There have been so many days in the last two years where I’ve opened my laptop and felt the weight of this industry without even picking up my camera. Not because I don’t love what I do — but because this industry can feel loud and crowded and fast, like everyone is doing something new at the exact same time, like the ground is constantly shifting beneath your feet.
And then there have been seasons where I’ve looked around and thought, does any of this even matter? Does it matter that I put my entire heart behind what I do? That I spend hours thinking about the meaning behind everything that I do…can anyone tell I’m doing that or from the outside? Or does it just look like I’m another photographer trying to do what everyone else is doing?
Those thoughts are loud and they are constant and if we’re being honest they have made me want to quit altogether more than once.
Imposter syndrome is strange like that. It doesn’t always show up when you’re comparing yourself to someone else’s success. Sometimes it shows up when you finally create something that feels deeply yours — and then you discover someone else has already done something similar. There is nothing quite like the feeling of thinking you’ve found something original and meaningful, only to feel the rug pulled out from underneath you because you realize that originality was never really yours in the way you thought it was.
It makes you question everything. Was it ever mine? Was I just absorbing what I was seeing around me? Am I contributing something real or just adding to the noise?
In a time where everyone is creating, sharing, teaching, launching, and rebranding in real time, it starts to feel like we’re all just building different versions of the same thing. And along the way the art is being lost.
What I’ve slowly come to understand in the last few years is that originality isn’t really something worth chasing anymore. It doesn’t seem to exist in this world. But honesty does, and hopefully it always will. And maybe the point isn’t to create something no one has ever seen before, but to create something that no one has ever felt before.
This industry will always shift. Trends will rise and fall, technology will evolve and shape how we communicate our art, styles will cycle back around and we will all watch it happen and try our best to stay relevant within it all.
This rebrand took longer than I expected because I cared about it and my art more than I realized. I didn’t want it to feel reactionary or trendy or timed perfectly with whatever the industry was currently doing. I didn’t want it to feel like a pivot just to prove I was evolving or “leveling up”. I wanted it to feel like an honest extension of who I really am behind the camera.
This isn’t me trying to become someone new. It’s me choosing to follow the same instincts I’ve always had, even when it would be easier to second guess them. It’s me deciding that I would rather create something honest than something impressive (but secretly hoping I’ve managed to do both).
I can’t be the only one who has looked around and thought, hasn’t all of this already been done? and felt small in the middle of something that once felt deeply personal. It’s hard to be an artist when everything feels duplicated and documented in real time. It’s hard not to question yourself.
But maybe the goal was never to be original in the loudest sense. Maybe it’s just to make something that feels true and keep going anyway.
And this is me, doing exactly that.
xoxo, Heather
