I promise this isn’t new age hippie talk XD Just bear with me. Lemme start from the beginning:
The last two weeks have been.. odd, to say the least. Almost every single shoot I’ve done this month failed. This is one of the times where I have a bunch of ideas that I want to try out, but they just.. don’t work. It sucks because it’s hard to figure out what exactly went wrong, or what I need to work on. I think the more I do this, the more I get critical about my work. I feel like I can’t put something out there that I’m not completely happy with.

I also thought that maybe I should quit photography. Maybe I can’t do it anymore. Maybe I’m all out of ideas.
But I think these are doubts that every photographer has, and this is when it’s really important to just push through and keep doing it. Which I’ll admit, I haven’t been doing. After ending up with 5 failed shoots, I just didn’t have the motivation to keep going. And I also neglected my blog and Facebook page because I thought that if I say it out loud, then I’d have to do something about it, and I wasn’t sure what to do.
But here I am, saying it. I’m not going to quit photography (it seems so silly that I thought that now) and I’ll persevere.

Something insane happened. A couple of years ago, when The Secret (the movie) came out, I believed in it, whole-heartedly. Over the years, things started going downhill for me and that belief just faded. Lately though, with everything that’s been happening, I find myself believing in The Law of Attraction more and more.
I talked about this before – during Brooke Shaden’s workshop (in 2013) I wrote down goals that I wanted to accomplish within a year, and shared them with the class. I accomplished all three. Then I added more goals, and accomplished them. And I started thinking that if you put it out there, loud and clear, there’s a big possibility of it happening. I’m not saying just state what you want and it’ll come to you, of course there’s a lot of hard work involved. But defining your goals, working hard towards them, and just putting them out there seems to be working for me. It seems so simple doesn’t it?

One of the smallest examples is this. In 2013, I posted this tweet.

(And shh, I didn’t mean a date. Just coffee.)

And last October, I met him. And I can’t help but wonder if I did because of this tweet. I know it might sound silly to so many people, but my skepticism is slowly fading.

Which brings me to this: one of my biggest goals for the past year and a half was to be represented by a gallery. I’ve sent out SO many emails and never heard back from anyone. One gallery (I believe it was in the UK) replied with a no. But that’s it, that’s the only reply I got. I got discouraged, so I stopped going after it for a while. Then a couple of weeks ago, I was watching Brooke Shaden’s first CreativeLive workshop, and she talks a lot in that class about getting into galleries and the business of Fine Art Photography. And I thought, you know what? I wanna try again. So I did, I started sending out email after email. Never heard back from anyone. One gallery I’ve had my eye on for a year now didn’t have an email address on the website. So I called. Which was terrifying because I hate making phone calls, especially about stuff like this. I called and asked if they’d be willing to take a look at my portfolio, and they said “sure, can you pass by tomorrow?”. I was all.. uh, YES. I didn’t expect that, I honestly thought they’d give me an email address and tell me to send an email that no one’s ever going to see. So I went in, showed them my work. And the lady I met with said that the manager wasn’t in the country, and that when he’s back she would show him my work and let me know what he thinks.
And I thought, ok so what you’re saying is that I’m never going to hear from you.. Ofc, I didn’t say that. A week later, they called me and asked me to come in. I met with the manager and he said something like “I already saw your website and your work, I didn’t ask you to come in to see your portfolio, I know I want you with us. I just wanted to meet you.”
And that is how I signed a two year contract with The Empty Quarter. I still can’t believe it. I wanna say oh that was simple, but it wasn’t. It took a long time but it just got me to think that everything happens when it’s supposed to. You’ll get what you want, if you work for it and continue to go after it, but it’ll happen when it’s meant to happen. All in due time.

And now I’m just thinking maybe I should tell you guys everything I want. From the silly stuff to the serious stuff. Cause you never know right?
So I want to do photography full time, start shooting more people and friends, learn studio lighting and incorporate that into my work, go to an Avenged Sevenfold concert, be photographed by Sue Bryce, marry Noah Gundersen, travel the world, skydive, lose weight, experiment with fashion photography, jump into a pool that’s filled with popcorn, be a Ted speaker. Ok, I could go on and on. I know some of these are so incredibly silly but the thought of it puts a smile on my face.

Last but not least – here’s another image from my second shoot with Fiona earlier this month. Check out the first one if you’ve missed it here.

 

I have a shoot planned for this weekend and I’m so excited but also kinda nervous because I reeeeeally want it to work! Keep your fingers crossed for me ❤

2014-2017 Events Thoughts amani alshaali art gallery brooke shaden challenge conceptual photography dark art fears fine art photographer fine art photography inspiration law of attraction photography photoshop photoshop edit the empty quarter the secret thoughts