Brenda Landrum

What have I been doing? Letting go of a dream.

Many times in my life a change starts to happen. My dreams for my photography is changing. What once felt so incredibly important and I thought of and worked toward every single day is no longer the case. After a lot of time reflecting and going through several years of journal entries it became very apparent that I was focused on the wrong thing and I knew I needed to let it go. It had become a very selfish endeavor birthed out of ego and fear. The dream itself wasn’t wrong but the why I was doing it was.

I have worked toward the dream of having a Fine Art print shop that sold photography prints, calendars, notecards, notebooks, and so on of my floral and landscape work for more than 20 years. I haven’t been fully focused on this for all of those years (I was a portrait/wedding photographer, became a mom) but I could never fully let it go.

I started working on letting go of this dream last year after I had a very convicting moment that this was not what I was to spend my time on. It hasn’t been pretty. Giving up a dream came with a lot of emotions. Failure was the biggest one along with fear & anger. Questions would keep coming up as to why can’t I succeed at something I see plenty of others doing. Why can’t my dream come true? This revealed the heart of the matter in that I was so focused on the dream (people loving my work so much that they bought products so I could make money) and being upset that I couldn’t get it to that point that I completely ignored all the dreams that have come true. Those are the one’s that I should be grateful for and have been a blessing to my family. Instead I was complaining about what I didn’t have when I had so much.

There had to be a change to habits and mindsets. Habits of always thinking about new work, marketing new and existing work for sales, and the endless obsession of how to master social media. Mindsets that were driving me into creative destruction through comparison. The internet does a really good job at making you feel like you are never doing enough. The only way I knew how to start changing was to get myself to no longer participate in them. No longer going to my desk to strategize. Not posting online for periods of time. Stop telling myself that I have failed. Stop taking photos. I had to stop the mindset that everything was content for marketing which hopefully meant sales.

Photography has been part of my life since I was 18 and I don’t think it will ever fully go away. It’s how I see the world around me and appreciate all the beauty. I get excited about a little yellow rose that is starting to fade but I see the delicate petals in how they droop and curl and gently hold each other. When I see an amazing landscape with snow peaked mountains, a trickling stream, fall colors saturating the view, or just a simple gorgeous sunset I capture it with my camera. To fully admire that beauty I take photos to thank the Lord for what He created for us to enjoy.

So what am I letting go of exactly? I’m letting go of thinking that I need people to love my photography, to make money from it & that that will make me successful. Instead I’m embracing that I love photography and I love sharing what I see with others in the hope that it will bring a touch of joy in their day as it did in mine. And reminding myself that I’m already successful in what I have been tasked to do each day with the gifts I have been given.