One of the goals that I gave myself before coming down to live here in Mexico
was to become a better photographer here.
There's an amazing amount of life, of things going on here in Mexico City.
The thing is, it's been almost three weeks now,
and I've barely taken my camera out to go shooting
street photography, portraits, anything.
And there will always be excuses,
you know, at first it was that I was looking for an apartment,
and then it was I'm trying to build my routine here,
and now it's kind of become: "Oh, but I'm focused on creating videos".
But the truth is if I truly want to get good at this,
I've got to put in the time,
I got to put in the effort.
So this week I'm giving myself the challenge of capturing
1,000 human moments.
1,000 photos basically,
that have a human subject in them.
So the requirements for this challenge,
are the fact that I've got to feel good about each and every photo.
It doesn't have to be a masterpiece,
but
the photos can't be just like quick iPhone snaps of whatever.
All the photos need a human subject,
because what I'm trying to capture is 1,000 human moments or human interactions.
And the other rule is that I'm only giving myself one week to do this.
Alright.
Let's do this thing.
So I've decided to start here in Parque Mexico.
Every time I run through this park
I see so many different things going on.
So I thought I would start chill.
Let's see how things go.
I don't think I've wrapped my mind around how many photos
1000 photos really is,
and how much time and effort is going to take.
So I'm starting chill and we'll see how things go.
This is not so much a video about photography,
as it is a video about pursuing something and getting better at it.
This is to push myself to create.
If you want something in life, you've got to go get it.
Nobody's just going to give it to you.
And starting, getting out there, is always the hardest part.
It's the barrier that separates the amateurs from the professionals.
Alright.
That was challenging.
Everyday I went to a different part of the city.
Usually in the late afternoon just as the light is getting soft.
So I found a spot I really like,
but I'm just waiting until the right moment with the right subject.
I began to love photography when I started to let go of my obsession
with the perfect shot.
Sometimes the composition is just right
and the still looks like a painting.
But usually life is messy and chaotic.
My search for perfect
often prevented me from doing anything at all.
So this week I decided to let that go,
to shoot without expectations and let things turn out how they turn out.
1,000 is a powerful number.
Out of a thousand photos, I might walk away with three that speak to me.
1000% represents a 10x or 10 times improvement.
It takes thousands of hours to attain mastery in most things.
In street photography there's not a lot of time or space to think.
If a beautiful composition reveals itself,
or if I spot a moment that I want to capture
I have to be snapping in that instant or it will be gone forever.
I learned this the hard way.
This exercise of not thinking but simply being
and reacting is good for me.
It's a break from the rest of my life
where I spend my time calculating my decisions.
There's a joy and a thrill in being spontaneous,
on not planning things out.
Okay, so today I am headed to Roma,
Which is the part of the city where
the most recent oscar-winning movie by Cuarón was filmed.
I'm really excited about it.
I think it's a beautiful area,
and I am excited to capture human moments there.
But I'm kind of racing against time because it looks like the rain might be coming.
So I'm trying to move quickly. Be able to catch some of these moments
The week wore on and despite my doubts and all the other things going on in my life
I kept showing up to do the work.
The truth is there are no shortcuts in life.
Nothing replaces patience and consistency.
All right, so today is the final day of this challenge,
if you will.
I am in a new part of the city, Coyoacán.
Or, Coyoacán, I guess is how the Mexicans would pronounce it.
This is very cool
It's a very colorful area of the city, so I'm excited to explore and take some photos here.
I'm struck by how frequently things do not go according to plan.
It's great to have a plan, to have a goal,
but really what I think is most important is to just go for it,
to try your very best at whatever it is you're after.
On my final day shooting, the sky darkened and drops began to hit the ground.
I got lucky and found a little space protected from the rain next to a spot selling churros.
Something about this spot suddenly made me invisible,
as people would come within inches of me and not spot me or the camera.
That was really cool. I stayed there for a while.
In total, I took 1,091 photos.
And with that, I accomplished what I set out to do.
This was such a cool challenge. I'm so glad I pushed myself to do it.
It was just amazing to discover the city in a new way.
To force myself to go out.
To force myself to practice photography.
Just in so many different ways.
And so if you're interested in photography,
or exploring your own city, and have a camera,
definitely give this a shot. I could not recommend it more.
For those of you that are interested to know what I use to shoot these photos,
every single shot was captured with my Fujifilm X-E3.
I have a 23mm f2 lens on there,
which equates to 35mm on a full-frame camera.
A popular focal length for street photography.
I absolutely love this camera and I'll leave an affiliate link to it down below.
But this really isn't about the gear,
and you can go out and shoot some amazing photos with your phone nowadays.
Isn't that incredible? There are no excuses left not to go out and do it.
I've created a bonus video to go along with this one
where I talk a little bit more about the experience and
share more of the photos that I took throughout this last week.
So if you're interested in that you can find that on my Patreon page.
Yeah. I hope you enjoyed this video.
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I do live streams every Sunday as a way to answer questions and connect,
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And that's also going to be a place where I'll be posting some of the photos that I took
throughout this challenge.
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Okay. Thanks for watching. I'll see you soon.