In 2023, my dad asked if I wanted to come along on a trip to the Azores. I said yes without thinking much about it. I packed a camera almost as an afterthought — something to document the trip, nothing serious.
Then we got there. The light, the cliffs, the way the weather changed by the hour — I found myself stopping constantly, just to look. And when you stop to look, you start to see things you’d normally walk right past.
Photography made me slow down
Running a business trains you to move fast. There’s always a next task, a next client, a next fire to put out. A camera does the opposite. It asks you to wait for the light, to notice the small thing in the corner of the frame, to be somewhere fully.
The best shots didn’t come from chasing. They came from standing still long enough to notice.
By the end of the trip I wasn’t documenting anymore — I was composing. I cared about where the horizon sat, how the shadows fell, what to leave out. Something had shifted.
What it changed back home
That slower attention followed me home and, honestly, into my work. A few things stuck:
- Better problems get solved when you actually stop and look at them.
- Editing is a skill — knowing what to leave out matters as much as what to include.
- The everyday is worth photographing too, not just the dramatic stuff.
These days photography is equal parts therapy and art for me. It’s a reason to get outside, to be present, and to keep learning something that has nothing to do with a screen. And every so often, I come home with a shot worth hanging on a wall.