Practicing low-light photography and finding my way back

I love photography. When I was a kid, I used to secretly take my dad’s heavy analog camera, take photos with it in hiding, save all my monthly money to buy film, and then pay to get the photos developed.

Now I’m an adult, and that passion is still with me. I spent years focused on making money and dealing with life. I eventually earned enough to buy good cameras, but I didn’t have the time to enjoy photography the way I did when I had nothing.

Now the situation has shifted. Since I quit my slavery job, I finally have both the time and the camera, but not much money for extra gear. Still, I think this is actually a good place to be. It feels closer to how it all started. I can enjoy taking photos again and feel young in the process.

Recently, I realized my Adobe subscription included three months of free access to LinkedIn Learning. In my situation, that felt like a nice gift and it made me genuinely happy. I’m not sponsored to advertise LinkedIn and I don’t necessarily appreciate all of their courses, but I did find a few photography and editing courses that were genuinely valuable. I want to be clear about this: I really enjoyed the photography courses by Ben Long. Photography comes from inside him. The way he explains things is so fluid and creative.

What stayed with me most was how he teaches to see. His approach to observing the world changed my worldview and the way I observe everything around me. It didn’t just improve my photography, it changed how I experience my surroundings. I no longer see the world as dull or repetitive. Now it feels full of hidden moments that reveal themselves when you pay attention differently. His calm confidence made me believe I should return to photography again. Concepts that once felt intimidating now feel approachable.

Anyway, enough about Ben.

As part of rebuilding myself, I’ve been practicing low-light photography. I’ve taken hundreds of photos over just a couple of sessions. At first, I felt a kind of fear even touching my professional camera. Now with practice, that fear is fading and the quality of my photos is improving.

I go through all the photos carefully. I delete most of them and keep maybe 10%, and from those, I select a few to edit using the techniques I’ve been learning. Below are some of the ones I like the most:

I’ll keep going. I feel like I’m slowly getting closer to my potential.

For me, life is about getting closer to who I can become, not following the path I was taught was the only way to succeed. Some of the things I used to believe about life path don’t feel true anymore. To me, life is where the joy is and I think money follows naturally when the work is alive.

I would rather live with less money and more joy than have so much money but feel dead inside and see the world as a gray, dull place just to survive.