If you’re an artist in any form—be it fine arts, written words, or music—you will understand the feeling I’m about to describe. This essay is a collection of photos I drug out from the depths of my old, bulky Dell laptop. They are the hidden archives of cameras and rolls of film past—they are my embarrassing beginnings as a photographer.

Sure, if I’m ever a famous photojournalist, this stuff might be cool to look at. But right now, it makes my stomach churn with uncomfortable embarrassment.

It’s not so terrible, but the cliché black and whites of old stuff and fuzzy photos of my friends remind me of a time when I thought I was soooo cool.

Hi. I’m Kayla Sloan. Photographer.

Barf.

But it’s still kind of fun to see. It’s like when you open that notebook you found under your bed full of old poems you wrote as an angsty teen. You can’t help but laugh at how typical it was. Or how no one understood you.

We all have to start somewhere, though. I will never delete these photos. They serve as a reminder of how far I’ve come, or how I’ve changed, even.

They also remind me of when I was first falling in love with what I plan on doing forever. It’s my sweet little scrapbook to my love, photography. Sure, it had a pimply face and braces back in middle school, and maybe was a little chubby, but now it’s grown up into something much different.

But I bet in 20 years I’ll look back at what I just wrote and the pictures I’ve taken recently and be even more embarrassed than I am now.

I can’t wait to feel my stomach churn in embarrassment again.