Growing up we all have ideas about who we want to be as our lives progress. We think about jobs and careers that we might want to have. We think about things we would not want to do. And we also think about aspects of life we would choose to pursue or not.

Get married? Have children? Own a home or rent? Live in a city or in the country? These are just a few of the aspects of life we may consider over time. And there are so many things that happen in life that we might not even think of. Things that may impact us for good or ill.

It all helps to shape us into who we are now and the different person we may be in the future. Time continues to flow and we continue to use to change and grow over the course of our lifetimes.

I didn’t like school. I never thought I would do good in school. Then I eventually earned a graduate degree and pursued another. And I really enjoyed the art of learning. And I continue to enjoy learning through out my life.

I loved team sports growing up. I wasn’t particularly good at sports. Sports where I stand out made me anxious. I liked getting lost in the fray playing football. But I never thought I would be very active in sports as an adult. Then I discovered running. I would never say that I am good at running. But I am good enough. Good enough to challenge and push myself to achieve the goals I have set in front of me. I will never win a race, but I will achieve a lot of goals.

I drew a little bit growing up, but I never considered myself to be good at it. Art wasn’t a very enjoyable thing for me for a long time. In large part because I always thought whatever I created wasn’t good enough. The thought of pursue it art never occurred to me. Then I was forced to take an art course in college. Boom!!! Photography!!!

I never thought I would be an artist. Sell artwork in a gallery? Check. Publish articles and photography in magazines? Check. Sell artwork online? Check. Get paid to photograph events? Check.

I am not a hugely successful photographer. I am not even a full time professional photographer. But these are all things that I have accomplished that I never thought in a million years would be part of my life.

And after more than 20 years I still love making photographs. My love of the art of photography has inspired me to get back into other art that I used to enjoy. I started reading comic books again. And the amazing artists that till those pages inspired me.

For a long time I have wanted to try to learn to draw. And get back into drawing again. It is something I missed from my childhood. I bought pencils and drawing paper. But nothing much ever came of it.

Then I discovered digital artwork. The app I use is Procreate. The freedom to just play around and create silly things with no mess and nothing to clean up was freeing. It was easy to keep things hidden. No one had to see the work I was creating because it was all stored on my tablet. Nothing out in the open for someone to see.

But I have really been enjoying learning this new art form. I have found artists I like online. Follow there tutorials and learn more about creating art. There is so much to learn and enjoy. I even buy more tools and tutorials online to use in my own art. I never thought I would discover one let alone two art forms I thoroughly enjoy.

And now having this digital art knowledge rattling around in my brain is changing and inspiring me to as a photographer as well. I never did a lot of post processing for my photography using Photoshop because it seemed like it was more complicated than anything that I would ever want to do in my art.

I did once create a few composite images of runners that I really liked, but I have never really done anything else like that.

Now with a more detailed understanding of things like “layers” from Procreate, that are also part of the system in Photoshop I am inspired to learn how to use Photoshop more to transform my photography. I think about merging the truly creative with my more documentary style photography.

Over the years I have bought a bunch of Photoshop tutorials because they were bundled with other lessons I was interested in. The tutorials don’t necessarily relate directly to what I would like to create, but they will help be learn to use the software and develop the skills and knowledge to create the art I envision.

Now I think I will need to go back and revisit those tutorials and see what I can learn and how I can apply it to the art I create.

And the added bonus is that some of the tools I bought for art in Procreate can also be used in Photoshop. Win, win, win.

So, how are you the person you never thought you would become? And how do you think you will continue to grow?

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