Becoming A Storyteller Wasn't Pretty For Me
I dropped out of a masters program and became homeless to follow my dreams.
Cliche, maybe. But, at the end of 2016, I dropped out of the teaching program at Santa Clara University and moved into a Mercury Mariner to pursue a career of storytelling. From as far back as I can remember I wanted to tell stories via writing, but I couldn't figure out the economic model, nor did I believe in myself. So, on a whim, I pursued storytelling with a camera.
Two years in, living in a van that often broke down. Photo by Dalton Johnson
Two years in the process of becoming a full-time photographer, I had one retainer client who paid me $500 a month. In return, I did one shoot a month yielding 50-60 images for social media, ran their social media accounts, wrote a weekly blog for their website, published a monthly newsletter, and drank a lot of tea. It was a specialty tea store in Santa Cruz, CA that focused on puerh tea. If you want to know more about that, ping me, it’s a story for another time.
The irony of, I was homeless. I was happy.
At the time, I did not care about money, nor did I want money. The only things that mattered to me was that I had the time to create photo essays daily, surf or climb daily, and time to think. But, I understood money was a tool that could help me live out my childhood dream of seeing the world. However, all I cared about was learning the art of storytelling with a camera, for I thought that might take me around the globe.
Outside of taking images everyday, I lived to climb and surf. Big waves and big mountains are my favorite, hence my portfolio in the beginning predominately showcased what I later found out to be called “extreme adventure”. To me, it wasn’t extreme, as I did it daily for fun.
Each day, I had a goal of shooting a minimum of one battery. Aka roughly 1,000 images a day. I took a lot of bad images, but each night I would setting on the floor of the van, upload the images as I cooked, and start editing.
Typically, these photos never made it anywhere. Occasionally, they would make it on Instagram, but mostly they just say in my archive. At the time, I didn’t understand the concept of cold emails, pitching, or the business side of things, but, again, I didn't care.
I was learning.
In fact, I cared so little I lived in this van, slept on the floor in a sleeping bag every night, and smiled. I was homeless.
I lived like this until about early 2022, then a bit of reality hit me. I was couldn’t hold down a relationship, didn’t really have any friends, and realized I should pay off my $60k in college debt that was accumulating interested. So, I started to learn the economics of photography and videography.
Prints and Books For Sale
It took me 2 years to pay off that debt.
Now, I live debt free, rent a house—for now—and create stories for travel brands with photos and video for a living. My dream of traveling around the world has happened, I’ve been on assignment to on every continent. I am proud of that. And, \writing has come back into my life.
In fact, I hope to publish my first poetry book here in a week, or so.
The moral of this story:
Live your dream, not anyone else's. You might look like a homeless person doing nothing with their life for a few years, but if you are working towards your dream does it really matter what other people think?
I did not. I don't think you should either. But, then again, if you care what I think you don't really get it, yet.
