The Projects I Was Already Making

I’ve always been reluctant to say, this is what I’m working on.

Projects felt like commitment. Commitment felt like pressure. And pressure? Pressure felt like failure waiting in the wings.

I thought if I declared a focus—said this is my thing—then I’d have to see it through, deliver something finished, something worth showing. And if I didn’t? Well, then I’d have proof of failure. Something traceable. Something I could point to and say, I didn’t do it.

So for a long time, I didn’t commit. I just wandered. I shot what I saw. I followed light and feeling and curiosity without needing to name what it was or where it was going.

But today, while sifting through thousands of photos I hadn’t looked at in ages, I noticed something unexpected.

There were patterns.

Little strange, quiet themes. Recurring ideas. Fleeting obsessions. Weird visual threads running through the chaos. I hadn’t meant to build anything—but I had. Unintentionally. Unconsciously. Silently. Without pressure, without planning, without permission.

Turns out, I’ve been doing projects all along.

They’re not polished or traditional. Some are odd. Some are beautifully niche. But they exist. And more importantly—I like them. There’s joy in seeing them form like fossils in the dust. Tiny time capsules of thought I didn’t even know I had.

So today, I’ve decided—maybe I will lean into them. These weird and wonderful ideas. Not with some grand announcement or strict plan. Just a shift. A quiet yes. A willingness to follow what’s already growing under the surface.

That’s how most of my work begins anyway: unnoticed, unspectacular, but steady.

Will I stick with it? I hope so.

Now that I’ve said it out loud, there’s always the risk I’ll lose interest. But maybe that’s okay too. Maybe the point isn’t to finish. Maybe it’s just to follow the thing for as long as it wants to be followed.

And if I forget the project for a while, or change direction altogether—well, chances are, I’ll still be making something without realising it.

Just like I always have.