“A jack of all trades and a master of none.”
Some snaps of Lisbon taken during a work offsite with NatureFinance.
As a child, my dream career was to be a photographer working with animals who also worked at an environmental NGO. Not exactly the simple answer you’d expect from a twelve-year-old, but it accurately reflected my inability to pick a lane and my stubbornness to avoid forcing myself to do so.
This stubbornness did indeed work well for a while. I found myself studying zoology at University College Dublin, running a university society that organised clean-ups and having my part-time job which was to photograph life on campus. However, once I graduated, I felt the need to try and specialise. To choose one main direction so I didn’t fall behind all my peers who appeared to have a calling to one career or another. As a result, I entered the environmental sector after completing a masters in Climate Change at Dublin City University.
The problem with refusing fundamental parts of yourself to acknowledge a smaller portion of your ambitions is that the cost tends to be joy in the work. As a result of shutting down my creative side and keeping my head down to focus on ‘serious work’, I found my passion fading. Working in the environmental sector can be utterly draining when you don’t give yourself the space to enjoy the world you are working to protect.
As of now, I am lucky enough that I am in a role with a team that allows me to continue working in a sector that I am passionate about, while still being able to work as a photographer. Indeed, I have photographed a number of events that I have helped to coordinate in my role with NatureFinance. The photos below were taken after a week-long work offsite in Lisbon. I had a few hours here and there to wander around the beautiful city with my camera.
All of this is not to say that I will ever be able to have three parallel full-time jobs at once. It is a reminder to myself and others that you do not necessarily need to forgo parts of yourself to be successful in your career. Without creativity, we won’t solve the nature or climate crises - we might as well let ourselves enjoy that same creativity in our day-to-day lives.
“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”
Taken in January 2024.
