The Journey
If you only look at my work, you'll miss the best part. How someone with no connections got a whole city to watch.
Honor Roll
I did everything right. The grades, the honor roll, the degree. Everyone wanted my answers on test day, and I thought that meant the world would want me too. Then I graduated, and the world went quiet. No callbacks. No interviews. Not even rejections. Just silence. I hadn't built a network, and I paid for it in years of free gigs and side jobs, watching everyone else's life move forward while mine sat on hold. I remember the day clearly. Sitting in my room, no plan, no next move, no clue. Someone who always had the answers finally hit a question he couldn't solve: what now?
The First Yes
One night the algorithm accidentally showed me my future. Photographers holding cameras like keys to every room in the city. I watched them through my cracked screen and thought: why not me? So I started messaging strangers, asking to cover their events. The no's rolled in. And here's the part that tells you where I was: the no's felt good. A no meant somebody saw my name. Somebody answered. Then a DJ named Hiram did more than answer. He said yes. I showed up to his event with no clue what I was doing, and I was terrified someone would notice. So I did the only thing I could: I shot every angle in that room. I moved like the night depended on it, because for me, it did. Folks mistook my fear for hustle. By the end of the night, strangers were pressing business cards into my hand.
Tomorrow, I Do It Again
Something in me shifted that night. I had begged the world for one opportunity, and now my pocket was full of folks asking for more. Since that yes: the Houston Rodeo, the Houston Rockets, the Houston SaberCats, the Houston Dash, Louis Vuitton talent, and concert shoots for touring artists like Sofi Tukker and Moon Taxi. Last year over a million folks watched my work. Not bad for someone who couldn't get an email back. Tomorrow, I do it again.