I didn’t have much choice but to become a photographer.
I know, it’s a typical dream job for many, but for me it’s always been about survival.
The reality of AUDHD (ADHD + autism) is that I couldn’t sit still or focus in school, at all. Those cinder blocks, that thick lacquer paint, just the thought of it makes my hair stand on end. It did not just feel like a jail. It was a jail for my brain. My executive functioning works differently than others. I’ve learned and built systems to offset these differences, but early on, the only way to survive school was to daydream and cram. To teach myself at home. It was a disability and an ability.
Put yourself in my shoes. You’re a college student with a new autoimmune disease which you believe is from stress. You know you can’t go into the corporate world, can’t survive (or thrive) in a traditional job on someone else’s time (and anyway you hate hierarchy). You need a certain type of stimulation to be useful and productive. The way you thrive is not how the structures of our society currently work (and those structures are NOT normal by the way).
And on top of that, you were born in one of the most expensive spots in the world—a gentrifying neighborhood where your home twenty-five years later now rents for over $15,000 a month and only a couple school friends remain (Sunset Park in Brooklyn feels much closer to what the Upper West was like in my youth).
Just move somewhere cheaper, out of the city, I hear someone thinking. How? Where? I have a phobia of driving, I could eat the same thing for lunch every day of my life, never leave the boundaries of this city and still be happy. My family, my friends, my happiness, my community are all here.
Photography was the only logical choice for someone like me. After college, I assisted for a year but the chaos of commercial shoots was too stimulating at that point in my life. I taught myself to survive and eventually thrive in those environments, but it took many years and some Lexapro. And one of the most helpful aspects of that drug (besides giving me a little mania at the beginning of taking it) is that the reduced anxiety gives me much more energy. It allows me to tap into my extroverted side.
But early on, I needed to try a lot of things and work on a small scale. Over the years, here’s a variety of the jobs I’ve done:
Assistant, web designer for artists and creatives, sculpture photography, food photography, family event photography, family photography, Central Park engagements and elopements, print selling (actually a decent amount), framing and installing, ebooks (high-quality ones), writing for websites and magazines, workshops and photo tours, history guide, corporate events, corporate and creative portraits, running a photography salon, and now writing a newsletter.
One advantage of AUDHD is that while my brain can’t focus in certain ways, over the long term, if I can find things that inspire me and I can do on my own, I don’t stop working. It becomes like a hobby, down to the most annoying parts of running a business. Add that to the terror of survival here, and I haven’t stopped going since my twenties.
When I began, the mantra was, “I’ll do anything but large weddings.” Weddings were also too stimulating for my brain, which has a tough time dealing with crowds, lights, and sounds without the help of an alcoholic drink or two, which is how I survived personal events. The irony is that I really enjoy those places, but they overload my senses.
But I figured I could handle corporate events. The camera acts a bit like a shield in those environments; they’re calmer (for the most part), and you get to sit in on fascinating topics. You never know… one minute you’re heading to what you think is a boring insurance industry conference, and the next you’re listening to intricate plans for climate change disasters.
Duh, it clicks that few are more versed in climate change than insurers. Of all the ways I expected to be terrified that day, conceptually was not what I had in mind. Suddenly you’re listening to a panel on hurricanes, a disaster governing session (talking about sea level rise in New York), heat, floods, fire—one presenter’s job is to build and burn down a home each week in a warehouse in California.
It’s interesting how one of my biggest weaknesses has turned into a strength. My natural ruminating on other people’s emotions apparently makes me good at capturing smiles at events. While I couldn’t focus in school, for some reason here I can hang on people’s every word, waiting for the slightest chance of a joke to make the most boring rooms look lively (but don’t worry, I still space out a decent amount). Usually, when a presenter speaks, they tell jokes at the very beginning, so it’s important to be ready.
I judge people by their sock choices. And I’m not a fan of the dress-shoe/sneaker hybrid; they feel tentative, noncommittal, lacking confidence. I’ve seen enough things where I no longer get anxious, but there’s always something. One time, twenty minutes before an evening event in a super dark location, an attendee told us that we couldn’t use flash or we’d give her a seizure. You can’t plan for it. I have to tell that stress to chill out constantly still, but I mostly enjoy being there now.
September is corporate event season, as is the rest of the fall, and I just survived a huge grind with many weeks of twelve-hour days in chaotic environments. Stretches such as 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., editing until 1 a.m., then coming back the next day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., editing until 1 a.m., then finishing off from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
It’s not glamorous. It’s a craft, not an art. It’s a physical and mental grind. But I believe stopping to remind myself to enjoy the experiences is what sets me apart these days. It’s not always easy to do, but if you can manifest that enthusiasm, people will notice.
I got my autism test results back two weeks ago, and while I never had any doubt, they confirmed it. It’s a fascinating experience having someone interview you, watch and record everything you say, and comment on it in a report. It’s like witnessing a psychiatrist’s internal monologue about you. They even gave a computerized test. Just listening to the interview questions helped me understand so much more about myself. Yes, I hate hierarchy, yes I can’t handle small talk, yes bright lights in grocery stores and all the stacked choices stress me out, yes I have trouble in bigger groups. Every indicator was there.
