Pictures

One paradox of being the photographer in the group is that you don’t have that many pictures of yourself. Even this picture is of my best friend and not me.

It’s been about several years since I started taking pictures of friends and acquaintances. At first I was proud at having taken lots of nice pictures of my friends. But then I realized how much of a toll it takes sometimes to be the only one taking pictures. Especially if you’re not getting paid to do it.

Instead of fun pictures here and there, it somehow became forced. And the quality of my pictures suffered too.

I had already taken on that role of photographer. And I genuinely liked taking pictures. But it was starting to suck for lack of better words. I needed to figure out what my motivation was.

So I started to limit my picture taking and learned to be more in the moment with my friends and family. It improved my relationships and my pictures started coming out better. My inspiration and motivation was back.

This picture attached is the most recent one and she was one of the few people to remind me to just have fun when I hang out with her. And make sure I wasn’t caught in that vicious cycle of trying to get a perfect photo while losing focus of what matters.

So for those who are the photographer of the group, just know you’re not alone. And it’s good to set boundaries and just enjoy moments without taking a picture. And for the others, please appreciate your photographer of the group and take some pictures of them too. They’ll appreciate it!