DISCLAIMER: i am so not saying not to go to university or to study art, im so happy for those who do get in. im just saying i personally dont think i will go to university to study art and i have finally realised that going to uni for art was not my dream, it was a dream smushed into my head by the system. (i aint apart of yo system) follow your heart and follow your dreams, just try to separate whats yours and what isnt.
after not doing so well in year 12, i believed that i was set for nothing. you get this idea pushed into you from childhood, that if you don't do well in school you'll get nowhere. and i pretended not to believe that, i thought i DIDNT believe that. "i don't even care about my score' i would laugh to my friends 'it doesnt define me at all!' But when i opened that website and saw my marks, my heart sunk, i realised how much i did believe it, i realised how bad those numbers made me feel, even though i had always promised myself never to let them hurt me. 'its okay' i would tell myself 'you can still get into uni with that!' eagerly i awaited, and when university acceptance day came around, and that 'we are sorry to inform you that you did not get into your preferred course' came up on my screen it hit me like a train. I wasn't going to go to uni, i was stupid, why didn't i study harder, why wasn't i smarter. why. why. why. i tried SO hard and it still wasn't enough. i cried and cried and ate kfc and cried some more. i was so negative towards myself, so angry at the education system, especially seeing as the uni i wanted to get into looked at your scores and not your photographs! (seriously though how ridiculous is that though?)
Months passed and i was still hung up on it, i didn't get into my 'dream'. the thing i worked so hard for. What was i going to do? should i apply again? should i give up on photography? Then i started landing photography jobs in bali, i started getting noticed and getting encouraged by people i barely knew. Labels started contacting me, families wanted portraits and people wanted me to photograph their weddings. People liked what i was doing, i was starting to think 'hey maybe its true. i dont need to get into uni to be a small success'
Then one day i was talking to someone and they told me 'you understand light so well, you are technically able, yet also so creative, that cannot be taught' and it hit me so hard. i wanted to hug that person forever. Its when i finally realised i don't need university to become the best photographer, i just need a passion that cant be put out and a motivation that, even through failure or hardships, wont ever die. I dont need an institution to tell me what is a photograph and what isn't. i don't need someone to teach me what i need to do. I am an artist. i can become the photographer I want to be through my own experiences and through pushing myself to learn MY own way. sure it may be slower, and i wont get a degree out of it. but so far it has worked for me and I now know in my heart that i am able, i am able to be who i want to be without a degree, i can photograph what i want to photograph without a piece of paper to prove it. As long as i'm creating, i am learning.
“Speak against unconscious oppression,
Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,
Speak against bonds.”
― Ezra Pound
you go girl - thank you for this !
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