This is a story I want to share with the hopes of possibly inspiring who are feeling discouraged from whatever they're trying to pursue or the path you're trying to go on seems like it ended especially when it's a creative path.
Ever since I was about 11 years old, I always thought I'd be taking on a career as a musician. I would spend hours and hours in my bedroom practicing my guitar just wanting to be the best guitarist in the world. I eventually started playing in a few cover bands playing local shows near Annapolis, Maryland.
In high school, I started writing songs with other people and started a band called August In One. We recorded a few songs, played a lot of shows, and competed at the Anne Arundel County Battle of the Bands in 2012 where I won the "Best Guitarist" award and in 2013 where we won third place.
After I started to going to college, August In One broke up and I spent a year trying to find new people to play music with. It took about a year to find full blown line up for the latest music project I was a part of called, Yours Ever Truly. Not only was I doing guitar, but I also decided to take on lead vocals.
Things were going extremely well! We recorded a single at professional studio, played a ton of shows opening up for bands like Saving Abel, recorded an full album that ended up on Spotify, Apple Music, etc. and even got to be on 98 Rock's Noise In The Basement.
Sadly, Yours Ever Truly broke up after 1 year of being together. I tried starting up another band but it seemed not a lot of people wanted to take it serious. I tried changing my major to music so I could still do music but I hated being graded on music and wasn't enjoying it at all.
I felt the music door closed for me and I remember feeling extremely lost because music was really I knew at the time.
Lets roll it back when I was 13 and started doing photography on a little point and shoot camera. I started to take photos of my friends, events, shows, etc. just because it was something that was fun for me. I stopped around 17 when the band started getting serious. When Yours Ever Truly broke up that summer of 2016, I decided to get back into photography and bought a Canon DSLR. I took that camera with me on a day trip to New York City and I rediscovered my love photography. Ever since I decided that photography was the thing I was going to pursue from now on.
I started learning the basic rules of photography, binged watched Peter Mckinnon's Lightroom and Photoshop tutorials and applying it to my own work. I take my camera everywhere, I take as many photos as possible, and I post on my Instagram almost everyday. This has lead me to get a job as a photographer at Towson University's store, a wedding in October, working with brands, and other opportunities.
That music door may have closed for me but the photography door has opened wide for me and I am very happy right now.
