I remember when I got my first professional camera. It was one Christmas morning ten years ago. My mother and older brother had just purchased one just to have and I too wanted one just to have. I played with all types of cameras growing up, but before my first professional camera I had a tiny black point-and-shoot Casio camera which is still stuffed with mirror selfies and my first attempts at self-portraits.
I was captivated by my new camera, a black Canon Rebel T2i with a telephoto and a zoom lens. I took photos of perfume bottles, lamp posts, my family, and self-portraits—which was of much relief to the overwhelmed photobooth app on my computer. I had no real direction or intentions—just completely engrossed with the sharpness and blurriness the camera created that I took pictures of everything and everywhere.
What I didn’t know when I arrived in Paris a few weeks ago was that I had unexpectedly stumbled upon my 10th anniversary. Ten years since my first trip to Paris but also a decade now since I got my professional camera. I had no real direction with photography when I arrived in Paris ten years ago. I enjoyed taking pictures of people on the street, old churches, my friends, beautiful ceilings, and more people on the street. I made art. I stole stories from people on the street and reinvented my own. I was mostly enamored with sharing stories.
I loved storytelling before I knew it was a thing. I loved street portraits before I learned anything about them online. I discovered street style photography by accident. I didn’t think of where the pictures would go, how many likes they would get, what trends to follow. I was just a girl with a camera in her own little world.
It was also the same year I joined Instagram, but back then I only used it for editing images. I didn’t get serious about Instagram until a few years later when I got serious about sharing my photography portfolio. My photography direction begun to shift slowly as I worked to be seen on Instagram. I followed the trends: the usual brightly colored walls, flowers, instagrammable spots. Clean shots without people. The perfect plate. Standing on chairs for aerial views. I thought it made me adaptable. Soon perfection trampled all over my work. Photographs of people (which used be the heart of my photography) now ruined my clean shot. I wanted dreamy perfect wanderlust photographs–the ones that had saturated my explore feed on Instagram. The more I tried to fit into the platform, the more watered down my work would get. My images became less and less dynamic. I paid hundreds of dollars to learn how to be successful on Instagram and followed the photography classes of influencers. I bought their photo filter packages too. Peers made money off their photography. They sold prints of everyday things like doors and colored walls. I could do that too! Clean straightforward shots, pretty, and aspirational. I could try that. And I did for 8 years.
8 years of wanting to be noticed.
Until today. Today in Paris where I stumble on my old self again and the beauty I found ten years ago. It’s all coming back to me. Every corner I turn in Paris, is a reminder of who I used to be and what I loved.
I’m haunted by old self at metro stops, across the street, on a bench staring at the Eiffel tower. I didn’t know I was here to find her again. I had no idea I was here to fall in love again. To feel again. To restart.
I still love a good flower image and “instagrammable shot,” but..
I promise to no longer eliminate what I love to fit in again.
…And perhaps the restless soul of my old self may find some peace again, peace in having always been enough.
