Believing in your work. Believing in yourself.

It’s pretty cliché, right?

Oh, I like this little light. Look at that.

I’ve walked by this thing a million times and I’ve never taken a photo of it, but just look at how the light is hitting the text.

There’s got to be some way to make an interesting photo out of this. Altering reality, right?

Anyway, what was I saying?

Believe in yourself.

I talked to three people today at the farmers market. Super cool people.

I go to the Santa Monica Farmers Market on Arizona almost every week, and I’ve never gotten a photo there that I really like. Lots of great food, but I just never like any of the photos I take there.

So today when I walked over there, I was like, I’m just going to put my camera’s snap focus distance at three meters and fire away.

Just fire away. Get super close.

And that’s what I did.

But I was doing this because I knew that I had a purpose with the photos.

Before, I would just snap away and I didn’t really know what I was going to do with the photos. But now I have a clear goal in mind for what to do with them.

It gives me a purpose with the photos, and it gives me a way to believe that what I’m taking photos of is actually going toward something.

It puts me in a completely different state of mind than just taking photos for no reason.

Now I have a reason.

And because I have a reason, I feel more comfortable taking photos of anything and everything around me.

It puts me in a really positive frame of mind.

So much so that now, instead of just trying to be a guy observing and taking photos, I’m immersed and completely in the scene.

Instead of just taking random snapshots, I’m stopping people in the market and saying, “Hey, let me take a photo of those skulls on your shirt.”

And the guy is like, “Oh yeah, no problem.”

So what does he do?

He takes his shirt and stretches it out for me so I can get a clear image of the skulls and take a photo of it.

But when he does that, I notice he has a tattoo on his hand.

So now I’m taking a photo of the skulls with the little tattoo on his hand.

And this is what I’m talking about.

Believing in your work opens up these types of possibilities.

It allows me to build a better connection with people and make new and interesting work.

Then I talked to the guys at Lopez Farms. Shout out Lopez. Chris, if you’re seeing this, thanks for subscribing.

We were talking about photography, and he was showing me all these cool drone shots and macro shots he took of the farm.

Super cool stuff.

This mentality of believing in my work allowed me to have a nice conversation for ten minutes with Chris and the other guys at Lopez Farms.

They also have a really cool way of getting rid of weeds.

They sell rice, and they basically have hundreds of ducks that they let roam around. The ducks eat all the stuff growing around the rice, so they don’t have to use pesticides.

They were showing me these videos of golden light hitting hundreds of ducks roaming around.

Super cool video.

So just believing in your work allowed me to have a cool conversation and learn something new.

And ultimately, that might be the most important thing about believing in your work and having a purpose for it.

It’s not only about the work itself.

It’s about the experiences that you gain and the knowledge that you gain from it.

That’s probably more important than anything.

Just learning something new.

Look at that little bird.

He’s chirping away.

He’s a chirper.

Let’s see here. I have to get in old crop mode for this.

Get him right in the white cloud, you know.

Little bird.

Little bird.

I’ve got to work this bird scene.

I’ve got to work the bird scene.

All right, I’m moving on from the bird.

Got completely sidetracked.

But anyway, I think I was talking about the knowledge you gain just by opening yourself up to other people.

Because you’re more confident in your work, and more confident about why you’re doing the work, it allows you to build a connection and learn things from people you never would have imagined learning from.

Especially my guy Jonathan Lacy the other day.

I’ve been seeing him basically all the time ever since I’ve lived here. He’s always got these sticks and he’s moving around.

Jonathan Lacy taught me something.

Then the guy I talked to yesterday, I gave him a cup of ice I was done with. He was just laying around on the bench.

He taught me some things.

So this is what it means to be purposeful with your work and have a plan.

It allows us to continue learning from sources we never would have imagined.