Once You’ve Started, You’re Halfway There

I captured this image last week in Portland, OR on my iPhone 16 Pro. I rather like it! You don’t always need fancy gear to make a nice photo. Sometimes that little camera in your pocket is all it takes!

When I started photography, I knew nothing. This is not an exaggeration - I literally had no idea what anything meant or how anything worked on my camera, other than pushing the button to take a photo - you can call me Captain Obvious if you want! I knew nothing about settings like aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. I didn’t even know how to change a lens for a long time, because I only had one, so I never took it off. In fact, I was a little afraid to do so.

I was a bit like Arya Stark learning how to use a sword. All I knew was that you have to “stick them with the pointy end.” Or in my case, aim the camera at something and press a button. That’s honestly about it.

I had no background in photography, no training, and no experience with anything other than a point and shoot or a disposable Kodak film camera (which is essentially a point and shoot too). I started at the absolute bottom. And I think this helped me quite a lot, because I had a “beginner’s mind” for a very long time. Everything was new to me, and everything was a learning opportunity.

And I tried to learn as much as possible, in every situation, and in every way imaginable. I read blogs, I went to meet-ups and talked to other photographers, I read magazines and books, I followed countless photographers on every imaginable social media site, I took a lot of photos (IMHO that’s the best way to learn) and all of that. I was a sponge, and I dove in head first. 

I wanted to be competent in this craft, and everyone I knew, or talked to, or followed online knew SO MUCH more than I did, and honestly I felt overwhelmed and stupid. Who was I to try and learn all of this?

But what I didn’t realize at the time is that just getting started is the biggest step. I didn’t let fear and incompetency hold me back. I just got up, went out, and tried to make a photo. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, so I didn’t have any real fear about it. I had tons of self doubt, but no real fear, so I just tried stuff. I failed most of the time, but eventually failed less and less and now and then made something halfway decent.

It turns out that this works.

There are lots of variations of the saying “once you’ve started, you’re halfway there” and I truly believe it. I think the biggest hurdle we have to clear on our path to improvement in any subject is just getting out of the starting blocks. We have to take that first step. Nike has made billions of dollars telling people to “just do it”. That’s the same thing.

This is why when asked for photography advice, I often say something along the lines of “experiment ruthlessly”. Just try stuff. Take a picture of anything you want, whenever you want, however you want, and experiment with all sorts of modes, settings and all that stuff to see how it works. Nobody is judging your results, except for yourself. Nobody is paying attention, honestly, because they are all busy worrying about their own stuff. So just go for it. 

Go take some photos, try all sorts of editing approaches, experiment ruthlessly, and you will not only find what lights you up, but you will figure out over time how best to achieve the results you want. You will improve, and you will learn so much that at some point you will look back and be glad you took that first step.

Just do it.