From corporate fail to epic photography win: The Luminous Journey

Welcome friends and neighbors, to the Luminous Journey.  Over the coming months, and years, I invite you to join me as I exit the corporate world, and become a full-time photographer living the RV life. 

This is a big, scary life change, and I’m going to need tons of help from all of you.  There are so many things that I’m just bursting to share with you, I really don’t know where to begin.  I’m thinking for this first post, I’ve got a couple goals in mind.  The big one is to show you a bit of who I am and where I come from, the other is to give you a taste of the type of photography I love to do.  Here we go!

The biggest question I have to deal with is why?  Why would I leave a secure job in the tech world paying me six figures to do something with a complete lack of certainty, no guaranteed income, and a hUUUUge chance of failure?  To answer that I’m going to have to go back in time, so you can get to know the type of person I am.

Istanbul, Turkey

I grew up in one of the most hectic and crowded cities in the world, Istanbul, Turkey. I suppose you could call little me something like a non-conformist, but sassy-pants would probably be more to the point.  I just always felt like a square peg in a world of round holes, there just wasn’t ever a place for me to fit in.  I did well in school, although it wasn’t really my thing either.  The only subject that really interested me was English, mostly because it opened doors to music and film and other arts which I wouldn’t have had access to if I could only speak my native Turkish.  

Now, my family wasn’t part of the upper crust, so to speak.  My father owned a construction business that was quite successful when I was growing up, but sadly he lost it during the recession that hit Turkey right around the new millennium   Because of that I didn’t really have a lot of opportunities to travel through my high school and university years.  Learning English was my way of, sort-of projecting myself out into the world, of experiencing new cultures and just exploring.  Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to complete my master’s degree in Madrid either.  That was my first venture out into the wider world on my own, and one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.  It was also through English learning that I met my devoted assistant, his words.  I’m sure I’ll spend more time talking about him, but for now it’s enough to say he’s an American man, the love of my life, and a necessary partner when hauling around all this gear.  All this is to say that I’m sort of a born wanderer, it’s hard for me to stay still for too long. 

When I came to the US, I needed to work just to pay the bills, and I was lucky enough to get a great job in the San Francisco tech scene, which paid weeeeell more than I needed.  The great thing is that it allowed me to make some investments that are going to be very helpful in the next stage of the journey, /more on that later/ Downside, soul crushing grind  just left me exhausted at the end of the day, with really no optimism for the future, nothing to look forward to.  Every day I was searching for a way out. 

My clearest outlet has for a long time been Photography.

Joshua Tree National Park, California

Like a lot of people out there my interest really elevated once smart phones became a thing.  So I always dabbled, documented, tried to find the beauty that’s out there.  I was often told I had a good eye, and of course when you get complimented on something it tends to motivate you to do it more, so I upgraded my equipment slowly but surely, and then a big moment happened:  I discovered the world of light painting, and my mind just exploded right out of my head.  Once I was able to get it back in there, I sort of became obsessed.  Fortunately my partner also loves travel, because when the weather was warm enough, we would travel most every weekend to find a destination with a subject that we could play with.  We would spend hours in the pitch black, playing with combinations of camera settings and light to get a shot that would make us go “ooooh.”  At that point, that satisfaction was the only goal. I didn’t earn anything from it, or even try to.  I just loved the way it made me feel alive after a week selling my soul to the corporate devil.  I loved it so much that I started taking photography classes, bought a new camera, and really started to think of myself as a photographer, even booking some jobs at events like film festivals, opera galas.

I guess I’ve reached a point where I don’t just want to get by anymore, this life is so short that I can’t bear to waste another moment of it doing something that doesn’t make me excited to get up in the morning.  So I’m rolling the dice. 

We have enough savings to get us through in the short to medium term, and my husband is doing what he can to keep some income coming in.  So about 6 months ago, I quit my job to pursue my dream.  The goal is to hit the road, to walk the earth, and put my unique stamp on all the places I pass through.  I’d like to build a visual collection like nothing anyone has ever seen, using photographic techniques to electrify and upscale the already dizzying amount of beauty that exists all over the place.  I’d like to do that  with YOU, and I will need YOUR advice to get there.  There are so many of you that are already living the RV life, the content creator life, the artistic, free, YOLO life.  I want to join that community, to add to it and be sustained by it.  My first request is that you take a look at some of the pieces of art I’ve already been able to create, and let me know in the comments what your reaction to them is.  I’ll have many more tasks for you in the coming videos, but this is a great one to start with.  In no particular order, here are some of my favorite pieces.

My next post will be more detail on my grand vision for what this transition looks like, then a look at what I’ve been doing to get my photography career off the ground, followed by a look at the equipment I use.  Soon after that, and I can’t wait for this, I’ll bring you along on one of my night-time photo trips.  You don’t want to miss it, so find the subscribe buttons on my Youtube channel, so I can really consider YOU a passenger on the Luminous Journey.   I’ll see you soon.

—>Watch this on YouTube by clicking HERE.