The Journey to Becoming a Full-time Photographer
I had to quit my career as a buyer twice, to finally follow my dream of becoming a full time photographer. The journey not only changed my career path but also changed me. There have been failures along the way, as well as tons of hard lessons to learn but through it all, I have enjoyed moments of pure bliss. The first time I quit, I decided to travel alone and backpack through Southeast Asia at the age of 29. I had decided that this was finally the time to focus on photography. In my mind, I needed just one year to focus on it. The universe would work out the rest. It was a journey that was meant to be solely about photography but ended up being a more of a spiritual journey. This is how it all began.
A Bit of Background
I was born in Empangeni, a small town in Kwa-Zulu Natal where I lived with my mother and two brothers. My brothers from the time I remember, were always in either boarding school or university, which meant I spent a lot of time alone.
My earliest memories as a creative being, was dipping ink into a tub of body lotion to make paint. I wanted to paint, right there and then, so I made a plan. It didn’t stop there, I would make clothes, for my dolls using old rags. It’s safe to say, I have always been creative and quite resourceful. Spending time alone, meant I had to entertain myself and I did that by creating things. I have a few fond memories of my time in Empangeni but most are marred by the horrible experiences that I went through there. My mother decided it was time to leave Empangeni and so we moved to Durban, when I was ten years old. In Durban I was exposed to so much more, coming from a small town and moving to a “big city”.
After high school, I took a gap year and worked at a boutique store for a year, while figuring out what I wanted to do. I finally decided on fashion design. The funny thing is, I made that choice because it was the closest creative option I had to studying photography. I remember visiting the DUT Art campus and watching people enrol to study photography. One of the requirements was that you had to have a camera. At that time, I didn’t know how I would get money to pay for my fees, let alone even think about buying a camera.
Studying fashion was fun, exciting and extremely hard. During that time, I knew that I didn’t want to be a designer. I wanted to be behind the scenes. Work for magazines as a creative director. I remember watching the September Issue and crying because that was what I wanted to do, but it felt so out of reach. I wanted to be both, Grace Coddington and the photographer, at the same time. I wanted to create art, using a camera. I pushed that dream aside, it just felt so impossible to achieve. My mother had passed the year before, I was figuring out how I would be able to pay for my studies going forward, there was just a lot going on. There was no room to believe in a dream.
After university, I tried being a designer but that didn’t work out, then worked as a cad artist, and then co-ordinator. While I was working as co-ordinator, by divine intervention my love of photography finally caught up with me. I was in the office when a friend who I had studied with at university, randomly called me and told me about an opportunity to design a clothing range, in Germany, with a model agency. An all expenses paid trip to Germany and to top it all off, they would pay me for my designs. I had not I applied or reached out to her, it just came and so I grabbed it with both hands. A chance to travel and get paid, how could I not take it . My brother was very sceptical and thought it might have been a scam or I would get kidnapped like in the movie Taken. I didn’t care, I was going to get to travel out of South Africa for the first time and I was going to get paid for it, I mean come on.
I was in Berlin for just one night and it changed everything. After my morning session with a designer and the model agency, I went for a walk around the city, so I could take it all in. What hit me the most, was not having anything to capture what I was experiencing. That caused a big shift in me and it disturbed me quite intensely. The first thing I did when I got home was buy camera and I have not put it down since. Photography had always been there in there in background, but now, it could no longer be ignored.
The time Maxwell came to Durban and I took a picture. 2013.
It would be a great story to say that after I came back, I quit my job and focused solely on photography. Unfortunately, the fear of losing the comfort of having a stable job and not believing in myself, was too strong to ignore. So I carried on working as a co-ordinator and after that told myself that becoming a buyer was the next best thing. That was where the money and security was. In 2013, I got my first job as trainee buyer and then the following year got promoted to a junior buyer. When I was finally promoted to full a blown buyer, I decided that I needed a big change. I was feeling trapped and stifled in Durban and so I moved to Cape Town in 2015.
Moving to Cape Town
I moved into a little granny flat in the southern suburbs and that is when it all started to change. It was the first time living alone, which meant spending a lot of time by myself. I was listening to my inner thoughts more and watching a lot of Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday(my brother had told me about it and I decided to give it a go because I had always loved Oprah). I was starting to unpack different parts of myself which started the long ass healing journey. One of the main things that kept popping up, when I was watching all of those inspirational video’s, was one question. “What would you do if you had nothing to loose and had all the money in the world”. It took me some time to get to that answer. I had a trip to Thailand with my friend and I decided to use that time to think and get some clarity. Before that trip I also decided it was time to upgrade my camera and so I bought an entry level Nikon D5200, I had been using a Nikon Coolpix at the time.
I remember it clearly when the answer came, we were in the hotel room in Phuket and I said to my friend “ I am going to travel to every single country in the world”. I came back home inspired. I printed maps of different parts of the world and pasted them all over my wardrobe doors. I wanted to look at them every singe day and dream. As another friend always says to me in Zulu, “Ukuhamba, ukubhona”. Loosely translated “To travel, is to see”. A seed was planted.
The full answer to the question: “What would you do if you had nothing to loose and had all the money in the world”, came much later. The answer was, “ I want to travel the world and take pictures for a living”.
House in the bush, Thailand. 2015
Many many Islands, Thailand 2015
View of the wineland’s while at Delaire Graff Estate in Stellenbosch. Cape Town 2016
Opportunity to Travel
Author: Paulo Coelho. When you want something, the whole universe conspires to make it happen.
As long as you believe it will, that is the trick. Calls started coming in, my brother offered to take me to see different parts of the world and I also had some opportunity to travel for work. I started to feel closer and closer to my dream. I took every opportunity to take pictures and I could see I was starting to get better and better. A friend offered me a job to take images for her business. It felt like a small hint, saying, yes you are on the right path.
Spent a day exploring Venice Beach in Los Angelas.2018
Image taken while I was visiting the British Museum. 2018
Street photography in Rome, February 2019
The Planning
The dream was getting louder and louder and one day I decided I was ready to take the leap. I wasn’t happy in retail anymore and it was no longer feeding my soul. It was time to put together an exit plan. I created a spreadsheet of where I wanted to go and how much it would all cost. My decision was to explore Southeast Asia. I watched all the You Tube channels ( my favourite was The Budgeteers) and read all the blogs I could find. They really helped when it came to putting a plan together. I learnt how to find cheap flights by using Skyscanner, how to search for accommodation by using Agoda and so on. I used all that information to create a budget for the one year long adventure into full time photography. I was finally able to hand in my resignation in May, 2019 and I was due to leave the following month. My first stop was going to be India.
