Six years (and a half)

Well... I did it. My second year of tookapic adventure is over.

And so is my work in the store behind me.

And since I'm starting to work on having more than 1/14 of my life photographed daily, but the part about work is a definite end, I feel like telling a story. A story, that's behind this photo. ;)

I started this work on June 15, 2011 - and after two weeks in both other Cracow stores of the same network, I was lucky enough to be opening this one, unsticking foil covering that tall glass shopwindows and putting cameras to completely new shelves. I still remember the excitement about unpacking the D3s and D3x... ^^

We've built this store from the scratch, it's opinion, regular customers, the level of service and knowledge served... and totally unconventional, family-like relationship between the crew. And it all together gave us a really good outcome. After a few months, it became third best store of the whole AB Foto network, losing only to two Warsaw stores... and we kept this position till this day. Duh! I'll never forget New Year's Eve of 2012, when we fought till the end (5 p.m.), checking other stores' results... and! we! won! scoring the best sales of all 23 stores in the most important month of the year. Oooh, I came home so tired, that I've fallen asleep before midnight! We were calling our manager "Dad", buying each other small gifts for birthdays, celebrated passing two driving license exams, buying four cars and a motorbike, preparing crews to three new-opening stores, endlessly discussing politics, smartphones, even went to a wedding of one of our four... we became a family.

But... for me, it's time to move on. About two, maybe two and a half years ago, the way of managing the whole network has changed - and changed into much worse. And I don't even want to think about getting lots of additional work and working for less and less money every quarter or the way our new regional manager and bosses of the company were treating people, who earn for their salaries - I'm leaving it behind and wish them all the best. One might say, that I should've done it a year, two or even three years ago... but past is past, all we can change is the future :)

Yeah... and here is when we come to tookapic. Cause two years ago I knew lots about photography gear, but I had a camera, I was taking pictures and... that was it. For this whole time, my photography wasn't growing, I wasn't getting better.

This portal is what made me a photographer.

And I'm proud of what I've achieved here. What surprised me most, my photo was in the middle of #bestnine of our tookapic instagram. Oh! Yeah, that same @tookapicapp instagram, that me and @abladzik resurrected this Spring. I've taken some photos that I always wanted to take (like the tookapic.com/photos/489059 milky way one), had my first serious tattoo (project tookapic.com/photos/301739 preparations tookapic.com/photos/307199 realization tookapic.com/photos/307278) - and a second, way less serious, that You may have seen on #tookabirthday/#tookapic3bday photos :D

Birthday! Yeah! I cannot express how happy I was during this day in Białystok - it was like a family reunion, one of the best days of my life and definitely top of 2017. I won't write more, just people... don't even think of skipping it this year! :D

I even started "A selfie daily" paralell project, that ended after 200 days because of an error in this dumb Facebook Messenger - it was exhausting and a bit crazy, but made me more comfortable with my face on the photos (and keeps me from taking selfies since). I might have about 30-40 more selfies to upload, but the project is over.

And what makes me really happy, I started shooting film with mju I've bought for 25$. And after about 7 rolls of film, I have bought a second one and... yes, I'll try to shoot at last one photo daily on film.

I may have spent way too much time there, developing photos, writing all those dumb words that most of You skip or don't even see, clicking heart while scrolling feed. But... it's my diary. Photoblog. Calendar. My life as a photographer. And It's worth every penny, every minute spent. Being a part of this community of crazy people, who shoot photos every day... is beyond expressing in any words I know.

Thank You and goodnight, see You in 8... no, 7 hours at #tookawalk Cracow number two - and definitely not last!

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