Passion Before Profit

If I focus on what makes me happy that's going to be a ripple effect for everything else in life.

I saw a lot of similarities with photography for myself in a sense that you go outside your house, you bring your camera the same way I bring my skateboard. I interpret the world as I choose to, the way you can through your lens of a camera.

I never set out to make photography a career. I never set out to say, 'Ok this is a thing I'm doing, people are telling me I'm pretty good at it... how do I make money with this now?' I never did that because I think it's very important when you do discover that thing you love in life, don't take for it granted.

If you have a day job and have this creative outlet, don't rush to milk it. Don't rush to cash in on it. Let it come, let it happen. There's a bigger power in saying no sometimes than saying yes to everything.

If you have a day job, keep it. Don't quit your day job, don't jump into it because having that time allows you to nurture and develop your craft to what you want it to be—to not conform to a commercialism for 'is this going to make me money?'

Sometimes you do things based on merits or based on how much money am I gonna make, is this cool, is this gonna be socially acceptable . . . there's a lot of variables, but looking back I was doing this because I was just so happy to be able to walk out of my door and skate everyday.

After being younger, making some money, and experiencing that and losing it all, the idea of photography when I picked it up again was like... it wasn't about how much money I can make, it was like, if I can get by doing this thing that I love then I act like I'm winning in life.

I think everyone in this room probably has something that they love doing, regardless of anything. It's really a trip when you think about how many people in life do not discover one thing that brings the same kind of feeling that we all get in this room from what we do.