Fear can motivate or cripple you. What we fear most of the time is criticism of ourselves. Giving something freely to the external world and then having that something made fun of or destroyed by analysis is detrimental to growth and craftsmanship. We must, in order to succeed in any field of study we love, look at ourselves and our feelings toward the world. Through this examination we find out which feelings have been conditioned in us through the years. Which thoughts and ideas now control us and make us fearful to expand our lives, our horizons and move past what others think we should be and what they think we should do.
Seamus Heaney wrote concerning how he found his poetic voice, "I was in love with words themselves, but had no sense of a poem as a whole structure and no experience of how the successful achievement of a poem could be a stepping-stone in your life." Heaney goes on to say, "that his first poems were trial pieces, little inept designs in imitation of the masters fluent interlacing patterns, heavy handed clues to the whole craft."
When you first start in photography we learn through experimentation. We see great photos and we try and imitate them because we want to know how those images were made. Through this process of trial and error we forge past our own stunted growth and other people's preconceptions of our work. We must keep learning and evolving in our chosen field of photography and not allow others to dictate to us how and what we should photograph.
We learn our craft initially by doing it. We should always be looking for subjects that appeals to some deeper level and brings out an emotional response in us. We imitate the imagery we see. If we only see our friends face book snap shots, more likely than not, we will produce subjects in a similar vein and we won't stir the waters, the undercurrents of our inner life that is waiting to be explored.
By shooting as much as possible, you sharpen your photographic eye for those moments that just seem to manifest themselves within seconds before your camera. Your reflexes are tuned in and ready for anything. Your camera controls are known and your exposure appropriate for the light. This helps you make those quick decisions on timing your exposure to create special imagery. Sports photographers have this deep instinctive ability to be in the right place at the right time along the sidelines. War photographers have the ability to discover in chaos those moments that surge through the violence that seem to tell the whole story in a single moment. What gives them the edge is doing it.
Intuition is fined tuned by action. Getting out there each day and seeing the world with fresh eyes. Creating images with purpose and meaning.
When we study the history of photography, we find early masters of the craft struggling to find an art form worthy of expression. Battle lines were drawn between photographers that believed in the pure image without any manipulation whatsoever and the so called artificial images that were created using other techniques that were more appropriate in drawing or painting. Nowadays, we have a battle between the over saturated image (social media) market place exposing to the world people's mundane outer lives vs the photographers that want to step back from this explosion of imagery and reconnect with the reason they got into photography in the first place; taking meaningful images that can affect the viewer on a deeper level than the evening police blotter. It seems in today's media frenzy just being seen is the final truth that makes are lives meaningful.
We are missing the mystery of the underlying reality in which our memories and experiences combine to create the ground work for expressing deep feelings through composition, subject, perspective, etc..
Technique is the math that creates formulas you can trust and explore without feeling desperate. It gives you confidence that you are in control and not allowing your subject to hide and escape your grasp.
We learn our craft initially by doing it. We should always be looking for subjects that appeals to some deeper level and brings out an emotional response in us. We imitate the imagery we see. If we only see our friends face book snap shots, more likely than not, we will produce subjects in a similar vein and we won't stir the waters, the undercurrents of our inner life that is waiting to be explored.
By shooting as much as possible, you sharpen your photographic eye for those moments that just seem to manifest themselves within seconds before your camera. Your reflexes are tuned in and ready for anything. Your camera controls are known and your exposure appropriate for the light. This helps you make those quick decisions on timing your exposure to create special imagery. Sports photographers have this deep instinctive ability to be in the right place at the right time along the sidelines. War photographers have the ability to discover in chaos those moments that surge through the violence that seem to tell the whole story in a single moment. What gives them the edge is doing it.
Intuition is fined tuned by action. Getting out there each day and seeing the world with fresh eyes. Creating images with purpose and meaning.
When we study the history of photography, we find early masters of the craft struggling to find an art form worthy of expression. Battle lines were drawn between photographers that believed in the pure image without any manipulation whatsoever and the so called artificial images that were created using other techniques that were more appropriate in drawing or painting. Nowadays, we have a battle between the over saturated image (social media) market place exposing to the world people's mundane outer lives vs the photographers that want to step back from this explosion of imagery and reconnect with the reason they got into photography in the first place; taking meaningful images that can affect the viewer on a deeper level than the evening police blotter. It seems in today's media frenzy just being seen is the final truth that makes are lives meaningful.
We are missing the mystery of the underlying reality in which our memories and experiences combine to create the ground work for expressing deep feelings through composition, subject, perspective, etc..
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