In China, It is said "personality makes your fate". Is it true? Let me analyze myself from my hobby - photo shooting.
I bought my first DSLR camera in 2009. What role do my personalities play in my hobby since then? In the early days, I couldn't even manage to press shutter, however, years later my friends encouraged me to make a living from writing travel journals and taking scenery photos. And I don't shoot any portrait photos until very recently.
Pessimistic
I believe I have been pessimistic since a very young age.
My grades for mid-term and final exams in the first year of primary school were always 100 (full scores for maths and Chinese), but when seeing the homework of second-year pupils I was worried that if I could ever get passed when my time came. After getting enrolled in an elite middle school, my worry was only strengthened by more strong competitors. Although I was sometimes ranked among top 6, my fear of scoring low always haunted me. The enrollment into Fudan University with waived exams also couldn't make me cheerful, because I couldn't help imagining that I could get too nervous to get decent scores.
In 2009 when the idea of learning photoshooting first popped into my mind, my first reaction was: how could you do it with so little sense of beauty? don't waste money! So it was the photograph books that I first bought, not a camera! Only after I understood the basics of the book, did I make my mind to buy my first DSLR camera. A few months later, I made a trip with my friend and only found myself not able to press shutters. My friend criticized me: "You can't do it well at all!" Though emotionally disagreed, I admitted to myself: "See? you sure can't do it!" The next year I happened to know that it was due to the lens installment issue, not my skill problem at all! However, it had been a while by then since I had put away my camera.
My pessimism consumes my confidence, gives up hope, and wastes time. As a result, my unlimited possiblities diminish. More important, it consumes a lot of my energy that could have been used for many other things. If not have been pulled back by my curiosity, I would have given up my camera long time ago. But to be fair, because I do preparations more than enough to ensure 'getting passed', the results usually turn out alright.
Curiosity
If pessicism were all I have, I couldn't have gone too far. When God close a door for me, he also open a window: curiosity. One thing I learned from piles of piles of homework at schools was: There is always an answer to every question, which has given me all the necessary clues. The key is "Where is it? and how to find it?"
“Why the colors of my photos look so different from the ones of photographers although we use the same camera model?" My curiosity made me bury my nose into Google search, books and photo shooting class offered by SONY photographer, MR. Qianli Zhang. When curiosity prevails, my pessimism can't survive.
Unfornately my curiosity doesn't always sustain. During my years in primary and middle schools, there was always one answer to each question or only one BEST answer. For a really long time, my world was ONE Dimensioned and LOGIC was the only path. So alrighty! The incorrect colors of my photos were due to camera's incompetency to calculate light exposure. Manual control of aperture, shutter speed and ISO can solve the problem just fine!
However, when MR. Qianli Zhang told us: "you can't get a good photo without moving around! try a few shots at one site!" I couldn't make sense of it at all! In 2015 when I saw a video taken by Mr. Zhang in Canada about shooting stone statues in the sea, I finally got it. He demonstrated a vast variety of photos by taking at different times, using different shutter speeds, angles, and focal distances. AND there was NO the-best-shot!
About all the places I travled to, the people I met and books I read, I used to think I understand them all. But now I'm thinking: can I read them from another angle? or from many other angles?
Introvert
I didn't share any of above personal feelings with anyone before. No one knows about my fear either. According to psychology, this is called "introvert": get energy and power from inside and tend not to know strangers, and rarely talk about themselves first (I took MBTI personality test four times in the past 15 years and the result always showed as "introvert"). Before I turned 35, my introvert behavior was: unwilling to get to know strangers, solve problems by myself, not express/talk about my feelings. It would take me a deep breath to make an approach to a stranger. Even with a volcano inside my heart, my face still shows as a quiet lake under mist.
As you can imagine, I rarely discuss about photography with friends who share the same hobby. In photograph parties, I was always listening and watching the whole time and came home without getting a new name for my WeChat group. Now I realized how much information resources or tips I might have missed. So naturally portrait shooting is a challenge for me. Thinking upon getting aligned with time schedules with others and comforting models if I get no good pictures, my interest of portrait shooting vanishes. The scenery on the other hand, never complains, no matter how long it takes me to shoot or how ugly my photos are.
My long-time friend, Lily was a real beauty. Her modeling income during college could support her fashion outfits sufficiently. Since she moved abroad many years ago, we didn't get a chance to travel together until two months ago in Angkor. Our friendship has reached a level called "communicating with blinking". The stunning portrait photos just kept coming out from my camera! It was the very first time I enjoyed co-creating with someone else.
My curiostiy asks me: can you co-create with someone else?
My pessimism replies: probably not?
So what has my personality defined? future possibilities, style and potential achievements?
If I don't like the the limitation my personality brings, what can I change?