I suppose I should christen this site with something, at least. For those seeing this blog for the first time, my name is David, and I go by Dralnah online. I have a myriad of interests, most of which span audio and video formats, including video games, film, streaming, tabletop RPG, making youtube videos, and most recently, photography. I’d sit down and read more if I was able to cut out more distractions, but as soon as I do that I find myself wanting to sleep. Incidentally, this blog and website are dedicated to my photography pursuits.
I really do love the way that media can evoke emotions within us. Everybody interprets them differently, but I really do appreciate how much effort goes into making something do that, whether it’s making someone laugh, or cry, or remember their loved ones, or unlock some memory they’d forgotten long, long ago. I love seeing the little glimpses those pieces offer into the minds of those who made them, what they believe in and want to tell the world. I’m also a fan of simply documenting things as they are for future generations.
I work as an estimator for a plumbing company at present. White collar work is fine for me, but the work I currently do is uninteresting to me and there’s no real room for upwards growth where I’m at. That being said, looking for a job is difficult as well: I have very few contacts given that I grew up in a lower-class family and am a first generation college student, I’m a bit of an introvert, and I live in a rural area without many friends. Online job boards are largely unhelpful if not infuriating (take a look at all the jobs that use “engineer” in the title when they have nothing to do with actual engineering), and if I do find something interesting they’re not looking for a man 2 years out from college with no real engineering experience or qualifications, or the job posting is an hour plus drive away on a good day.
Despite managing to make it through getting an engineering degree, I’m still struggling to find a job that I’d be happy with, and have been rejected at least once by a lot of major corporations for entry level positions that I could learn in. I’m thankful to have the stable job I do, but I want to move on, and have been exploring a few fields for that.
I’ve thought about going full-time content creator occasionally, but it takes time and a lot of energy to build an audience and an income, and a lot of my energy goes towards work or interpersonal relationships these days. The income can be fickle and tiny, as well, as I’ve seen with several friends of mine who’ve gone down that path. I still want to make the odd video, but I’m not sure it’s a viable career path. I also don’t live in an area with a film scene, so unless I decide to move, I doubt I’ll be finding a decent film job, aside from maybe a freelance editor position.
Needless to say, I’m rather frustrated with myself and the state of things. I feel like I’m stagnating.
I picked up my first camera (a Nikon D3500) about 9 months ago, after Thanksgiving 2022. I was streaming very regularly for several years, and picking up a camera seemed like a reasonable way to upgrade my setup since I had the income to cover it. On a whim, I tested out the photo functions, and ended up learning that I was looking at the world in a different way than I usually do, with more attention to detail. Once the winter months passed, I found myself taking the camera out with me to work, to photograph the vibrant flowers and streets around the bland office I worked in. I started getting more serious, and on a whim put in a lowball bid for a Fujifilm XT-4 I saw on eBay before my trip to Ireland. I ended up falling in love with the camera, and nowadays I try to shoot at least once a week between my other hobbies.
I decided after my trip to Ireland that I wanted to seriously build a portfolio for myself, so I started doing just that: I dusted off an old Raspberry Pi (a full computer on a single circuit board) that I had laying around, started editing RAWs of old photos I liked, and threw this website together after a week or two of frustratedly figuring out all the intricacies of WordPress.
So, here we are, I suppose.
I tend to focus more on nature pictures than anything else, as that’s what I have the most of to photograph around the area I’m at, but I really do want to explore other types of photography. I’ve also been traveling a bit more in order to take pictures, both because there’s plenty of amazing shots to be taken without going very far from my house and because I really do need to get out more; the sedentary lifestyle of white collar work is really getting to me, both physically and mentally.
This blog website is to stand as both a space for my portfolio, but also as a space for my ideas to flow out, to talk about my photos and the stories behind them, and maybe to expound on my life a bit as well. Ideally, I’m able to fund a bit of my life from this sort of work, although I don’t expect it to take off as my main source of income; I want to set up a place to sell photo prints of my work in the next few weeks. I want to start making pictures people would want to hang up on a wall, fine art photography I suppose. I’m in the process of slowly making youtube videos about all sorts of topics related to video games and how I feel they can be considered high art (not all of them, obviously, but some) and evoke a lot of emotions of their own. I’ve even had someone approach me and ask me if I do real estate or wedding photography and videography, which were fields I hadn’t even considered before.
I have a lot of questions about the direction my life is going, and I’m constantly afraid of making a bad choice and turning down a wrong path, even though I know a wrong path doesn’t really exist. I’m not anywhere near deciding to take photography on as my sole source of income, but I’m going to continue to do this for fun and hope that I can make some money off of it, rather than expect it to make me money.
If you’d like to support me or have suggestions, just leave a comment on here, or check out my YouTube, or ask about getting prints of my photos done so I can get off my lazy butt and actually set that up. You can tip me via Ko-Fi at the moment as well, although I urge you to please take care of your own needs first; I have a full-time job and am not in any financial peril by a long shot.
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