28ighteen... "Hard Work"

"How did you convince your parents that you wanted to be a photographer?" 

This is a question that I've been asked a lot over the years but coincidentally have been asked this a couple times in the recent months. Since it's "Family Day" long weekend in Vancouver I guess this a good time to write about this question.

As a first generation immigrant in Canada from the Philippines, my parents gave me the typical encouragement/speech any immigrant parents gives their child. They encouraged getting a good education (as any parents should) and one word that is indented in my brain forever, "stability". They just wanted me to be, stable. Stability, something my parents worked extremely hard for when coming to this country. So, it's a little bit worrying when their one and only child decides he wants to be an "artist". I don't really have a fancy or elaborate explanation to this question of how I made it manageable for my parents to accept my career choice, but here's my answer: 

Love & Hard Work

My parents didn't understand why I wanted to be a photographer. They didn't understand how I was going to make money, why I did jobs for free, why I took the photos that I took. There's a lot they didn't understand and there's still a lot they don't understand. I could show my parents all my greatest photographs, how many followers I have, how many 'like' and comment on my photos, I could tell them all the awesome projects I've been working on but none of that really matters in terms of making my parents understand that this is what I'm meant to be doing on this earth. What my parents do understand is how much I love it, how hard I work at it, how much I am trying to make a life for myself and for my future. They just want to see that I'm working just as hard to make a life for myself as hard as they worked to make a life for me. That's all. Our parents might not understand all the jargon that goes a long with what we do but they do understand what it is to love something and to work hard. In the end, regardless of our career path, we're all just trying to do what it is we love, what we're meant here to do... we're all really just looking for... stability. - God is Love