From Passion to Career: Dropping Engineering and Picking Up a Camera

From passion to careers… We’re seeing a growing segment of young creatives turning their passions into careers. Many are forsaking their parents’ hopes and dreams of careers in engineering or accounting; instead turning to their creative instruments to pay the bills. Photography, design, and illustration are some of the most popular options. Since we’ve been dutifully looking into photography these past few weeks, it’s only right we explore this option.

I thus turned to my friend Tony Li to get more insight into this trend. Tony is part of the aforementioned “studied-engineering-turned-creative” segment. After graduating from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, his passion for photography intensified. It started as a hobby. He collected cameras, experimented with different styles, took portraits of friends, etc… This went on for three years until he was struck by a sudden epiphany: photography, not engineering, was his calling.

In 2006, he started doing commissioned works, then in 2007 he quit his job and took up the title “Professional Photographer.” Through online photography forums, he met his partner Kevin, who had recently set up an independent studio. Tony and Kevin joined forces and re-named their studio Carryoung, which originates from a motivational phrase Tony uses to encourage himself: “Carry on to be young!”

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