“Oh wow, she’s so lucky. She got successful overnight.“
“I could never do photography. I don’t have an eye for it.“
“I’m so bad at sports. Just pass me the ball…see? I could never do it.“
“I’m so jealous of your English. I could never speak like that.“
Have you ever head comments like this from people around you?
Or maybe you have caught yourself thinking this way.
Let me break something down for you: no one is an overnight success.
No one is perfect, and almost nothing comes naturally without practice. Yes, some people may have a natural inclination toward certain things, but talent alone never creates mastery. What people usually see is the final product. They rarely see the years of work behind it.
That is one of the reasons I decided to start this site. I want to share the whole process, not just the results. I want to show how bad I was when I started and how imperfect I still am today. If that inspired even one person who has been hesitant to try something, then it will be worth it.
When I first started photography, I didn’t even have a real camera.
I used a phone: an LG KC550 with a 5-megapixel camera. I would ask my friends to pose for me in parks or on the street. I studied model poses in magazines and tries to recreate them.
Looking back, those photos were terrible. But at the time I was proud of them.
My family couldn’t afford a camera then, so I worked with what I had. After about a year of practicing, my parents saved up and bought me my first camera for Christmas when I was 15.
It wasn’t an expensive one. It wasn’t mirrorless or professional. It was just a basic digital camera.
But to me, it meant everything.
From that moment on, I carried it everywhere.
Going hiking? Time for landscape photos. At school? Time to practice portraits. Basketball games out of town? Perfect for sports photography and travel shots. I took thousands and thousands of photos.
I still have many of them today, and honestly they are far from perfect. But they represent moments and feeling from that time in my life. And judging by the fact that people now ask me to photograph weddings, cultural events, sports events, profile pictures and portfolios, I guess all that practice eventually paid off.
The sam principle applies to sports.
People often look at athletes and think it must be amazing to travel and earn a living playing sports. But they rarely think about the work behind it.
I started playing basketball when I was 13, which was already late compared to many others. Most players my age already knew how to dribble and shoot well.
I didn’t.
So I practiced constantly. I trained with my team three to four times a week after school. But that wasn’t enough for me because I needed to catch up. I practiced drilling in front of my house, and every weekend I spent five or six hours on an outdoor court practicing my shot.
In the mornings I would roller skate to school instead of taking the bus. In the evenings I went running. I watched videos, learned new skills from people on the street, and asked others to practice with me.
I joined every match and street ball game I could find. I play for my school team, a city team, and eventually I even had my own street ball team.
Basketball took almost all of my time. So when you see someone doing something well, don’t just look at the final result.
Behind every artist, athlete, writer, or photographer is a long story filled with effort, failure, and persistence.
I know because I am one of those people who spent most of their time practicing. I didn’t wake up one day magically able to do these things. I sacrificed a lot of time.
But the most important part is this: It is never too late to start. If you keep practicing long enough, you will eventually catch up.