It is no accident that the photographer becomes a photographer any more than the lion tamer becomes a lion tamer.
I've never not been sure that I was a photographer any more than you would not be sure you were yourself. I was a photographer, or wanting to be a photographer, or beginning - but some phase of photographer I've always been.
Photographers stop photographing a subject too soon before they have exhausted the possibilities.
I realize more and more what it takes to be a really good photographer. You go in over your head, not just up to your neck.
The visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable.
To know ahead of time what you're looking for means you're then only photographing your own preconceptions, which is very limiting, and often false.