Alvin Soon

In Kyoto, the light was failing me, or maybe it was the other way around.

It was day six of my assignment, and I had nothing. I’d walked the old capital for hours, camera in hand, trying to capture the spirit of old Japan. I’d shot hundreds of frames, rickshaws, temples, autumn trees, but all of them felt lifeless. I kept pressing the shutter anyway, hoping to salvage the day.

The critic in my head grew louder with each missed shot. Who do you think you are? They actually paid you to come here? You’re going to disappoint everyone.

It was my first travel photography assignment, something I’d dreamt of doing for years. But now the images I’d imagined making were turning into a different kind of image: me coming home with insipid photos, my sponsors furious, my credibility dissolving.

Maybe I shouldn’t have tried at all.

I’d always been someone who’d stayed close to what I was already good at. Things that came easily, that let me feel smart from the start. Growing up, I’d absorbed the idea that talent was a birthright. You either had it or you didn’t.

You were a math person, a creative person, a musical person. Or you weren’t. I was afraid to try new things, because trying meant possibly failing, and failing meant proving what I feared most. That I didn’t have it in me.

Psychologist Carol Dweck calls this the “fixed mindset”: a belief that abilities are fixed and failure sets one’s boundaries. But she also describes something else: the “growth mindset”, the idea that abilities can be expanded. That failure isn’t a verdict, but a lesson.

I wasn’t sure if I believed it. But photography became an experiment.

At the beginning, it seemed to confirm that I was, indeed, hopelessly untalented. My photos came back from the printer blurry, underexposed, and boring.

But I kept going. I devoured books, took courses, wandered through galleries. I remember struggling with getting sharp images – how holding the camera, setting the right shutter speed and aperture felt like juggling with glass. When I finally nailed it, I read with delight that you could use motion blur, too, to tell a different kind of story.

And yet, that evening in Kyoto, with nothing to show for the day, the voice of doubt returned. The sun was setting. My feet hurt, and I was growing hungry. Perhaps it was time I called it quits.

Then I noticed something. I’d been shooting the rickshaw drivers all day, but the daylight had flattened the images. Now, with the sun setting and the lanterns glowing, there was colour and contrast. Maybe this was my chance.

I set up near a backdrop I’d scouted earlier and waited.

The first rickshaw passed, and I pressed the shutter. It was close, but the passengers wore a suit and a dress. It didn’t evoke the old-world feeling I was after. Then another rickshaw came into view. The passengers were in traditional kimonos. The light was almost gone. It would soon be too dark for the camera to capture anything.

They came closer.

I raised the camera and snapped.

The resulting photo was grainy and slightly blurry. But it had the right combination of subject, movement and colour. It felt alive. I stared at the preview screen, my hands trembling slightly. The day hadn’t been wasted after all. I packed up and walked into the night for dinner, stomach growling.

When I returned home, the article I eventually published, “In search of old Japan”, won an online photography award. That blurry shot of the rickshaw became my favourite photo from the trip.

The award was nice, but it wasn’t the real victory. What I’d won was the experience of having stayed through the failures, through the critics in my head, through the long day of uncertainty. It gave me the confidence to take on more work I wasn’t sure I could do, including a second travel assignment. But more than that, it reminded me that learning is something you do, even when – especially when – things are falling apart.