"If you want to take more interesting photos, become a more interesting person."
Last summer, I bought my first real camera. I was preparing for an upcoming trip to Alaska, and I thought using a nice camera would magically make my photos better. It didn’t. For the life of me, I couldn’t get photos on the new, fancy camera to turn out better than what I was taking on my iPhone.
Frustration is a great motivator; I signed up for an intro to photography class, I invested in a couple of new camera lenses, I started watching YouTube videos, and, most importantly, I started taking more photos. During this journey, I came across the saying “If you want to take more interesting photos, become a more interesting person” in a landscape photography podcast.
What a simple, but profound idea. It says so much in so few words:
If you want to be creative, you need to live creatively. The quality of what you create comes from your life experiences.
You can change your results by changing yourself and your environment.
Your personal growth and creative growth are intertwined, and improving one will lead to improvements in the other.
So what does my early journey with photography and this quote have to do with me starting this blog? Well, I woke up one day late last year and I realized that I wasn’t the same creative person that I used to be. My day to day was consumed by finding reasons why we couldn’t do something, rather than finding reasons why we should. I was spending more of my time checking off boxes on todo lists than collaborating on new things to help people.
So I decided to become a more interesting person. I quit my job in April, packed my backpack and my camera, and set out to travel the world. This blog is a way for me to share what I learn along the way, and hopefully inspire a little creativity in anyone who reads it. Just like with photography, I am just getting started on this adventure, and I can't wait to grow with your support and feedback.
I hope you join me on my journey around the world,
Chris