Lesson Learned #25 - The Answer is Forwards

A Skiing Analogy

For anyone who has ever stood at the top of a ski slope wondering if you’d make it to the bottom alive, you may have asked yourself - Why the hell did I come up here the first place? I’m going to suggest that starting a commercial photography career - especially now - can feel just as intimidating. The best way down is leaning into it.

Something you learn right away, for those of you who’ve never skied, is that while leaning back in an attempt to hit the brakes may feel like the natural solution, it’s the last thing you want to do. Somewhat counterintuitively, leaning into your skis, allowing yourself to ‘fall’ down the mountain, is what gives you control over your skis while leaning back usually leads to careening down the mountain.

Never fully convinced of this fact, I finally experienced it first hand several years ago. I was with a great instructor at Taos Ski Valley who taught us how to give in to this falling sensation. We must have been going over 30 mph but somehow I felt, for the first time, that nothing could knock me over. It was exhilarating and I promised myself to try and replicate this thrill with my work. It has often occurred to me that a creative career is built on a premise similar to skiing down a mountain; you need to lean forward, if you hold back you’ll no longer be in control of where you’re going.

There are many reasons why you might want to slow things down; fatigue, fear, anxiety, self-doubt - or sometimes there’s a worry that changing when things are working well will lead to disaster. I can promise you, and this is decades of experience talking here, things will change and if your work doesn’t change, the ski patrol will be dragging your sorry frozen corpse down the mountain and sending the bill to your loved ones. Just kidding, but hopefully you get my point.

There’s a Kierkegaard quote, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards”. There won’t be much worth understanding (or pictures of yours worth taking or looking at) if you don’t move forward. Of course, taking stock every once in a while to see if you’re skiing down the right slope is a good idea, but once you’ve committed to the way down, lean into it. Creative answers are not found by leaning backwards.