People are faced with self-defined impossibilities in life everyday. Disability is one road-block which often deters human beings from doing normal everyday tasks, let alone achieve something significant.
One extraordinary human being breaks the belief. Kevin Connolly, a 22-year-old Montana native is born without legs. He often gets stunned looks from the world as he propelled himself with his hands around on a skateboard. Despite his disability, he is an exceptional photographer who traveled around the world shooting images of people staring at him. To date, he has crossed boundaries across 15 countries and has gathered 32,728 priceless images. In order not to startle people, he places his camera near his hips and looks away from them while shooting their pictures. The quality of the pictures taken can be well-assured as Connolly has memorized frame shots even without looking at the targets. It took him 12 years to be able to completely memorize frame shots according to the positions of passer-bys. Direct sunlight is another deterrence for Connolly as he needs to position his camera in an upward 45 degree to capture those images. Often enough, it compromises the quality of the pictures taken. He overcomes this by looking for suitable spots such as areas with shades to photograph passer-bys. In addition, his digital SLR with 20x zooming ability eliminates all worries of not being to capture an image should it be too far from its perfect spot.
Recently, Connolly has successfully completed ‘The Rolling Exhibition” where his photos are displayed at the Kennedy Center, Washington DC for people to understand his unique work. The term “Rolling Exhibition” stemmed from the fact that Connolly endeavored around ‘rolling’ on a skateboard while taking pictures of curious on-lookers. It is indeed awe-inspiring for a disabled person to achieve such great accomplishments. When asked for his formula for success, Connolly humbly quoted two words, “willpower” and “determination”.
It is very easy for people to give in to life’s challenges but if there is one thing Connolly has taught us, it is to eliminate our self-defined constraints. Instead we should position our thoughts towards challenging the impossibilities in life in order to attain significant achievements. As Connolly put it, having a strong willpower to get things done coupled with absolute determination is the key towards achieving great results in life. We should rise above the ordinaries and make a mark for ourselves starting from now on.
One extraordinary human being breaks the belief. Kevin Connolly, a 22-year-old Montana native is born without legs. He often gets stunned looks from the world as he propelled himself with his hands around on a skateboard. Despite his disability, he is an exceptional photographer who traveled around the world shooting images of people staring at him. To date, he has crossed boundaries across 15 countries and has gathered 32,728 priceless images. In order not to startle people, he places his camera near his hips and looks away from them while shooting their pictures. The quality of the pictures taken can be well-assured as Connolly has memorized frame shots even without looking at the targets. It took him 12 years to be able to completely memorize frame shots according to the positions of passer-bys. Direct sunlight is another deterrence for Connolly as he needs to position his camera in an upward 45 degree to capture those images. Often enough, it compromises the quality of the pictures taken. He overcomes this by looking for suitable spots such as areas with shades to photograph passer-bys. In addition, his digital SLR with 20x zooming ability eliminates all worries of not being to capture an image should it be too far from its perfect spot.
Recently, Connolly has successfully completed ‘The Rolling Exhibition” where his photos are displayed at the Kennedy Center, Washington DC for people to understand his unique work. The term “Rolling Exhibition” stemmed from the fact that Connolly endeavored around ‘rolling’ on a skateboard while taking pictures of curious on-lookers. It is indeed awe-inspiring for a disabled person to achieve such great accomplishments. When asked for his formula for success, Connolly humbly quoted two words, “willpower” and “determination”.
It is very easy for people to give in to life’s challenges but if there is one thing Connolly has taught us, it is to eliminate our self-defined constraints. Instead we should position our thoughts towards challenging the impossibilities in life in order to attain significant achievements. As Connolly put it, having a strong willpower to get things done coupled with absolute determination is the key towards achieving great results in life. We should rise above the ordinaries and make a mark for ourselves starting from now on.
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