Getting out of My Comfort Zone with Photography

A few years back, I attended a futbol match between Manchester United and Chivas. It was a great match, except that Christiano Ronaldo pretty much steamrolled over my favorite team from Mexico that night. The one sight that I’ll never forget was the enormous camera lens that the woman sitting next to me had. At first I thought she must be a great fan of the game, ready to take some action packed photos. I curiously asked her if I could look through the camera lens so I could see how powerful it was because it literally looked like a telescope. Sure enough, I could see the beads of sweat on the players’ faces. I thanked her, she smiled at me and said “I plan to photograph Ronaldo all night.”

I then looked at the crowd and saw MANY women with huge camera lenses flashing away. I thought, wow, how interesting it must feel to be Ronaldo in which all of these people are just taking photographs of him all the time. I once read a quote from him in which he said “Apart from being handsome...I think you have to like yourself. I look in the mirror and like what I see.“

I often emphasize how important it is to get out of your comfort zone in order to build character and empathize with others. I do this by trying to speak a new language, jumping out of an airplane, swimming with sharks or fishing amongst grizzly bears, but one thing that scares me, more than any of those, is to be photographed. I always wanted to do it to have content for my social media accounts but would never get around to it because I didn’t want to. Unlike Ronaldo, I never look in the mirror and when I do, I don’t like what I see. But on a recent visit to Europe, I finally did it.

My photographer, Elena (UtiFoto) looks like she could be on the cover of a magazine. I was very intimidated by her as well as the beautiful camera and lighting equipment she had, but as time went by, I began to feel very natural. She asked me to pose in a very subtle way or to look in a certain direction or take a drink of water, then she’d flash away. I was thinking, how does she know what to ask me to do? How does she know that is going to look good? The answer is, when a photographer is talented and has many years of experience, it really shows. I felt her confidence and knowledge very quickly so I stopped asking myself those nonsensical questions and just did what she said.

When I saw the photographs she took, I had this out-of-body experience in which I did not recognize the person in those photos. Was that really me? She used natural lighting that was perfect, the composition was perfect, the mood was perfect, I was very happy. She made it look easy but I’m sure it wasn’t.

The moral of the story is, for all the other introvert, nerds who would much rather sit behind an inanimate object and type away, I highly recommend you do a photoshoot. Not only will it force you out of your comfort zone, but you’ll have a lot of content to use on any of your social media accounts INCLUDING LinkedIn. I cannot stress how important it is to have a profile picture, it goes a long way to add that “human touch” when applying for job. AI is great, but we still are human afterall.

In this picture we were blessed with a great gift from mother nature in the form of a sky and ocean that reflected the soft, pastel colors. I work for a company that asks us to ‘Make others look cool’ which to me means, don’t worry about me, its all about customer obsession, I shouldn’t be spending time looking in the mirror. But when I saw the pictures, I thought of Ronaldo’s quote and I do like what I see in these pictures. I also had a renewed sense of appreciation for my photographer and others in that field. Photography involves a lot of thought mixed with spontaneity to capture multiple concepts all at once; composition, lighting and positioning to name a few. In addition to capturing those concepts in a frame, a well done photo should also elevate the subject in an artistic, innovative way.

Ronaldo was right, you have to like yourself. You have to like what you see in the mirror, or, in my case, in the photo. Thank you to UtiFoto for making this a reality.