The Lifestyle Reality

The creative life isn’t romantic. I need to say that upfront because I think there’s this idea floating around, on Instagram, in artist documentaries, in the way people talk about “following your passion” that choosing art is some kind of beautiful rebellion. And maybe it is, in moments. But most of the time? It’s choosing to print on a Saturday night while everyone else is out living the life you’re supposedly documenting. It’s explaining, again, why you can’t “just take a photo” for free. It’s years of being misunderstood by the people closest to you.

But damn, I wouldn’t trade it.

I think back on the last twenty-plus years of making photographs and how many things I’ve missed. Trips. Parties. Family gatherings. I will miss things, that’s just the truth of it. Weekends, PTO, all of it gets funneled back into the work. You learn to stop apologizing for it, or you stop making the work. There was no in-between for me.

The lifestyle means skipping weddings for exhibitions. Eating ramen to afford submission fees. Spending holidays editing instead of celebrating. It means explaining to family, people who love you, who genuinely want the best for you why you’re “still doing this photography thing.” That conversation never gets easier. You just get better at holding your ground while it stings.

It means solitude. Hours alone with your thoughts and your work. Long drives to locations nobody’s heard of. Longer nights processing film while the house is quiet and my son is finally asleep. The creative life is mostly you, your vision, and the willingness to stay committed when no one’s watching. I think that’s where the real work happens, not in the gallery, not on the feed, but in those quiet hours when you’re just you and the work, trying to get it right.

And it means financial instability. Feast or famine. Three print sales in one month, then silence for four. Learning to budget like an accountant while thinking like an artist. The cognitive dissonance is real. I work in financial services during the day. I know how money works. And still, the artist’s economy operates on its own logic, one that doesn’t care about your spreadsheet. The day job isn’t something I’m ashamed of, it’s what makes the art possible. It funds the film, the silver, and the exhibition fees. The real question was never whether to have a 9-to-5. It was whether I’d let the 9-to-5 be an excuse to stop creating.

I remember so many nights printing in my home darkroom, which was really just a bathroom turned into a makeshift print lab. It was a scene. I was printing 20x24 silver prints in my bathtub. It’s laughable now, but I was using what I had. TV tray stands holding the chemistry trays. The smallest fold-out table I could find was wedged against the wall. I was squeegeeing prints on my bathroom mirror. Those were the days.

Printing until two or three in the morning, prepping for an exhibition, silver gelatin prints drying on the rack, my eyes burning from the fixer, knowing the alarm was set for seven because I still had to go to work the next morning. You don’t get a pass from your day job because you’re chasing something bigger at night. You just learn to run on less sleep and more purpose.

And it’s not just the late nights before a show. It’s the discipline to get out and photograph when you’re not inspired. When you don’t feel creative. When the last thing you want to do is load a holder or drive somewhere with your gear. Those are the moments most people quit. But I’ve learned that being consistent and just showing up, even when the spark isn’t there, will eventually lead to something. The photograph happens during the preparation. You can’t plan for the moment, but you can be present enough to catch it when it arrives.

Because here’s the thing: if we stop creating, we lose our voice. Whatever that idea is that you’re supposed to put out in the world, that thing only you can say, it atrophies if you don’t exercise it. Silence becomes a habit. And the world doesn’t get what it needed from you.

So the point is this: make the work. Always make the work. Make the work when you don’t feel like it. Make it when you’re unmotivated. Make it when it’s inconvenient. Figure out ways to pay for it. Legally, of course, but just make it. Eat the ramen. Pick up the extra shift. Do whatever you have to do to keep the practice alive.

And the more you make the work, the work you are destined to make and put out in the world, the more it rewards you. Not always in money or recognition, though sometimes that comes. It rewards you with the satisfaction of understanding why you have this God-given ability to make art. It starts to fulfill the purpose of why you’re here, what you have to say, and how you’re meant to impact others. That fulfillment is something no paycheck and no amount of comfort can replicate.

But here’s what they don’t tell you about this life.

The first time someone cries looking at your work. I’m talking about a stranger standing in front of a silver gelatin print of my son, and something in that image unlocks something in them. The email from someone you’ve never met saying your photograph changed how they see themselves, or their son, or what Black fatherhood can look like. The moment a museum says yes, and you realize the work has found a permanent home beyond you.

That’s when the sacrifice becomes molecular. It gets into your bones. It stops being a choice and starts being who you are.

The creative life chose me before I chose it. I think that’s true for most of us who end up here. I still work my 9-to-5. I’m not writing this from some studio loft where I quit everything and followed my dreams into the sunset. I’m writing this as someone who still shows up to his day job every morning and then goes to work again, on the art that won’t let me rest. This path is harder. It’s lonelier and more uncertain when you’re carrying two lives at once. But it’s mine. And I wake up every day knowing I’m building something that couldn’t exist without me. The Little Black Boy series, the wet plate work, the editorial assignments that take me to Ferguson or into the archives of a freed man who was sentenced for owning a book, none of that happens if I let the day job be the whole story.

Gordon Parks said the camera is a weapon against poverty, racism, and all manner of social wrongs. I feel that. But I’d add: it’s also a weapon against your own silence.

To anyone considering this life, it will cost you. Relationships. Security. Sleep. Normalcy. The version of yourself that fits neatly into other people’s expectations.

And it will give you purpose. Autonomy. The profound satisfaction of making something from nothing, of standing in a darkroom watching an image emerge, or sitting with a camera knowing that everything about this moment is deliberate, intentional, yours.

I wouldn’t trade it. Not for comfort. Not for stability. Not for understanding. The work is the point. The lifestyle is the price. And some of us? We’re wired to pay it gladly.