I often find myself over looking an image in my archives and it’s usually related to where I am in my photography journey. 

Sometimes I toss it aside because my focus that week is stock photography and I think, “That’s not going to sell.”

Sometimes I file it away because I think “That’s not what every other photographer is doing. No one will like it.”

Sometimes I overlook a photo because I forget why I started taking photographs in the first place.

I started to take photographs to document my life, my vision, my view of the world. 

I started taking photographs to document moments for my family and for others. 

I never started taking photographs so someone else would like them or so I’d fit in with a bunch of photographers I have never even met. 

So why do I find myself deciding what image is worthy based on what others might think?

Because I want to fit in?

 Because I wanted to sell? 

Because I wanted validation that my art is worthy if others like it?

That I am worthy because others like me?

What a stupid way to create art.

What a stupid way to live a life. 

This week I’ve been going through old images, wondering why I never edited them. I’ve been picking treasures out of my digital folders, editing and saving them.

These images may not be treasures to anyone else, but to me they are everything.

To me they are a link to what is most important, to the moments I knew I’d want to remember in the future, not the moments I hoped someone else would say they liked too.