Allow Me to Introduce Myself
I don't know why I skipped doing this for so long but better late than never, right? I want to start this off by saying how excited I am to be apart of this platform and this community in general. I've been social media for a few years now so I'm not an expert by any means but the camaraderie and warm welcome I've received so far has been nothing short of amazing.
My name is Nathanael Billings and I'm 26 years old living in a small town just outside of Seattle, Washington. I'm a professional photographer who specializes in outdoor and lifestyle photography. Basically that means I spend a lot of time working at my desk pitching jobs, editing photos, with the occasional travel. It's not a glamorous job by any means but it does mean I get to see some pretty cool places and get paid to do so. Over the next year or two, I'm working on making travel, both internationally and nationally a bigger part of my job. As the saying goes though you have to start somewhere and for right now, I'm really enjoying the process and progression of my career.
I could probably write several pages going into detail about all the events in my adult life that have led me to this point but I'll give you the gist and focus mainly on what I'm currently doing which is photography and traveling. My summer after high school I spent a year in New Zealand, traveling all over the South Island. I worked on a vineyard in the Summer and in the Winter I worked at a nearby ski field as a lift operator. Every chance I could get, I would go on hiking and 4x4 excursions seeing as much of the country as possible. This was an eye opening experience for me and drastically shaped who I am today. Taking a year to travel is something that I would encourage everyone to do at some point in their lives, especially when you're young and impressionable.
The next three years, 2011-2014, I spent working seasonal jobs in Olympic National Park in the Summer and then ski bumming in the Winter at the various ski fields in Washington. While working seasonal jobs was fun and being a ski bum was an absolute blast and one of the first times I truly felt like I could spend my life doing just one thing, it just wasn't practical. I never had money and if I ever wanted to travel or do something unrelated to being a ski bum or hiking, I just couldn't do it. So I made a hard decision and decided to restructure my life. No more snowboarding until I could find another profession that could support me. I ended up working one last summer in Olympic National Park and felt like I had a new direction in life. Hiking, backpacking, and rock climbing became a bigger part of my life again. It was also somewhere in the middle here (summer of 2012) that I was introduced to Bitcoin. Being someone that never had much money and hated big banks like Bank of America (my bank at the time), I was instantly hooked on the idea of owning my money without having a centralized entity control it. That's a longer story altogether though that I'm sure I'll get into at a later date.
By 2014, I was rock climbing and hiking more than ever before and wanted a way to document my outings. Photography had always been interesting to me, having had a film camera for a couple years when I was younger so right before a big climbing trip down to Smith Rock, I decided to buy my first DSLR... A used Canon 7d with a 24-105 F4. Almost instantaneously I was hooked. I'd felt this same feeling before while I was snowboarding and the excitement was started to build. Almost every waking hour was spent learning the ins and outs of photography: composition, light, exposure, aperture, negative space, color management, you name it.. I looked it up and soaked up everything I could. My photos were still terrible and would be for a long while after but that didn't matter in the slightest. I was willing to learn and to suck at it for however long it would take.
From the middle of 2014 until late 2015, I spent my time working a regular job, hiking and rock climbing whenever I could, and continuing to learn about photography. In that time I ended up saving about $14,000 and my partner and I had decided to head to Australia for a year. We had bigger plans to spend a few months traveling around South East Asia afterwards but that never panned out because our time in Australia was tumultuous to say the least. The last two months of our trip we found ourselves in Tasmania and by that time I could tell that my photos were not so terrible anymore. I was starting to get a little inkling that photography as a career could work. I passed 1,000 followers on Instagram just before leaving Tasmania and in my naive mind I was all set up. I would come back to the states and start my career as a photographer.
Upon returning home in late 2016 I got straight to work doing what I do best... Hiking, backpacking, and taking photos but something was missing, I wasn't getting any jobs. But I had 1,000 followers, shouldn't that be good enough? Boy, was I wrong and upon doing a little more digging I was put right in my place. Not only were my photos nothing special yet but having 1,000 followers on Instagram doesn't mean anything. I reached out to a couple people who are now my mentors who told me what I had to do. Having a large following on social media is one way to find work but since I didn't have that, I had go about it a different way. I began contacting as many companies as I could trying to find work whether it was free or paid it didn't matter. Any work I could find I took it and that ended up paying off in a big way because by April 2017 I had a decent client list and was finally making enough money with photography that I could quit my day job and pursue my passion.
After years of learning, failing, and taking as many opportunities as I could I had "made it". I put that in quotations because I still fail often and I am by no means living large but I'm doing what I love as a job and I feel incredibly blessed to do so. I currently run two photography businesses right now, my own personal one and a media company that I co-own with another photographer. Together we work with outdoor companies and tourism agencies doing social promotion and full suite media production. There's still a long road ahead and a lot of work to be done but 2018 is looking like it's going to be a great year and I couldn't be more stoked about the future.
