I don’t give a crap what your dream is.

I don’t give a crap what your dream is.  

Does that sound funny coming from someone who is always telling you to go after your dreams?  

It’s the truth.

Maybe your dream is to own a studio like mine someday.  I think a lot of people visit our studio for a workshop and a lightbulb goes off.  “Maybe I DON’T want a huge studio to manage.  Maybe I don’t want a staff.  Maybe I don’t want to run a big business.  Maybe what I have is enough.”  The truth is, as a teacher, I’m not teaching you to go after MY dream (although I do tell you exactly how you can), I’m teaching you to go after your dream.  You have the answers within yourself.  I just give you the tools to get there.

Maybe we share the same dream.  Great.  Maybe your dream is to have a small home studio.  Maybe it is to shoot one session a month at sunset on a beach.  Maybe it is to be a stay at home mom and blog your kids.  Maybe you want to be a Youtube sensation, an internet millionaire, a master of Iphonography.  Maybe you want to be a second shooter.  Or a hairdresser who takes photos on the weekends.  Perhaps you want to teach workshops.  Perhaps you want to photograph children’s birthday parties.  Perhaps you want to devote your time to charity.  

Whatever your definition of success is, it’s enough.  

Whatever your dream is, it’s enough.  

The fact is, we’re blessed to even have these choices.  Even if you are stuck in a career situation you’d rather not be, or your photography isn’t quite at the place that you dream of, you can still choose to be happy with right where you are.  You can learn and work on your craft just because you freakin’ like photography.  You are no more and no less of a photographer than any one else out there.  You are no more or less successful.  You are no more or less of a person.  The love we all share for photography is the same.  Who’s to judge your place in it all?  

Here is a photo I took with my Digital Rebel and a Macro Filter when I first “took up” digital photography back in 2005.  

Was I less of a photographer then?  Was I not enough because I didn’t have my 10,000 dollar camera and million dollar studio?  Wasn’t all of my potential and passion and talent already inside of me when I laid out those blueberries and photographed them for hours?   

When you come across another photographer who makes you feel like you are somehow less than them, close the screen, turn your cheek and never go back.  Choose not to look.  I gave up that type of stuff a while ago.  Drama is like crack.  Very addictive.  Pass that pipe right along sista’, we’re not into that stuff here!

I think it’s time that we celebrate each other for our different choices.  For pursuing our own paths, whatever they are.  There isn’t one way to run a business, there isn’t one way to be successful, and there certainly isn’t one way to be happy.  Anyone who tries to sell you something different is, well, just full of crap.

So, yes, I don’t give a crap what your dreams are.  I think you’re awesome anyway. 

xo, Heidi

What do you think about all of this crap?  Tell me about it in the comments below!!