Do what you love!

by wassim msalmi (Tunisia)

Making a local connection Tunisia

Shares

this success story of me that I thank you very much for being a great mentor of it. I live in one room, my older brother and my mother at my grandmother's house. my father sold our land that we should build a house in just to get his revenge from my mother so we ended up in a house with three alcoholic uncles that ruined my life event I could not going make it study in my childhood and living in the poor house with a broke mother makes it even harder for me to succeed in my academic life. So in 2013, I worked as a dishwasher in a night club that it could "la villa" I can not forget that place because it makes it hard for to me succeed and teach me how tough life is at the age of 17 years old. in one day I was hanging out with my theatre friends, one guy that seats in our table bright out his camera and i asked him gently "can I see it?" and he was more than welcome to give it to me and i fell in love with it instantly I was looking at the camera like that's my key to succeeding in my life and i did not love working as a commis de cuisine and a dishwasher so I worked for 3 months to buy my first camera and my mom helped me a little bit and I bought it and quit my job at the restaurant and i was always that awkward guy that walks with camera on his neck and promoting my self photographing every one for free then I take their contact and tell them that I'm a photographer if want one in your event just let me know it was a little bit hard in the begging and I kept studing online with google online marketing and facebook blueprint program and the open univesity free cource and i kept studying over youtube I learned to be a photographer, video editor, and a filmmaker through youtube and throught Casey Neistat channel he helped me a lot with his ideas and advices and helped me learn english and i had a full videomaking gear but i did got stolen by my prevous work manager and i only could save is my camera body canon 6d mark ii and i was about to comited a suicide but art saved me going though it and started to have my own bussines that do photo video services to people and now i try to rent the gear to work in the end I'm a full-time filmmaker/photographer, content creator and a social media manger that gets paied about 300 dollars a month (that enough for tunisian pay range in africa) and two time international award photographer in london photo festival and zurich photo festival and i got choosed from images from up to 100 photography festivals from all around the world with a festival that boosts over 27,000 visitors yearly and it counts as one of the biggest and most prestigious photography events in Europe and now all that I want is making my mom proud of me.