I almost gave up…so many times

Jun 7

I Wanted to Give Up 100,000 Times — Here's Why I Didn't

On 27 years behind the camera, reinvention, and why I now teach both photography and AI.

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I wanted to give up 100,000 times.

That's not a number I'm proud of, but it's true. Over 27 years, I have wanted to quit photography more times than I can count. The slow seasons. The reinventions. The moments the whole industry seemed to move under my feet. Every time, I stood at the edge of walking away.

And every time I almost quit, I learned something new instead.

That's the whole story, really. Photography changed. So did I. The two have never stopped trading places — one pushing, the other catching up. I'm still here because I kept choosing to learn one more thing before I let myself stop.

The industry is shifting — you can fight it, or learn to lead it

We are living through one of the biggest shifts the creative industry has ever seen. AI is here. It's not coming; it arrived. And most photographers I talk to are reacting in one of two ways: bracing against it like a storm, or quietly panicking that they're already behind.

I teach a third option. Lead it.

I teach both traditional photography and AI, on purpose, in the same breath. Not because the camera doesn't matter anymore — it matters as much as it ever did — but because I believe creatives deserve more tools, not more fear. Fear makes you smaller. Tools make you dangerous, in the best way.

I don't teach trends. I teach you how to think

Here's what I've learned about education after 18 years of doing it: trends expire. Thinking doesn't.

If I hand you a pose, you can use it once. If I teach you why that pose works — how it carries light, where it puts the weight, what it says about the person in front of you — you can build a thousand of your own.

So that's what I teach. Lighting. Posing. Connection. Storytelling. Editing. AI integration. Business. The camera is only one part of being a creative, and the photographers who understand that are the ones still standing in five years.

AI should not make us all look the same

This is the fear I hear most, and it's a fair one: if everyone uses AI, won't all our work start to look identical?

It will — for the people who use it lazily. That is exactly why I teach it.

Used with intention, AI doesn't flatten your voice. It expands what your voice can reach. You can create original work, build entire worlds, test concepts before a single shoot, design products, mock up ideas, and build marketing that used to take a team and a budget. The tool isn't the artist. You are. AI just removes the ceiling you used to bump your head on.

You're not "just a photographer" anymore

I want you to stop introducing yourself with that word just.

The role has grown. There is so much more available now to creatives willing to evolve: backdrops, branding, campaigns, composite design, digital products, client experiences, social content, education. You are a creative business owner who happens to make extraordinary images. The camera is one room in a much bigger house.

Once you see it that way, the panic about "being replaced" tends to quiet down. You can't replace a person who keeps building new rooms.

Why I moved from massive workshops to mentoring

I'll be straight with you: 1:1 mentoring changes people faster.

I spent years on big stages and in packed rooms, and I'm grateful for all of it. But the real shifts — the ones that change how someone shoots forever — happen up close. Small groups. Real feedback. Hands-on correction. Watching exactly how someone works in real time and catching the one habit that's been quietly costing them.

That's why I shifted my whole model toward mentoring and intensive education. Fewer people. Far deeper work.

The Baby Academy is a four-day intensive — not surface-level fluff

When I say intensive, I mean it. The Baby Academies are four full days. Not quick tips. Not a highlight reel you forget by the weekend.

You work. You shoot. You learn posing, lighting, workflow, business, editing, AI, marketing, and mindset — and you do it with your hands, not just your notebook. People arrive as one version of themselves and leave as another. That transformation is the entire point.

I know what burnout feels like. I also know reinvention

I'm not teaching this from a mountaintop. I've been flat on the floor of this career more than once.

After 27 years, I still learn. Still evolve. Still fail. Still create. That last part is the difference. Burnout isn't the end of a creative life — it's usually the middle of one. The people who come out the other side are the ones who let themselves be beginners again.

It's time to step up

Not because AI is replacing photographers. It isn't.

But because the photographers who adapt will create at a completely different level than the ones who don't. That gap is going to widen fast, and which side of it you land on is mostly a decision you make now.

So if you're ready to stop surviving and start evolving — come mentor, come learn, come create. The future belongs to creatives willing to grow.

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