We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stanley Aryanto. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stanley below.

Hi Stanley, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

About – Stanley Aryanto
Where passion turn into ART
If today were the last day of my life, would I do what I’m about to do today?

A question that I asked myself every single morning before I head to my previous engineering work. For the longest time, the answer was no until I started to change the way I approach life.

In 2018, I finally found the courage to leave my career as a mechanical engineer — a good job with a good income and a comfortable lifestyle. But then I realised that I wanted to pursue something bigger, to inspire & change people’s live.

There was a time where I lost my passion to wake up in the morning, lost of purpose and photography changed that. It given me hope, purpose and happiness.

Since then I made it my mission to help others so that they do not have to go through the same thing I went through.

When I left my career, my mission was simple:

To be able to experience and capture the unseen perspectives of the world so that I could inspire & bring happiness to other people.

To help others to find hope, purpose and happiness through their passion and live their dream life.

I’m Stanley, an award-winning, published and exhibited travel photographer who has explored 29 countries worldwide. I’m honoured to have won over 100 international awards, published in magazines like Canadian Geographic, and Exhibited in countries like Australia, US and Japan.

Awe-inspiring moments are a second away, and the camera is the tool that I chose to preserve for generations to come.

A photograph is more than just an image. It is a translation of what you see and experience of our passage in time.

It transforms the feeling from the past to the present, it touches our imagination and conveys a story.

Photography is our window to the world, our perspectives.

The ability to recognise the simplest thing amongst the grandest landscape, the extraordinary in the mundane, the striking magnificent of Mother Nature

The once-in-a-lifetime moments, every journey is an exploration & every exploration is an adventure.

This is my life journey.

This is The Wicked Hunt

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What is The Wicked Hunt
You Better Hold Fast

The Wicked Hunt is a mission to go through unconventional ways to experience and capture unique moments. As a photographer, it is my duty to show a different perspective of the world, hopefully in a better way. The Wicked Hunt isn’t about hunting for the perfect photo.

Instead, it’s about enduring the journey to find and experience that perfect moment. Whether it is a long hike to a unique spot, an early wake-up to find unique lighting during sunrise, a quality time with friends and family or merely a deeper observation of a common area.

The photo was never the goal, it’s simply the trophy, something to capture that perfect moment and something to remember it by. We all dream about a moment in a place at a certain time, but often we’re discouraged by fear of failure and going out of our comfort zone. As a Wicked Hunter, I believe that we should overcome these fear. Life is fragile and precious. We don’t know when our time will come to an end, we only have one shot at making this our life, a life that is driven by love and passion, not fear.

We need to take more risks, go out of our comfort zone and take small actions toward our “dreams”, however big or small they might be.

Don’t wait for the perfect moments because they’ll never come. Instead, make those moments perfect in their way.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

What led you to decide to quit your 9-5 job to pursue photography, and what successes and struggles have you seen from doing this?

I thought, “if it were the last day of my life, would I do what I’m doing today?” This sparked the idea of leaving my engineering career.

When I first started in engineering, it was exciting. I had good pay and good benefits at a world-leading company. I felt like my dream had come true. But companies are there to make money, and I was continuously put onto projects that were important but I wasn’t passionate about.

It was ok temporarily, but I became unhappy when I was frequently relocating to projects that I wasn’t excited about.
Having money is important, but I realized that you need to be able to tie it to a purpose to be able to find fulfillment and happiness in this world.

Then I realized that it was a drag to wake up in the morning. I was living in the mundane day-to-day activities, getting by and living for the weekend – until I found photography.

I knew I had to leave the company at some point. Time is the most valuable resource in our life, and I see that as you climb the corporate ladder, you have less and less time.
But travelling had inspired me to see more of the world, experience new things and meet new people.

When I found photography, I saw it as a way out. The opportunity to live a life that I am truly passionate about.

When I walked away from the refinery for the last time, I felt liberated. It was then that I realized that for 30 years I had been making decisions based on fear and based on what’s safe and certain – not based on what excites me, what I am truly passionate about and love. For that reason, I put my dream aside and settled.

It’s been four years since i left engineering, and I’ve felt more alive in these past four years than the first 30 years of my life.

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Since then, I was able to win over 100 awards. My work has been published in magazines like Canadian Geographic, I have exhibited in countries like the US, Australia and Japan and most of all, I have been able to experience and capture once-in-a-lifetime moments – ones that wouldn’t have been possible if I still worked as an engineer.

