You Deserve to be Here
Imposter syndrome, gatekeeping, and claiming space in the creative world
My heart was pounding. Limbs like jelly, mind racing, body shaking with nerves. By a series of chance events, I’d landed a job that felt so far beyond my capabilities it was terrifying. After a night of restless sleep, I arrived to set and immediately wanted to run away. The sheer scale of this production was staggering; fifty crew members humming around like bees, huge trucks of equipment being unloaded, security listening intently to their earpieces. I felt like a child trying to look grown-up, my ratty backpack of gear a laughable contrast to the sleek cases of expensive equipment belonging to all the seasoned crew members who clearly deserved to be there. But not me. I was too small, too “green” to deserve to take up space here. I felt like a child playing “photographer”, my bulky camera too heavy for my still-learning hands. This was all a terrible mistake.
This wasn’t the first time I’d felt this way on set. Every job that is slightly out of my comfort zone initially makes me feel undeserving and small. Other photographers know more, have more experience, have better equipment. In contrast, I use film, an antiquated medium not known for its crispness and frighteningly unreliable. My favorite lens is a used 70-200 I found on eBay. I don’t have an agent or a studio or a coffee table book or or or. I could go on. Yet after each of these shoots, the ones that feel just out of reach, I walk away feeling more capable than before. This constant growth and stretching is what develops your skills as an artist. You can do a thousand test shoots in comfortable surroundings with predictable light and no timeline, and while there is value in that, nothing will spur the rapid development of skill quite like a challenging shoot. Even if you make mistakes (spoiler: you will), you’ll walk away with the knowledge of what to do next time.
There’s an old Ben Kweller song I used to listen to often, and one of the lines that always stuck with me was “there’s no way to grow that don’t hurt”. As I’ve gotten older and walked through many seasons of life, I can see how this is true. No big change has ever come without a measure of discomfort. The shift into motherhood was filled with challenges and painful moments. The jump to full-time photography was wrought with mistakes and difficult moments. But what that song didn’t touch on was what comes after. The lessons that stick with you. The resilience you build, the expansion of skill, the development of character. All lifelong gifts from a temporary moment of pain. The struggle is part of the game and you have to be willing to see it through to reap the rewards.
Much of what keeps us stuck is the natural inclination to remain comfortable.
Sorry, that job is too big for me.
No, I’m not ready to have kids.
This skill is too complicated to learn.
But the reality is that you will never be “ready”, whatever ready means to you. The desire for readiness is tied deeply to fear. It’s natural to worry about the unknown, the vast sea of possibilities that floats just beneath the surface of a new challenge, best and worst case scenarios tossing fitfully in a swirl of anxious thoughts. While we would all love a straight shot to success with little uncertainty, things often don’t work out that way and we are left to swim through the unknown, buoyed only by our current capabilities and a mind that is eager to learn. This is the nature of creative work.
After putting in the effort to grow, it can be easy to be possessive of what you’ve achieved. You did it the hard way, learned the lessons, so why should you share that with anyone when they haven’t done the same? But gatekeeping at best helps no one, and at worst, gives you a bad reputation. I’m a firm believer in the power of community. Freely offering advice and knowledge will never take away from you or your art, and it lifts up the people around you. If you’ve met me, you know I will willingly share camera settings, locations, lenses, film labs. Two photographers could have the exact same gear on the exact same shoot and still not produce the same images because that magic missing piece is you. Your point of view, the way you see light, your editing choices. You are irreplaceable and your vision is valuable, so try not to get too caught up in keeping everything a secret. Being a positive stepping stone in someone else’s journey will never detract from your own work, and I can honestly say I would not have gotten to where I am now were it not for the generosity of other photographers willing to help me along the way.
Remember the shoot at the beginning of this post? It actually went great, though I didn’t fully relax until I saw the images being used and the client continued to book me. I learned a huge amount from the whole experience about how to work on that kind of set and how to be more assertive, even when I’m feeling unsure. I’ve carried these new skills with me to other jobs and while the prospect of continuing this pain-growth cycle feels scary, I know it is necessary to keep reaching new goals.
Diving into the vast and deep unknown will always feel unnerving. Familiarity is not what propels your career to new levels, the willingness to challenge yourself is. Sometimes it’s a shoot that feels too big, and other times it’s a quiet inner critic warning of the “what-ifs”. But you deserve to be here, to take up space, to create. Open up to the potential struggles and welcome the discomfort; irreplaceable gifts are waiting on the other side.
There’s no way to grow that don’t hurt.