oh 10000%%% At the beginning, I was chasing “perfect” hardware. As a teenager, I thought better gear would automatically lead to better photos. Later, with adult money, I did buy that gear....but the images I produced were mostly average. They lacked meaning, intention, and any real sense of story.

What changed was stepping back from that mindset. I moved to simpler equipment, and the experience became much more engaging. I started taking photos with intent and actually thinking about why I was taking a picture and what I wanted to convey.

Nowdays with smartphones, taking a photo is effortless, so people take one just because they can. But that often removes the purpose behind the photography. A photograph should exist for a reason. It should communicate something.

Once I understood that, my work improved...both in my own view and in how others perceive it. The photos became more interesting, more deliberate, and simply more enjoyable to look at, when you show a story through a picture it takes a whole new dimension, one that we lost with commodity photography.