what has me so scared I should inform you al this post will be a little bit about photography, and a little bit personal. Those two little things interweave quite a bit for me as photography is not just a hobby or a way to make some money, it’s my life.

So what has me so scared? Failing, now I’m not talking about small failures like missing a shot or even fucking up an entire shoot. I am scared of bigger falters that don’t seem far off right now. What happens if I give being a professional photographer all I have and it’s just not enough? Where do I go from there? Back to working at a rock climbing gym? That’s the only other thing I know.

I was never the kid that anyone thought was going to go anywhere, and to be honest I didn’t give a rats ass about the future. Against everyones advice I cruised thew high school doing only enough to not fail, cutting classes and leaving early to go climbing or to work at the gym. In my freshman year I took a photo class because it seemed like an easy A. It ended up being my favorite class and it turned into my creative outlet. I loved the smell of developer on my hands and the pure happiness of seeing that final print coming out just how I imagined it. I was hooked! the end of the year it was time to register for classes and photo was urge first on my list but my resource (special education) teacher had other ideas so I would not step back into the dark room until a year later in my junior year, when I took advanced photo. My senior year I retook advanced photo because there was nothing past that plus I spent two hours a day assisting my teacher with maintaining the darkroom. I digress.

Anyway, I never took SATs or did anything else to prep my self for college admissions but by the time applying came around I knew I wanted to be a photographer. I I searched for photography schools that didn’t require an SAT score, I ended up at Brooks institute, but quickly dropped out. A year after dropping out I was pressured to go back to school and this time I went to the art institute of orange county, after a year of doing poorly and only paying any real attention on photography classes I transferred to their north Hollywood location. This brings us up to pretty recently. Threw out all my schooling I’ve known that school is just not really my thing. After taking a really mellow quarter I decided to take some time off school.

Alright, not sure why I just gave you a history lesson on, well me. But here I am now, terrified of what the future might hold. I am waist deep in credit card bills, battling with the question of what I want To shoot and a slew of more personal problems. These three things have had me in the biggest rut I’ve been threw in my short 22 years of living. I feel my self slipping into being depressed, not knowing who to turn to or what to do. I am starting to feel like I don’t deserve the small amount of working I am getting but at the same time wondering why I can’t land more work. I live day by day, pitching stories to magazines, applying for internships and jobs to try to find a more steady source of income. Doing my best to keep my spirits up and my head down.

So I am turning to you, interwebs. For a few reasons the first was to simply figure out my thoughts by writing them, not sure my thoughts are any more clear now then they were before. But to also ask my few readers what they think my photographic focus should be, so what do you think? Do you like my portraits or commercial mountain bike work, or maybe you like my race coverage and maybe I should go into a more photojournalistic discipline like main stream sports.

Who knows, anyway, for those of you that have believed in me and been by my side the entire time, thank you. There’s really only a few of you out there.

-JP