One year 2013. Part two.

I have to make an effort to write this post. After june this year, a lot has happened and I´m not really sure how I will be able to put it down in words. But I will try :)

This is part two of my year. You can read part one here.

My school ended in june. Before the end I got the answer from the School of Photography in Gothenburg that I had applied for for the third time; I didn´t make it. This made me both angry and sad. This was the third time that I had applied, and the second time that I had been on an interview. I had been dreaming of this school for so long. Besides disappointment, I felt like giving up. I decided to stop applying for this school. I decided that I would start up my own business and ignore the fact that, at least in Sweden, you will earn more respect as an artist if you have the right kind of education. I thought a lot about this. Did I only want to attend the school because I knew it was the right thing to do? Or did I want to go there for me, to develop as an artist? Whatever the answer, I decided to ignore this school and move on. I longed for a stress free summer.

However, before my vacation could even start I got an email from a company who wanted me to do photography job. I was very happy to get this request. I was also very nervous, naturally, because I wanted to do my absolute best on this project. I spent a HUGE amount of time on sketching down ideas, preparing, location scouting, editing and so on. All to make the result as good as possible. Unfortunately this didn´t turn out the way I had hoped for. In fact, it turned out the opposite. I don´t want to go into detail, but I can say that this experience hurt me. However, I certainly learned the hard way how extremely important it is to have a good contract that protects you as a photographer, because you will never know who you are dealing with. I learned how the bad side of an industry can look, and as time has passed by I´ve started to appreciate this experience, even though I felt very bad when it happened. Hard times makes us strong people, at least if we can walk through them with our eyes open.

After the summer my doubts started to come. Was this really the right way for me? I felt exhausted. If something that I was doing made me feel so bad, then maybe I should do something else, something totally different? I thought about balance and how I have been so involved with my passion the last years that I have sacrificed things in my life, things that I would maybe need more of in order to be truly happy. I realized that this feeling was an effect of the job that I did during the summer. When things don´t go our way, it´s easy to feel like giving up and choose to do something less risky. Something safe. I didn´t think about quitting photography, but I did think of doing less photography and focus on something else. Something that I wasn´t so involved in as a person, something that I didn´t put my entire soul into. Something that was not my passion. I felt an unusual need for control and that´s why I wanted to get myself a "real" job where I knew for certain that I would get an income. To think about this felt so calming and peaceful.

As I was thinking about my future, I got a call from the School of Photography in Gothenburg that I had applied for earlier this year. Suddenly someone dropped off and left a space for me. I was in chock. They called the same day as my class would start. I hurried into the shower and then off to school. It felt absurd to suddenly be in an environment that I had been trying to get into for so long. Was I really one of them now? It took some time before I dared to believe that this was really happening. The first week I was sure there had been a mistake, and that someone would soon discover that I wasn´t meant to be there.

The last months of this year has been about changing my mind once again. It was if like a door I had closed and walked away from, suddenly opened behind me and asked me to come in. Now I´ve started to get used to the thought of being a student for three years. I´m studying for a Bachelor of Fine Art in Photography.

The minute I got into the school, I got the feeling of loosing my control even more. This year has been about realizing that you can´t control everything, and that sometimes life just takes you to where it wants. I went from something really bad to something really good. And in the meantime I´ve just been feeling confused. But I try to accept the fact that I can´t control my life. I can try my best, but I will never be sure of where life will take me. After my doubts I finally found my strength again. I finally got that feeling back that I´ve had for the past two years: the feeling of not giving up on my dream.