Beginnings

We all need guides…teachers…mentors. Those who encourage us. Prod us. Who gently (and not so gently) lead us forward. Inspiring us to our journey.

I’m lucky. I have several.  One of which is Diana Deaver.  Diana is a talented photographer. She is regularly named one of the best wedding photographers in Charleston—no small accomplishment in a town that is one of the top wedding destinations in the country and the number one vacation destination in the world.  But she’s more than a gifted photographer. She is also a teacher and coach, whose talent is exceeded only by her generosity of spirit.  And that’s saying a lot—because her talent is immense.

I have been working with Diana for about five months now.  And it is through that work that I’ve come to create this website.

It’s taken me a while.  Mostly because I fear I’m still not good enough to call myself a photographer.  In my mind, a website somehow offers legitimacy to one’s photography.  And to pretend to be legitimate while remaining insecure around the quality of my work, has always felt a little foolish.  So, year after year, my photographs  have remained locked away on hard drives and memory cards, seen only by a handful of family members.

I was talking about this with Diana in one of our coaching sessions one day, and I asked her if she thought I was getting close to having some good images for a website.  Without missing a beat, she replied, “What do you mean by ‘close?’  A website doesn’t legitimize you.  What legitimizes you is your desire…the passion you carry somewhere deep inside to create your art.”

How true.  And how much we all need to be reminded of this.  These questions I had been asking myself— Are my pictures good enough?  Do I have the right credentials?  Do I have enough experience?—are the same questions that have nagged at me at every crossroads of my life.  Am I enough yet?  Am I strong enough?  Am I resilient enough? Do I have what it takes to make it in this world?

As Sarah Shoemaker, reminds us, “enough” and “perfect” are nonsense notions that lead to adrenal collapse and a revolt of your soul.  We are already at that place “where close and now and enough converge.”  We just have to allow it.

Diana was right.  It’s what’s inside us that makes us “enough”—whether it’s the desire to create a website for our photography, to take piano lessons when we turn 55, to sell our pottery on Etsy, or to sign up for that woodworking class we’ve always dreamed of taking.  It is the love of what we do that makes us legitimate.

And that, right there, is enough.