There were a lot of things I was average at and a few below average at. My simple attention was in the 34th percentile and the examiner noted that I made that part of the test tougher on purpose because of the boredom, whereas complex attention was in the 92nd percentile. But the coolest part was my psychomotor score, which is a mix of internal pattern recognition and physical coordination. I wanted to do well at that, as it’s always been my life, and I clicked those keys and matched those patterns till my body heated up and I started to sweat. I got the 99.9th percentile.
Some of that is natural, I was always an athlete and video game player and that’s where I survived my youth with obsessions when I hated being anywhere else. But a lot of that is trained. I’ve spent my whole life training this skill and now in my job, with shooting, editing, writing, it keeps that part sharp (it’s a skill that starts fading in your twenties).
But the absolute best part about that number is how much I’ve been able to annoy my wife with it, asking if she’s happy she married someone with such a high psychomotor skill. (She decidedly is not, and after two weeks of fun I have to stop making that joke or I’ll be divorcing someone much smarter than me.)
I was always confused about my type of intelligence. I constantly jumped between feeling stupid, average, and exceptional. Now that I’ve learned this, my understanding is that I have a fast brain; I talk fast, write fast, think fast, see exquisite patterns everywhere, but my comprehension is normal. I struggle with comprehending as much as anyone. Reading the same book as someone else, I might notice some patterns that aren’t there but I’m not going to understand the story any better than the next person, and often I’ll be going too quick, or spacing out, so I have to reread constantly. I credit my type of intelligence much more to trauma than anything else, to be honest.
I’ll finish off by giving a recent example from this summer, and please don’t take anything here as trying to brag. It’s actually quite the opposite. One of the things that comes with autism is a significant rejection sensitivity. I learned from the test that while I understand expressions correctly, I also see the neutral expressions as more negative than they appear (I was in the 21st percentile on this part). Ever since reading that I’ve been working to calibrate those thoughts, since my sensitivity to expressions is apparently a little extreme.
I snagged a job this summer for a soccer tournament, which I can’t name directly, with nine other local photographers. It was a good chance to compare myself to my competition. While being there was a bit glamorous in name, the reality is that the job itself wasn’t at all. It paid okay but not great for the long hours, nearly twelve-hour days on your feet, and I was a glorified photo booth, although meeting people was fun. (The real benefit was that I got to watch the games live. Although I still had to stand.)
They set up this crazy AI recognition system where immediately after taking someone’s photo, you could FTP it with a personal hotspot to a server from your camera, where editors would do a quick edit. A person would scan a QR code, take a picture of their face one time, and get access to a page where every good photo taken of them for the rest of the tournament would be uploaded.
Early on, I made the decision that I would be the fastest responder to emails (I had a stadium client that I thought would help), I’d show up the earliest, get everything right, all to give me the best chance of getting the celebrity rooms. If I was going to do this grinding work on prime weekends away from family at slightly below-average pay, I might as well put myself in the best position to get some stories out of it.
The tech system worked great, but was finicky to figure out. I spent hours on multiple days before the first event trying to break it. Turning it off and on, switching cameras quickly, seeing where the syncing and the hotspot would mess up. There were many breaking points.
But I couldn’t believe the other photographers didn’t try to do the same thing. That first day, I was the only one without any issues, questions, or problems. They looked at me like an alien. Some spectrum-y person who’s good with tech. But it wasn’t that at all; it was effort. I made sure the photos were coming out perfectly nearly every time, which was a little tough with bright sun and dark corners. They told me right away they were switching me off the editor system so my photos would go straight to people immediately after I uploaded them.
It took the others a game or two to get there, if they did. And I got the best celebrity room at the end. Of course I can’t talk about details, not that there was much. It won’t be a surprise, but the regular fans were the most fun.
Most event photographers are cool and I enjoyed all nine. Although there was the time my biggest client hired one of my bigger competitors to shoot b-roll and she asked them during the event why they hired me and said she could handle my job (they didn’t hire her back the following year).
Now once again, I don’t want to tell these stories as if I’m bragging. Perhaps the pattern recognition helped me realize what I had to do to succeed, and the hand-eye coordination helps some, but I used to suck at event photography early on. I did it because I needed to survive, and I hated it. It caused me great anxiety. It’s all been about the work and preparation and what trauma has taught me over the years. And liking people has helped too.
(A fancy skincare company event two winters ago when the When Harry Met Sally sweater was in style, about 8 people had the same sweater on that day).
Links
Trent Parke: The Artist Studio
Aperture Opens at 380 Columbus Avenue
14 Photography Exhibitions to See This Fall — 2026
Current Shows
Upcoming Shows
Interview
Jerry Hsu is a skateboarder and photographer from San Jose who turned pro at 17, later started the skate company Sci-Fi Fantasy, and has been photographing Los Angeles since 2011.
His new book, How About Never (MACK), is his third: an uncanny, tender look at the city through crashed cars, scarred fences, a bank on fire, and the people living among it all. Click the photo for the interview.
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