Recently, I've been a complete and utter mess. Some days I'll be extremely happy and the others extremely low. I guess it's no big surprise or no big deal, it's just how it goes. However, yesterday *5onov gave me a 3 month subscription as an early birthday present. I couldn't thank him more really. It made me feel so happy, as silly as that sounds. (Features coming soon :])

Another good thing is, next week I'll be off to the MCM Expo in London with my friend Fraser. I'm real excited 'cos I'll be able to see ~PyroJesus which is just awesome! One day I'll bother Cosplaying haha. Last year I wore my Domo T-Shirt, though this year I think I'm gonna make my own tshirt and print on it. I dunno, I just feel like it. Might do some graphics for it. Probably not though, Procrastination always catches up with me rofl.

Now I've been sitting here in real life going, What am I doing with my life? (as you do )
The other day I took my photographs to a guy in a photography shop who was surprised, and said how good they were and that he was quite a harsh critic. I mean I don't know if he was critiquing them on my age or on my skill. So I asked him and he said he was analysing them purely on experience. He said just flicking through my stuff there were loads of ideas and concepts that he'd never seen before and that's the kind of thing that makes a photographer go far these days.

Obviously more recently there's been inspired works from my college where I have to pick out a photographers' style etc. These are purely stepping stones to get my individual work to a new level with a new level of thinking. That's how I see it anyway.

I've never really sat down and got upset about the level of work here on dA, how it's better than mine etc. I've never done that, 'cos I know in life there's always people better than you.

However, today I've been thinking of how I got here, since all these years all I've really done is drove forward clambering over obstacles, looking back but never asking how.

I started photography ages ago, I mean I've been obsessed with photographs and taking them since about 8/9. Mainly because they allowed me to escape back into my memories of my younger childhood in Mauritius.

When I was about 11 my parents got a sony 4mp and I took photographs of everything going out. More and more I'd take photographs and become extremely possessive of that camera. So much that it was on me at all times. I took pictures of things I liked to see, and dA helped me to see the things I wanted to see.

The Summer I was 13, I cut all my hair like a boy and changed dA accounts because of personal issues, I stopped photographing... and I stopped feeling things. I stopped seeing things that I wanted to see.

Taking it back up the next Spring, forcing myself to. To get me out of this horrible sticky low. Hell most of them were selfportraits but it didn't really matter. I was photographing again. I looked more at other peoples work and thought, damn I wish I could do that.

Zooming round to Christmas, both *rmlawrence and *witchlady750, in their own way gave me a real kick in confidence. Such a large kick that I think I've been living on it even now. Since then Selfportraits went down, looking at skill went up... I was taken more seriously.

But you know the best thing in the world? These past 6 months have been horrible. Up and Down constantly. Absolute hell. Though now if I look through my recent work my level of photography really doesn't go up or down. I might put up gloomier work, but it's still on the same level... at least in my eyes.

I'm going forward everyday, looking forward all the time... I'm just so glad that I've done something with my life. Something so worthwhile. Chatting with all you guys has made me a new and a real person. Even only a few replies of nonsense have made the biggest difference to me.

I'm very much an internet person, I prefer it to reality. I can accept that I guess. I find it extremely hard to mix internet and reality together without freaking out. Since taking my course in photography and my parents realising last year that I'm serious about this "hobby", I've been mixing reality and internet more and more in daily life. I'm able to open up with people in real life more and more. This is all without noticing really.

I guess that's as far as I've got. I really just want to thank all of you.

I don't really expect you all to read all of that, it's more for me I guess...
Though I did write it to explain and thank all of you for being the best support anyone can have.

I really do mean that.



EDIT: [link]
I found this journal of mine I did a while ago, which kindof... illustrates more the points I'm getting at in this journal. It was a good try at explaining, makes more sense maybe than what I've put down here.