I’m taking a new direction in my life. Having always been captivated by seeing how artists do what they do, I’m starting a journal to document and share this new creative endeavor with you.

I would like to begin by sharing the short story of when everything changed. Or at least, that’s how I like to think about it.

It was a cloudy Monday in the middle of December 2020, when I was still living in Houston, Texas when I surprised my wife with her Christmas gift. Yes, two weeks before Christmas. I bought her a bulky second-hand Canon camera because she wanted to learn photography. Now, if you have the opportunity to ask her about that camera, she would tell you: “I barely touched it. I’m still waiting for my Christmas gift!”. She is right. I was fascinated. I monopolized that heavy old Canon after that day and made it mine. And yes, I still owe her a present — a big one.

Everything changed after that moment. It didn’t happen abruptly but slowly. Click by click. Photo after photo. In the following months, I started absorbing everything about photography. I even got a new camera, lenses, and more gear — yeah, I also fell into that trap. Photography became an obsession.

This enthusiasm took me to the point where I am today. Leaving my old professional life behind and taking a new direction — a new, unknown but exciting path. You can say this is a midlife crisis —I’m 40, if you don’t know— but it’s not. Or maybe it is. I don’t care. I’ve been struggling during the last few years, looking for “something” I didn’t know what it was until now. Thanks to that “stolen” gift, a new world was revealed in front of me.

Photography is a vast but exciting world with infinite paths. I don’t know which one awaits me, but I’m sure I will carve my own. I’m far from being a “good” photographer, and my work right now is average at best, but every creative person has a beginning, and this is mine.

I want to document my journey and share everything along the way. Seeing other artists do their craft, study their creative process, and watch how they get from point A to point B is fascinating and insightful. I find it extremely helpful. I hope you do too because that’s what I intend to do here.

My website and this journal will be the main outlets to show all my work, discoveries, and learnings. I plan to share bits of everything on social media platforms —you can follow me there, too— but I encourage you to do it here and join me on this adventure without all the noise. Think of it as a letter from a friend — an intimate window into my images, experiences, travels, and much more.

Expect the following content on a weekly basis:

• updates on my work and projects: new images, stories, behind-the-scenes, etc.
• brief notes on different aspects of photography: composition, post-processing, printing, photobooks, etc.
• and lots of other photography-related stuff worth sharing: articles, books, podcasts, exhibitions, documentaries, etc.

I hope this journal helps you to learn something new, feel inspired, or more importantly, enjoy photography.

Thanks for coming along on the ride.

Until next week,
Ruben