I have tried many different aspects of photography, and the one thing that makes me most passionate about it is helping others to find their passion and pursue their passion.

Photography has given me hope, purpose, and happiness and I want to be able to share my story with the world.

But life wasn’t always like that. There was a time when I wasn’t sure if I was made for this and if I was good enough. Actually, that’s something that I still struggle with every day.

It’s been four years and I am still in the messy middle, but I realized that I need to be patient. I know the journey isn’t going to be easy, but it will be worth it.

I can’t imagine my life any other way. It’s one of the reasons why I started interviewing photographers and sharing their stories, their struggles and successes on a podcast. Because in this social media era, all of our successes seem like an overnight success, as if we were born with it, and many don’t realize the blood and sweat behind these successes.

Since then, my mission has always been to experience, capture and share unique perspectives of the world. To bring a smile to people’s faces, to capture once-in-a-lifetime phenomenons that not everyone has the opportunity to experience.

At the same time, I want to help others find fulfilment and happiness through photography.

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I don’t like to put a limit on what I want to do, if there’s anything I’ve learned from my previous career, you don’t know til you try.

For that reason, I’ve tried and succeeded in many different aspects as a photographer.

I’ve tried:

– High fashion, work with platforms like Brides of Asia and Hollybolly platform
– Worked with 5 star resort like Ayana Resort, Chapung Se Bali – as an influencer, as well as resort/real estate photography
– Taken countless portraits, engagement and maternity photography
– Product photography, events… you name it.

But when I left my engineering career I promised myself that I would never chase a career solely based on money for the long term. I want to make sure I am doing something that brings fulfilment.

That’s why I chose teaching, mentorship and travel as my main business model.

I strive to bring transformation through my mentee by guiding them not only through the skillset and techniques but also their mindset and beliefs.

One thing that I realised being 4 years in this business, winning over 100 awards – mindset and work ethic is much more important than talent, skills or gear.

I mentor photographers on how to be able to take beautiful photos and find happiness and fulfilment through their photographs.
How to capture Milky Way and astrophotography, as well as how to earn from their photography so that their hobby can fuel their next travel or gear upgrades.

I believe that everyone can become a great photographer, earn from their photography but some importantly find hope, purpose and happiness regardless their talent, gears or skill

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

NFT is the future

Most people associate NFT with weird-looking illustrations, a JPEG or a photo. But there’s something bigger lies behind these photos or silly illustrations. The technology (smart contract) and the possibilities that the possibilities technology opens up.

Many people think that NFT is a scam, but technology doesn’t lie. It’s the people who utilise that particular technology who have the ability to exploit it. It’s no different from scams that are still happening on Internet, Credit cards, and even landlines.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a long road in front of us but 3 main issues that NFT will be able to solve:
1. Authentication
2. Collaboration – everyone wins, including the buyer
3. Decentralisation – ownership

Authentication

NFT have the ability to confirm and authenticate the artist. This is huge! One of our struggles as artists is when our photograph is stolen without a proper license.

Now you might argue that even with NFT people still have the ability to screenshot, if not save, the photo itself. But what the NFT allows us to do is that over a more extended period, we can see the origin of the picture or screenshot it snap. The original image will have the artist associated with that particular art; therefore, it will always bring credit back to the artist. Now with NFT & smart contract that lies behind NFT someone or a company could purchase the license of that NFT with a code (the smart contract) that will happen automatically depending on what the photo is used for.

This will ensure that the artist gets rewarded if their photo gets used or what we also call royalties. At the moment, not all of these features can be done due to the early stage of the technology, but code doesn’t lie. Once this is possible, as an artist, we no longer need to keep tabs on the usage of the photos – it will automatically track, and a portion of the fee will go straight to the artist.

Collaboration and added benefits to the buyer

Thanks to the smart contract, we can automatically split the collaboration fee. This has been an issue in the past where business partners run away with each other money.

Now imagine if I run a photography trip with a business partner – let’s call him/her A, and I use NFT as the ticket. I can set the smart contract condition so that once the ticket is bought – a portion of the fees goes straight away to everyone who’s involved – at the moment, costs get divided between A and myself.

But once the technology matures, I can see that the smart contract will allow us to set a portion to go straight to hotels, transport services, guides, etc. This saves hassle and avoids promises that do not get met (certain parties not getting paid).

