Being the King of Fear

When we first start out in photography we all begin as a jack of all trades, master/king of none!

It’s actually a wonderful place to be!

I remember when I first started and my parents bought me my first “big deal DSLR camera”.  I took pictures of EVERYTHING!  I loved it so much.  I would spend hours in the yard looking for incredible bugs or beautiful petals!  I would take my camera with me everywhere and shoot people, places and things.  Heck… I even tried shooting architecture… but about three clicks of the button on that and I quickly realized that I absolutely had no skill, no place and more importantly no passion for shooting that area of photography!

The BEST part about starting this way:  as a jack of all trades, is that eventually you find yourself starting to crave the things you are passionate about!  You actually start realizing there are some things that you just LOVE to shoot and that you are really very good at.  Those other areas just fall away!

You soon start to become less of a Jack and more like a queen… still working your way around the kingdom but picking and choosing the ones that are right for you!~

THIS is where I think most of us get comfortable!  This is where most of tend to live.  This is where I think fear starts to creep in and keeps us a little bit “stuck”.

We live and breathe in an industry that has the ability to push our boundaries!  It’s exciting and it’s wonderful and it’s scary too!

We have the freedom to choose our own path and our own little niche!  We have the ability to even CREATE a niche ourselves and that is truly amazing!

Fear however like I mentioned before keeps us stuck!  It keeps us living in this place of… I know I really love shooting such and such but I don’t know if there’s a real market or potential for me to just do that!  Fear keeps us living in this space of well maybe I was too quick to judge this type of photography and maybe if I keep working at it, I will of course just get better and then grow to love it.  It’s just nerves right now, that’s why I’m not comfortable working in this market!

Fear stops us sometimes from realizing what we really want to do and what our true purpose with our gift might be!

I know because I lived stuck for so incredibly long!

I felt pressured to shoot ALL types of people because I love people!  I felt because this area loves weddings, that I should also LOVE weddings (and I do love weddings).  I felt that maybe I didn’t enjoy shooting them as much as everyone else did was because I wasn’t as experienced or confident enough quite yet!  That maybe, just maybe, if I continued to shoot them I would grow to adore them as I much as I wanted to!

In my heart what was happening was that I had a bigger much greater love for children and families!  It wasn’t that I didn’t love the wedding industry and love shooting weddings!  I do and I still shoot one or two very special weddings each year!

What was happening is that I was still thinking about my children and family clients!

I would have ideas and thoughts for this specific little world that would inspire me to wake up in the middle of the night and write notes in a journal I kept by my bedside!

THIS was my niche!

I realized this long ago but still I worried!  Could I make this work if I only worked with children and family clients?!  Could this work if I specifically set myself apart as a Family Lifestyle photographer shooting Bumps, Birth’s, Babies and Families?

I doubted this for so long that I let it hold me back!  I was afraid to make that leap and I was stuck!

It wasn’t until last year and this year really that I began to realize that life is just too short to let fear take root this way!  It was time I let go of the Jack and became the King… King of my fear and if nothing else tried!

I’ll tell you what I know now…. whether I succeed brilliantly or whether I fall flat on my face, I will have won either way!

You see, letting go and getting “unstuck” is the biggest win of all!  You only lose by never trying and then having regret!

So if you are where I was… if you have something on your heart but you keep second guessing yourself… start to rethink your situation and find out if it’s just fear keeping you there!

We only get one life friends so why not follow your heart and give it all you have!  The only failure that could possibly be is living with the regret of never having stepped out of your own way and tried in the first place!

Go be the king of your fear friends!  Take the leap or at least one small step today!

P.s.  Thanks to Elizabeth for humoring me and taking this shot ^ while I tried to leap with all my ability in those jeans ya’ll!  WOAH!