Asmartartz Photography: Goodbye and Hello

Wow! It has been a LONG time since my last blog post - bad girl!

In that time though there have been a lot of changes happening in my life, and as one of the results of these is that after lots of thinking, and fretting, pondering and cup cake eating I decided to close down Asmartartz Photography.

You know what happened after I made that decision? A weight lifted off my shoulders and I felt a huge relief!
There has been a lot going on in my life over the last 5-6 years, with a lot of upheaval, uncertainty, fear, worry, loss, new starts, endings, more new starts....... you get the picture.
Anyway in all that time and with all that going on, I determinedly stayed pushing on with Asmartartz. What I didn't realise to only very recently is how much all the other stuff was effecting my photography, my self belief in my ability as a photographer, as a business person, my courage to make a business, and make it successful.

I sat and fretted about how rubbish I was, how any moment someone would call me out and tell me how crap my photography was and what did I think I was doing calling myself a photographer? My business days where I should have been concentrating on finding ways to make the business more successful were spent staring at a blank computer screen, while the crushing weight or responsibility and worry crashed in on me. Every time I posted a photo on FB or twitter and it didn't get any comments or likes it would affirm the belief in my head that I was no good at this. I was miserable and confused and had totally lost my way.

Then I realised that I had stopped enjoying photography. I had no interest in picking my camera up, and each time I did I would have to fight the nasty voice in my head that kept telling me that I didn't know what the hell I was doing, and I was just embarrassing myself by walking around with my camera telling people I was a photographer, that all the work I had produced so far had been a lucky fluke.
I felt like I was pretending at this job, it was all a farcical façade, and my heart wasn't in it any more.

But that realisation was almost more terrifying than not wanting to take photos, because that meant if I wasn't a photographer any more, then what the hell was I? It was all that I had wanted to be when I had first started on a new photography course that was running all those years ago. The thing that had lit me up, made me feel passionate, that gave me an adrenaline rush when I managed to get 'the shot'. It was part of my identity.
The thought of just working in an office pushing papers around a desk for other people for the rest of my life with no end or other options in sight made it hard to breathe, and the walls close in.

But I have just become a home-owner and I realise that I have a responsibility to help pay the mortgage now, and if the photography isn't paying or reaping rewards then the fact that I work part -time to do this isn't fair on my husband.
So with the decision to close the business down, has come the realisation that for now I need to earn more money to pay the bills. So as work have decided to reduce my hours, instead of increase them, I am looking for a 2nd part time job to fill the gaps where the business used to be.

My husband is very supportive of my photography, and has been very patient while I have been struggling with the business for the last couple of years, while he goes off to work every day in a job he doesn't enjoy either. so it is time to support him back.
He believes in me and knows that I have other plans in the pipeline and encourages me with them, so this is not the end, it is just a pause, a breath in while I gather my thoughts together.

The strangest thing has happened though since Asmartartz has gone - I cant stop picking up my camera. I want to just take photo's all the time, and it makes me happy to snap away shooting nothing in particular, with no business to run, and clients to please, I am enjoying it.

I have started looking at it from another angle. No one has to see the photo's I am taking now, there are no expectations so I can take my time, and because at the moment I have not gone a 'genre' of photography I am shooting in, it is massively freeing to shoot whatever I want!
I am having fun and there is a little spark that flutters inside me when I pick up my camera now. I don't have to prove anything now, and I can spend this time learning and creating and enjoying.

Let's go have fun!