Worth A Thousand Words

This photograph, captured in 2013, will always be special to me. It was the first of my photographs to receive a thousand likes on social media, but more than that, it taught me how powerful a photograph could be.

I took it after spotting this lovely lady sitting in the doorway of her garage. She was just minding her own business, watching the world go by, completely unaware that I was pacing up and down nearby, trying to summon the courage to ask to take her photograph. It was early in my photography career, and I hadn't yet overcome my nerves when asking total strangers to pose for my camera, especially when I had to do so in a second (or even third) language!

I was pleasantly surprised at the public reaction after I published the photograph. I was still trying to find my voice as a photographer and had yet to establish a large audience, but within just a few hours of posting it on social media, it had already gained a few hundred likes, and the count kept going up. By the following day, it had passed one thousand likes, and my inbox was full of messages asking about the lady in the image. Suddenly, her story was being told across the internet, thanks to the power of a photograph.

Today my posts often receive many thousands, even tens of thousands of likes, and I have photographed so many strangers all over the world that I have lost count. But I will never forget those early days when the nerves often got the better of me. 

In our celebrity-obsessed world, I can't help but wonder if celebrating the everyday people who make our lives better is more important than ever. I have dedicated much of my photography career to sharing the stories of the people I meet, but this photograph was the one which helped me overcome my fears of photographing strangers and the one which taught me that a picture really could be worth a thousand words. That is why it will always be special.