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I turned 45 today. It’s the optimal age for a mid-life crisis, the rite of passage that everyone in their 40s is obligated to go through, lest you be thought an asshole. I caught a whiff of it a little while ago and was strapping myself in for landfall, but as of today, it dissipated with only a warning. Time will tell if I’m a late bloomer, but for now, I look back on my life and career with no self-reproach. It is not because I am satisfied with where I am now (I never am), but that a plethora of aspirations illuminate a giddy path forward.
Forty-five also marks exactly twenty years since photography morphed from a hobby into a profession. This decision resulted from the delusions of grandeur afflicting mainly amateur photographers. My ignorance of the medium was so vast that I fancied myself a wunderkind and embarked on this career path with zero hesitation. There was no set plan, and I had no idea how one makes money with photography outside of shooting weddings, but I started calling myself an artist, photographing my friends in the nude, and overusing the word "flâneur." It was a blissful time.