Looking out at the sea…

This is just by way of something to decorate the walls of this post.

Joe McNally – who is fast becoming one of my favourite photography bloggers – has a piece here which I’d be hard pushed to describe. It’s a story of looking at life from the direction of a photographer who – basically – just stumbled through life without any Grand Design and ended up where he is because he is who he is. It’s a letter to a young photographer. It’s worth reading from two perspectives; the letter itself, and secondly, the comments – of which there are a large number – from readers.

Joe McNally caught my attention because of this book. He sort of works in an area of photography that I can’t get my head around, but he is a super writer (see the rest of his blog) that makes everything feel very accessible. He pops up with Strobist quite a bit as well.

Anyway. The interesting part about this is that people keep suggesting that I might like to go into photography full time. The really interesting part about this is that when I was 14 years old I wanted to teach English in French secondary schools and now that I’m 20 years older than that, I know I don’t want to teach English in French secondary schools (I know this because I did this) and no one would have forecast when I graduated DCU in 1994 that I’d be a) in Dublin b) working in IT.

Life has an odd way of ignoring the plans you make for it. And your destiny is not set in stone at the age of 19.

I’ve mixed feelings about this. I can’t see myself doing the money stuff in photography – namely weddings and football – and yet, the odds of making a living doing the stuff I love – kitesurfing and quirky little things that you’d never see coming like Newbridge silver lighthouses (for which I’ve another plan ngngngngnh)

and pianos. I haven’t worked out how to make a living out of these things yet.

The hard part is that working at something you love – particularly when it brings a load of paperwork – is hard going.

I don’t know if I have the guts to do it.