Imposter syndrome

I still get hit with imposter syndrome all the time. Doesn’t matter how many shoots I’ve done. Doesn’t matter if someone publishes my work or tells me they love it. There’s always that voice in the back of my head asking, “But who are you to be doing this?”

It’s sneaky. It shows up in the edit, in the DMs, right after a shoot that felt amazing, before I post something I really care about. It tells me I’m not skilled enough. That I don’t know what I’m doing. That it’s all been a fluke.

And maybe the wildest part? Some of my best work has happened in those moments. When I feel the most unsure. The most vulnerable. The most human.

I think imposter syndrome thrives in isolation. It feeds on comparison and quiet doubt. Especially when you work in something like male erotic photography, where there’s no one right path and a million opinions about what it should be. You start to wonder if your way is the wrong way. If your perspective is too soft, too weird, too personal.

But the truth is the doubt doesn’t mean you’re not an artist, it usually means you are. It means you care enough to question it. To want to grow. To stay awake inside the process.

What helps me most is remembering why I started. Not for attention. Not for validation. But because I needed a way to say things I didn’t have words for. Because I saw something in people that I wanted to hold onto. Because photography made me feel less alone.

Some days I feel like a fraud. But I keep going anyway. I show up. I make something. I let the work be louder than the doubt. And slowly, that voice gets quieter.