Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“There is the desire of a consumer society to have no learning curves. This tends to result in very dumbed-down products that are easy to get started on, but are generally worthless and/or debilitating.”—Alan Kay
I met Alan Kay once back in the day at a time when the COMDEX trade show was the biggest on on held in Las Vegas. Now it’s just a memory and even people working in the computer industry may not remember it. “You mean CES? Nope. It was during a time when my writing was split 50-50 between computers and photography. When the Dot Com bubble burst around the turn of the century it took COMDEX and my computer writing career with it. Which brings me, somewhat indirectly to today’s topic…
What’s all this have to do with photography? It’s all about being prepared for whatever paradigm shift that comes your way. My experience is that most photographers progress through three distinct stages while they’re learning and refining their image making skills. In my friend Rick Sammon’s book Creative Visualization for Photographers, he takes the position there are four but I was surprised (even though he and I never discussed this topic) how much we had in common on this topic. Since this is #wheelswednesday, let’s take a look at it in stages:
Stage One starts begins when a photographer gets their first “good” camera and discovers all of the medium’s potential for fun and creativity. During this time, beginning shooters enthusiastically explore their world and every memory card (or roll of film) is crammed full of images that look so much better than they could have ever imagined. Unfortunately, this blissful period doesn’t last long and is quickly replaced by the next stage.
Stage Two occurs when the photographer’s level of enthusiasm is still high but becomes diminished when reviewing their latest images only to discover these new images are much worse than they expected they would. Instead of being happily surprised the the quality of their images, all they can see is what’s wrong with their photographs.
Part of surviving this phase has to do with managing expectations. Here’s a few tip: Don’t let on-line criticism or evn praise of your work inflate your ego or slow down your journey along the learning curve. Unfortunately, phase 2 can last a long time but as the photographer continues to improve their skills by reading books, blog posts, watching YouTube videos but, most importantly, practicing until they reach the third and final phase
Stage Three is the point in which the images that a photographer sees in their viewfinder and what they capture is exactly what they expected. There are no surprises. Interestingly, because there’s no urgency to click the shutter you will find that under this phase you may shoot fewer but better pictures. While this phase can be fulfilling, some of that original magic is understandably lost* unless you are shooting film. But until the right combination of lighting, subject, and photographer’s mood and inspiration come together to capture a magic moment, you gotta follow the advice of The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy and “keep banging those rocks together.”
*One way to rediscover that magic is by experimenting with and trying to shoot using infrared photography techniques. There’s lots of post on that subject here on the blog; poke around and you might see some ideas yu might consider following up on.
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