Yo, what’s up guys. It’s Day 15. Halfway through Project.30.
Today I’m sharing a challenge I faced as a creative and how I overcame it.
And you see, one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced, it wasn’t lighting or gear or even difficult clients. I have faced them. But they are not the biggest that I’ve faced.
There was a season where I had a lot of self doubt.
The Noise Gets Loud
I kept questioning my direction. Was I too conceptual? Was I not commercial enough? Was I doing too much lifestyle and not enough of the clean work or studio work? Should I just follow what everyone else was doing?
You see, when you’re building your voice, the noise gets loud.
You see other creatives getting booked. You see certain styles trending. Certain aesthetics winning. And you start negotiating with yourself. Is it worth it?
And I think for me, the challenge was comparison.
Comparison will quietly make you abandon your own perspective.
I Overcame It Quietly
I am trying to overcome it. Or I overcame it. And I did that quietly by not abandoning my own perspective.
I overcame it by doing something simple but very, very uncomfortable. I just doubled down on what felt natural to me.
So instead of chasing trends and aesthetics, I started studying my own work. I looked for patterns. What do I always notice? What kind of moments am I drawn to? What kind of lighting feels like home?
And I leaned more into that.
I also got practical. I improved my processes. I tightened up my professionalism. I tried as much as possible to separate emotion from business. And I kept shooting.
I just kept shooting, even when I felt uncertain.
The NSG Night
There are concerts I would go to and I’m like, am I going to nail it?
I’ll give an example. NSG’s concert. I was contracted by Malembe to shoot it. And the doubt that was in me. Because by that time, I had been so much consumed by agency work.
Actually that particular day, I was shooting the Uganda Cranes in Namboole. And I had gotten so used to that because there was no creativity to it. Just take what you can take.
So I ran late. I’m disorganized. It felt like I had double booked, yet the NSG booking came in weeks before and this soccer game came in days before. So it looked like a double book. Client is asking where I am.
But they trusted me. Because for them, they saw something I was not seeing in myself.
And this was a conversation we had much later on where I told her, why is it that you were actually patient with me? And she’s like, because I knew you were going to deliver.
And I was like, what? Because if you’ve worked with me, you know I’m not the simplest of heads. I’m a very big headed person.
And so when she said that I was like, okay. She’s like, yeah, I knew you might be late. But also we were late because they were late in setup and everything. And there was a little bit of drizzle and rain. So even by the time I showed up, which was late, we had like an extra hour of nothing happening.
And so the event picked on and went on. And she knew that I was going to deliver.
When I said I studied my own work, I improved my process, she knew that before even NSG went off stage, she was going to have what to post.
Because for me, that was it. Before I left the Uganda Cranes game, I had delivered everything from pre game, during game, and post game. I had delivered to client everything. I’m on a boda. I’m rushing back because it was in Kitende. I’m leaving Kitende. I’m coming back to Hockey Grounds for NSG.
And by the night ended, I had delivered most of the work. At least 70% of the work to the client.
And that’s something I had not paid attention to. This is why I’m here.
Momentum Reduces Doubt Over Time
The more you execute, the less space insecurity has to breathe.
And the breakthrough wasn’t a viral post. It wasn’t a big contract for me. It was just clarity. Understanding that my uniqueness isn’t found by copying what other people are doing.
It’s just refining what is already yours.
That’s for me was the challenge. And the solution was not very dramatic. It was just discipline.
Right now, the other solution I have is I got a 9 to 5. And now I consider photography more of a hobby. So I have now a lot of room to experiment and try out different things and do different stuff.
So yeah, that was also another solution.
But in the time where I was doing full time photography, commercial photography, it was just that discipline. But also understanding and listening to why the people needed me on their projects.
However much I might have had all this self doubt or those small bad manners, equipment isn’t the fanciest, I don’t do lighting, I shoot natural light on your event, it was because for them I delivered what they wanted.
And for me, it was lifestyle that I was delivering.
Day 15 Wasn’t About Conquering the World
It was about not abandoning myself.
And sometimes, that’s the harder victory.
See you tomorrow on Day 16. Day 15 is done.