My main goal with Steemit is to share my work and connect with other like-minded people. Cryptocurrency, photography, and the outdoors are all something I'm deeply passionate about and I couldn't be more excited to find a place where I can share all three.
If you've made it this far, I want to thank you for taking the time to read my introduction! I know it was long-winded and I'm still learning the ropes around here but I really appreciate the warm welcome I've received so far. Now you know a little bit more about me and my journey and I really look forward to getting to know yours!
Welcome man - Steemit is a paradise for great photographers like your or @derekkind (check him out)! You should visit @czechglobalhosts, he has awesome picture challenges on a daily basis! Resteeming your for some publicity! Greets :)
Oh hey, thanks for the mention! :D
Thank you so much! I've found derek and loving his photos so a far :) I'll check out that other account because I LOVE picture challenges, thanks for the heads up
Awesome intro 😀one of the best intro I have seen
Thank you so much!! I really appreciate you reading it, that means a lot :)
Enjoyed reading your post. I came here following my fellow qurite @ewkaw. We were discussing the other day how fewer and fewer people actually read a blog in this platform. Everyone is busy posting :) I liked that you took the time to write a detailed post. I sure hope you can keep up :)
Welcome!
Thank you so much for the warm welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed reading my story thus far and I'm looking forward to reading everyone else's story as well.
That's a shame fewer people are reading because there's some fantastic content here!
welcome @natebillings If all humans enjoying the beauty of nature. This world will be more beautiful. enjoy your life with travel
Thank you so much!! I agree, I wish for everyone to enjoy the beauty of nature. :)
Officially then.. welcome to Steemit :)
Thank you for the warm welcome!! I'm very glad to be here :)
Great introduction! Welcome!
Welcome to Steem @natebillings.
Do read A thumb rule for steemit minnows - 50:100:200:25 for starter tips.
Spend time reading Steem Blue Paper to know how Steem blockchian works and if you still have any queries ask them on our Ask me anything about Steemit post and we will try to answer that.
All the Best!!!
WELCOM BRO
Thank you dude!
Hey welcome mate :) you seem very interesting and I think your will shine on the platform with your content.
Thank you for the warm welcome, mate!! I'm looking forward to connecting with more amazing people like you :)
My pleasure man :)
Welcome to steemit mate :) xx
Thank you!!
Solid #introduceyourself. It was great to see some good photos along the way with your story. And like you said, there's a long road ahead, but it'll be worth the work and effort in the end.
Thanks a bunch dude! I'm so stoked to be apart of this community alongside you
Omg, you and your photos are amazing! Would love to do that things and visit that places😱😍 I love going on mountain trips and getting lost, but nowadays I don’t have so much time as I wanted. Hope you inspire me to continue discovering. I invite you to follow me, I think you could like some of my posts about trips, photography & travelling (I would be so grateful!🙏🏼)
Love from Barcelona
Aww, thank you so much for the warm welcome!! I hope I can inspire you as well, especially with you being in Italy, it's such a beautiful country! :) :)
Love your photos here !
Thank you so much!!
Your photos are so beautiful!
Aww thank you!! I really appreciate that :)
Welcome! :D
That Instagram...1000 is a big number until you get to 10,000 and even that is small compared to the 300k+ you need to actually make a decent living using your account!
I look forward to following you on here!
Thanks for the warm welcome mate! I'd say you can make a living with just about any amount of followers, you just have to get more creative in what you pitch. I have 100k now and I can say for certain that not even that is enough to live off of by itself
Welcome aboard man! I can strongly relate to your story. I love photography, and I too discovered that love from doing seasonal work in the parks. I also have slowly built up approximately 1,000 followers, and I think you can guess how much $$ I've made off that... But your story gives me encouragement! What's even funnier is just a few hours ago I did a blog post about my explorations in Olympic National Park last September. Anyway, I hope you stick around here. We definitely need more wilderness bloggers!
AH thank you man!! Seasonal work in the parks is an amazing thing to experience. So many interesting people to meet and things to do!
That's awesome you know about Olympic, I checked out your post and you went to one of my favorite areas. I could probably spend a lifetime in that park, it's so amazing.
The first 1,000 is definitely the hardest I'd say, just keep doing what you're doing and working hard at it!
Thanks for your introduction! Looks like we have mostly the same interests! 😊 Looking forward to your future posts!
Thank you so much!! I'm so excited to be here with supportive people like you :)
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Great story man, takes a huge leap to quit your job and pursue your passion. Props to you on taking that chance and making it work out really well too. You get some incredible shots bud
Thanks so much mate!! At the time it didn't feel like a huge leap but looking back, it was a big decision. I look forward to having amazing people like you follow along on my journey! :) :)
Welcome to steemit, great photos! Great summary of your background, I guess it's rough getting started in this area but glad it paid off
What are some of your favorite hiking places around the Seattle area?
