I’m gonna be honest. Today, I deleted some of what I was planning to post because I began questioning how I’m being perceived online.

There’s a lot of buzzwords going around these days. A lot of them bother me. It makes me think about being younger when kids would call names. Skater because of how I dressed even though I didn’t skate. Emo cause of some of the music I listened and still listen to even though I don’t understand why being emotional is a bad thing. Nerd because I wore/wear glasses. These are all generalizations based on perceived looks.

And the buzzwords I’m concerned about these days with regards to myself are personal brand and influencer.

I have no problem sharing how I feel online. I do it because I feel most people don’t do it. However, I feel that since I’m a wedding photographer I feel like I should not share so much of my personal life online regarding my wife and my stepson. I don’t want people to think I’m doing it for “branding”. And now that I’m trying to go into the world of sharing educational stuff for photographers, I’m afraid of someone calling me an influencer sometime in the future. In fact, I got my first email last week from some company saying they wanted to help me become a better influencer on Instagram after they saw my Instagram profile. I deleted the email and didn’t respond.

These are just my current thoughts I wanted to add to this post because I’ve been thinking a lot about my emotions. They’ve been through the roof the past month since I’ve been stuck in Waco with a slow wedding season.

Last week, I arrived in San Antonio to stay for a few days. And it’s almost certain that every time I visit San Antonio, I go visit my best friend at his bar. After feeling like I was beginning to lose my mind, it was nice to be there.

I was thinking about how funny it is that I used to hate San Antonio when I was young. The problem was though, that I was inviting infectious people into my life. I was going through a lot of trying to find myself. And you can’t find people to accept you for who you are if you don’t even know yourself.

While I was at the bar with my best friend, I realized how much I enjoy documenting things or people I love. I no longer can imagine living anywhere else other than San Antonio. I can’t wait to move back. A lot of what and who I love is in San Antonio, but I know that at some point I’m going to have to move past that. We all get old and things are unpredictable in life. I can’t rely on it all.

These are a few snapshots from that night. They aren’t amazing pieces of art, but they document how happy I felt visiting after being away for a month.