Hey steemians, I'm new here

Hi, my name is Samuel and I'm here to share my photography and knowledge to the community.

My journey started in 1990 in Geneva, a city at the end of a lake with a big water fountain. When I was young I used to draw castles and spaceships, I didn't wanted to become an astronaut and I soon realized that being an architect was not my cup of tea. I also crossed firefighter of my list, as I did enjoyed building up little scale models of cities in the chimney of the apartment and setting them on fire.

I grew up with artists parents, my mom was the idealist, the utopist, on the contrary my dad was the pragmatic, analytical and pessimistic. She worked as a teacher, he worked in IT. I remember playing one of my first video game on Windows 3.1, Prince of Persia (what a nightmare). Soon enough I was rail-gunning people in Quake, building up heavily armored outposts in C&C Tiberian Sun and trying to wrap my head around Simcity.

That's when I found out about map editors (in Warcraft and Starcraft, and then later in Counter Strike), I was fascinated by this ability of changing the game. It led me to get an interest in 3D and influenced me to enter art school.

Art school was a revelation for me, I discovered a world and people who were just like me. I studied graphic design and interactive media design, I worked in different companies during my studies (something you can do in Switzerland, you spend 50% of your time at school and the rest in a real job who also teach you practical things) exploring various mediums (photography, web design, 3D, sound, video etc...).

I ended up landing a job as a 3D designer in an agency and worked there for international brands, it was very stressful but also very rewarding and I learned a ton. Eventually the crazy rythm affected me and I did my first burnout in 2014.

I gave myself some time, worked for another smaller company for about a year then went back to the same agency (what a stupid move) only to realize I would burnout again if I stayed. And one evening in 2015 after a really bad day at the office I went to the Botanical garden and shot a series of images that would completly change the path of my career.

The few images I took instinctively that day ended up being shared on various blogs and websites, an editor contacted me, a camera brand got in touch... And at the end of 2015 I was starting a long term project to do a book with those images, I got invited to become an ambassador for Fujifilm and I landed my first client. Three months later I dropped the agency and started working as a freelancer.

It wasn't an easy ride, the first year I got very lucky with finding a few clients quickly and doing projects after projects but then life came into play and my dad got admitted to the hospital around December 2016. And because one thing usually come with another my mom was at the same time in hospital as well but for psychological problems.

I had my father dying and my mother turning crazy (to the point were you don't recognize the person, the very soul who gave you life and raised you). I had to balance between the two, visiting them both frequently. On February 14th 2017 in the middle of the night I received a call, I woke up still groggy and joined my grand-mother and uncle, we walked to the clinic and they make us seat around a table, there was a few plants, I remember the coffee machine, my father was gone.

Photography is all that I had left at this moment, and the project of turning images in a book. I let the rest of 2017 take me with it's current, I kept working, doing projects, earning money by myself. The loss was my fuel, he was so proud of what I was doing and I wasn't gonna let him down. At the end of 2017 I finished all the images of Botanical, my first book, it got published in April 2018 by Hoxton Mini Press. It's dedicated to him.

I do my best to teach what I know to other people, to let them realize that it's possible to do what you love, to help them on their journey. I'm still struggling with depression from time to time, staying motivated and keeping a structure isn't always easy specially when you don't have colleagues, an office or a boss.

I'm not sure how to end this text, I'll just say thank you for reading and that I hope we'll all make each other grow.