Thank you!! It was definitely rough and not the easy way to go but hard work has really paid off.
My all time favorite area around the Seattle area is the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. There's so many amazing hikes in that area!
Great intro, and beautiful work.
I like how you condition the idea of having "made it."
I'd say that is a pretty darn good place to be.
Thank you so much! I felt that was an important thing to clarify because I definitely don't want to glorify myself in any way.
It's a good place to be though and I'm really grateful to be here :)
Any relation to @joshbillings? If not, and if you're looking for some down-right spectacular content to indulge in, check this guy out. I always like finding other Simkins, even if they aren't relatives, haha. Cheers.
No relation at all, but I had to do a double check because that's my brother's name! ahaha I'll check him out, thanks for the recommendation!
Welcome, man! I've always kept photography as a hobby/side gig for fear that going pro would spoil the fun, but your story is inspiring! Great intro, and looking forward to more.
Thank you dude! At first going pro did spoil the fun because there's a lot of office and business work you have to do but in my head the payoff is worth it. It's certainly not for everyone but if it's something you want to do then absolutely go for it!!
Awesome intro post and STUNNING shots. Jees they make me want to go climb a damn mountain...
Stoked to have another talented creator here on steemit. Followed and upvoted! Welcome @natebillings!
Thank you very much!! It makes me so happy that you want to go out into the mountains after seeing my photos. That's my biggest goal, to get people out and enjoying nature :)
Absolutely, Keep pushing and keeping up the great work, stoked you're sharing on steemit!
Welcome aboard Nate. Thanks for sharing with us your awesome photography!
Thank you for the warm welcome and the support!! :)
Sounds promising 😊
I'm also new to steemit and are already starting to love it. My blog will be about adventure travel and photography so we would probably have a lot to talk about if we happened to meet each other (perhaps in some camp deep in the Amazon rainforest or somewhere high up in the Himalayas)...but steemit is also ok for starters 😄
I believe that failing represents a huge part of success. I also believe that those who persue their passion with strong determination and strive for quality instead of quantity-are absolutely sure to make it sooner or later. There's a huge competition in content but not as much in consistency of quality.
Keep up the good work and see you out there !
Hey man, thank you for the warm welcome! I'm a strong believer in failure driving success as well, but sadly a lot of people don't understand that and just give up.
I hope you do well here as well!
Wow, great story you have! Thank you for sharing ! What a great example and inspiration you are of someone who manage to step by step fulfill what is truly right - and to actually live your own dreams.
Amazing. And amazing photos! I have many dreams, one was to be a singer which I actually can say that I am at this moment since that is my main income and another one is to be a photographer. But that one is still just in my thoughts. But I'm sure it will come true one day too when the time is right. That is also why It is very inspiring to hear about your journey.
What would be your best suggestion to someone who is thinking about changing his life and go for what he has always dreamed about? What would be the most important thing for that person to know?
Have a great time here on Steemit. I hope you receive everything you expect. Good luck!
Hey @puralife!! Thank you so much for the warm welcome and kinds words :) I would say the most important thing is to just do it and keep doing it. I've failed A LOT and wanted to quit but I stuck it out. I've seen a lot of people who tried to chase their dreams and when it didn't happen overnight, they gave up. It might take 5, 10, 15 years but if it's worth it to you, then you'll stick it out no matter what.
Welcome bro..
Thanks bro!
Welcome!!
Thank you! Glad to be here :)
Welcome! Keep up the good work. You will do well here.
Thanks so much @ruwan! I appreciate the support :)
Great introduction! Welcome aboard. Looking forward to reading your posts! :)
Thank you! I appreciate you following along! :)
Welcome to Steemit, it's really nice to have a chance to meet you. Your pictures look really amazing, keep up with the great work.
Hope to see you around :)
Thank you so much!! It's nice to meet you on here as well :)
Just want to formally welcome you - your images have already been appreciated here on Steemit, and I'm always happy to read about people who are going at it full time in photographer - it may not be glamorous, but you're finding a way and making it happen! Look forward to all your future posts!
Thanks so much for warm welcome, Derek! I'm so glad to be connected with you so early on. You're so right, it's not glamorous at all, especially at the start but I'm sure the both of us wouldn't have it any other way
Not any other realistic way, haha. ;)
Thanks for the detailed intro post ; nice to see that your making photography work as a career . Welcome to Steemit !
Thanks so much mate! I’m glad to be here and stoked to connect with people like you :) I just followed you on Instagram too!
Thanks mate. The community here is amazing. I have been spending less and less time on Instagram as it seems so one dimensional at the moment.
Welcome to Steemit ! I think Seattle is so beautiful. I wish I could visit the national parks, I love seeing the massive trees.