Decisions

Have you ever had a moment in your life that you look back on and can clearly state that the decision you made at that time changed your life?

A lightning image I captured when I started storm chasing

I remember reading a story told by a guy who worked for a security company that had lent out some spare office space to another security company that had previously been headquartered in the World Trade Centre. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, this security company lost most of its staff and of those that were left some had interesting stories as to why they were not there at the time. There were a few stories, but I can only remember two, the first was of a guy who had stopped off at a cafe shop to get a coffee for all his colleagues. The second was a guy who walked to work and bought new shoes the day before, he had got blisters as he walked to work so decided to stop in at a chemist to get something for those.

 It was these seemingly mundane decisions that saved their lives, and although I can’t say I have ever been in a situation where a small decision saved my life like this, I have a few moments I can look back on and say that those decisions changed the course of my life and a couple of them distinctly photography based.

Given that I lived in the tropics, it was inevitable that I would go into storm chasing once I really started getting into photography and had my hands on a digital camera. In Australia, storm chasing sin like what you see in the US with the twister, is more about getting yourself into a good position to hopefully capture images of the lightning that a storm cell spits out on its way through. I would love to go to the US and chase storms there one day. At this time, I was working two jobs, a full time role in logistics and a part time job as a baggage handler. The part time job had good flexibility whereas the full time job did not. I was having a particularly bad day at work with my full time job and while out on a delivery run, I saw a massive thunderstorm in the distance and I thought to myself “I’d rather be changing that.” It was not long after that I decided to leave that job and pursue photography, but at that point in my life, it was only really a passion as I did not have confidence in myself.

Fast forward to just a few years ago and I’m now married with four kids and living in the UK, I know I’ve skipped a lot in the middle, but we will get there one day. I found myself once again in a job that wasn’t for me. It was about that time that my beautiful wife signed up to study at university and suggested I do the same. Initially reluctant, I eventually thought I’d give it a go as I was going nowhere in this job so what’s the worst that could happen, right? I had long wanted to work as a photographer, but never had the confidence to do so. Studying photography at university has given me confidence in my work and the ability to take photography to be more than just a passion and a bit of fun. So, from my point of view, that’s a pretty good outcome.

These are two examples where what at the time seemed like small decisions have changed the course of my life. Some decisions have instantaneous effects on our lives whereas others take time. These two stories are examples of this with the first being instantaneous whereas the second has taken some time, but both have added to my life.

I myself have benefitted from the life changing decisions of others, I never would have met my wife had she not made the decision to up and move to Australia on a working visa. If you have a story about decisions, you made that have changed your life, I’d love to hear it or other decisions that you have made that have not yet changed your life but are on the way to, I have a few of these myself.