Before photography, apart from my full-time job as a teacher, I was a presenter on a radio station. I started at the age of nineteen and remained there for ten years. I used to host five radio programs a week. Looking back, I realise I had a lot of time on my hands. Radio was both a hobby and a part-time job, something I genuinely loved. Yet I felt the need to fill my time with something else, something that would give me a similar sense of purpose and quiet excitement.
For the time being, I knew I did not want to return to radio, but I wanted something that would make me feel alive in the same way. Over the years I have learned to keep myself busy and to use my time well. Even during my radio days, I took preparation seriously. I would prepare the songs from home, listening carefully to each one and organising the playlist so that I was fully ready for my program. There was something satisfying about being prepared, about knowing that the hour ahead was shaped with intention. The thought of starting photography came to me almost casually. Before that, I used to take photos for fun with a small pocket digital camera that produced rather poor quality pixelated images. Yet I was happy to carry it around. What mattered was not the quality but the ability to capture memories and revisit them later, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with gentle nostalgia.
I remember when my mother or father would finish an entire roll of film and take it to be developed. We would sit together afterwards and look at the printed photos for the first time. There was always a sense of mystery. We never really knew how the photos had turned out until they were in our hands. There were no previews, no deletions, no second attempts. What was captured was final. I also remember when my father used to take photos on slides. Those slides would later be projected onto a wall, and we would have family evenings watching them together. I can still picture myself sitting in the dark, hearing the distinct mechanical click of the slide projector as it moved from one image to the next. I remember the beam of white light cutting through the room, the dust particles floating gently in front of it, almost like tiny stars. And I remember the quiet disappointment when the screen turned white, signalling that there were no more slides to see.
Writing this makes me smile. It feels like another era entirely. So when I eventually found myself with time on my hands, it felt almost natural to explore photography more deeply. It was not a dramatic decision. It was simply a quiet step toward something that felt meaningful. In my next reflection, I will write more about those first concrete steps and how everything truly began.
