When I was thirteen or fourteen, I proudly declared to my father that I wanted to be a photographer. He laughed in my face and told me that I could be anything I wanted, and that he would even buy me a twenty-thousand dollar camera. However, his last words still ring in my head to this day: “Don’t come to me when you can’t feed yourself.”
Since then, I have been struggling with possible career options, but none of them have seemed suitable. Medical doctor, neurologist, orthopedic surgeon, physical therapist: all deemed by our society to be ‘respectful’ jobs held by ‘successful’ individuals.
Reading Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild,” however, lead me to question everything that supposedly defines success: wealth, power, and resulting happiness, feigned as it may be. As a society, we envy the wealthy for their luck and purported ease of living. My personal experiences have brought me to dismiss these illusions and to realize that my happiness is my own responsibility; my success is based on my definition, not someone else’s.
I still struggle with the untruth that one cannot make a living as a photographer. I encounter numerous people on a daily basis who have taken what I was taught to be an unnecessary and foolish risk; these people have done what they loved and pursued a career in photography. None of them have regretted it, and each of them has motivated me to follow my own dream of becoming a photographer. Each of them has told me in their own encouraging way, “You can do it.” So now, I choose to follow my passion and pursue my own idea of success.
I would love to travel and capture the life of the world through my lens. I dream of photographing for National Geographic; my goal is to meet as many people and see as many places on this earth as is possible in one lifetime. I strive to learn from every experience, to connect with every person, and to share these experiences with the rest of the world through photography.
“To live is the rarest thing in the world; most people exist, That is all.” -Oscar Wilde
Links:
www.anunes.me
facebook.com/alexandra.nunes
twitter.com/aanunes
http://www.flickr.com/photos/53073316@N06/
i gotta admit.. i’m a bit jealous of your courage..
i’m a mechanical engineer myself.. but living off photography in my country doesn’t seem a little of a possibility..
i hope you get what you want and really work this out. and who knows, we might meet up one day at one place! i love meeting people and stuff like that all the time too.