At the same time, both A and I – can build the value of the NFT – for example, a verified holder of NFT gets access to a curated community, get 50% off the next items, etc.

So even after the trip, the buy still holds a piece of NFT that potentially have value behind it – win – win – win situation.

3. Decentralisation – Ownership

I left my career as an engineer to gain freedom – many people start their businesses for the same reason. We know there’s gonna be a lot more work, but essentially it will be ours, and we can craft its fate.

How NFT/blockchain help us to do that?

Well, first of all, the idea of NFT is that it will sit in the blockchain – not only can it be authenticated, tracked and unique to the collectors (cannot be altered), but more importantly, it will belong to the artist.

This means if the platform decides to close their platform, the NFT still belong to the artist or the collectors who purchase it.

Of course, there’s more to it than this, but the possibilities are endless.

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One last thing I love about NFT and the blockchain is that all the transactions can be followed and are available for everyone to see. So if someone buys a project to build hype and sell it at the bottom (a scam) that can be followed through. It’s not perfect, a lot of issues with impact on the environment, etc, but the traceability helps.

one thing I learned is that if you can track it, you can improve it. You can see exactly how much energy mining bitcoin use. How much does it cost to run a project you can’t see what’s being used by banks, institutions, etc if they do not disclose it.

For any growth there’s gonna be a pain – we know that our current system needs a lot of improvement and Einstein once said – doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different result is the definition of insanity.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

One of the most difficult thing to do in this journey is to stick to the mission and purpose.

So many times – especially during a difficult time I get distracted by noises and shinny things.

Building a business is hard. Building a business around art is even more challenging.

I had to let go of my 5 figure annual salary as an engineer to start over by earning $12.50 CAD an hour working as a runner in an Italian restaurant. But I know there’s a goal to this, something more significant.

When I started my online business in 2020, I paid $6k to an agency + another $6k for ads expenses that resulted in 1 sale totalling to $97.

In 2021 I got offered my old engineering job with a promotion to the superintendent. But instead, I spent most of my savings that could’ve gotten me a brand-new car or allowed me to live without working for another 2 years – for mentorship on how to run & market a coaching business that’s not only profitable but also fulfilling and bring true transformation to my mentee.

Earlier this year, I had to sell my house in Australia when the tenant trashed it as she moved out – I didn’t have enough savings, and with the global economy we’re in today, all of my investments are not doing well. So I had to sell the house, pay off the mortgage and use the rest of the fund to fuel my business.

A couple of my partners and I build a travel photography backpack that we believe will be a game changer for any adventure & travel photographer.

I grew up in an environment where money isn’t easy. I hardly spent time with my parents when was a kid because they were busy finding ways to make a living and provide a better future for my sister and I. I want to change that not only for me but for the future generation.

So I use what’s remaining from selling my house to pay to hire a team and make a final attempt to make this business sustainable. Just like back in 2018, I am going all in, a leap of faith to make this work and work sustainably without having to trade my time for money so that I can spend more time with my family and do what I am passionate about.

There are many easy ways out, but there’s no shortcut to places worth going.

If you want to achieve your hopes and dreams, you have to be confident and have 1000% belief you can make it happen.

No, none of these is easy. Many nights, I cry, get depressed and ask myself why I make things difficult for myself. So why didn’t I return to Australia and look for an engineering job?

The truth is the past 4.5 years have been the most fulfilling time of my life regardless of its challenges – and I don’t want to go back to living a mundane life without any purpose and passion.

My goal becoming a mentor is to save people’s frustration, to help them get toward their goal enjoyably and to be able to learn from my mistakes so that they don’t have to go through the same thing.

For that reason, I am documenting my daily progress in a daily diary format since the start this mont – of December 2022 in a podcast called “The Wicked Hunt Towards Happiness” to keep me accountable to share what others can learn from my mistakes.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thewickedhunt.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewickedhunt
• Facebook: https://www.faceboo.com/thewickedhunt
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/thewickedhunt
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3aAAwMTvT-4Txj2y6eQ_Gw
• Other: The Art of Photography with Stanley Aryanto – Podcast.thewickedhunt.com Vero – https://www.vero.co/thewickedhunt Building – The first travel & adventure photography that is comfortable, adaptable and has convenient access to our gear. Two Red Tabs – https://tworedtabs.com/

Image Credits
All are taken by myself – including the self-portrait. Copyright of Stanley Aryanto – The Wickedhunt Photography