I've been shyly curious about and have partially participated in photography for the last five years. I believe my skill levels have increased, if only slightly, though any preferred topical niche within photography has been short term if at all. I remember the first time I returned from New Zealand I had next to no pictures of any of the five other people I had been traveling with and only landscapes. Afterwards I began taking a lot more portrait shots. Perhaps it was a way to balance things out. When we moved to New York I enjoyed doing that more and more despite Marielle's constant annoyance at her often being my only subject.
Our return to New Zealand brought back an opportunity to try landscape photography again. In part for planning research and in part for inspiration, I started following a lot of professional photographers specifically in New Zealand, but also in the States and elsewhere. I became inspired and eager to photograph as much as possible on our two week road trip southbound. However, I also think I became influenced rather negatively. More and more I came to internal expectations equal to those precedents I had researched before. My vastly inferior ability, lower-end camera equipment, and general lack of experience, not to mention occupation title, seemed to be forgotten as I became overwhelmingly obsessed with achieving the perfect photo everywhere we went.
At some point reality slapped me in the face, partially in the form of a good talking-to from Marielle as well as personally being fed up with my grumpy moods after unsuccessful photo outings. The thing was, they shouldn't be photo outings. They were meant to be just outings. I'm an unemployed architectural designer hoping to go back to school. In what part of my mind had that translated into professional photographer? I wasn't waking up in the dark of morning to capture the perfect sunrise, I wasn't staying up late with my non-existent shutter remote to capture long-exposure night shots. I wasn't a photographer traveling, but rather a traveler taking photographs. Yes I enjoy doing it, but the experience itself is what comes first. The few photographs of quality I have are mostly do to luck over skill and, even then, only express a fraction of what has been one wonderful moment followed by another.