What kind of photographer am I?

What kind of photographer am I? Should that be a workshop? I find that photographers tend to gravitate towards certain subjects; wildlife, people, landscapes, flowers, birds, barns. When finally I decided to pick up a camera I discovered that what I gravitated towards was lines, macro, candid photos of people and abstract images. What kind of photographer am I? This is a question I asked myself just recently when I started to notice a theme in my photographs.

What kind of photographer am I? How do we decide what it is that draws us to photograph? Is it something that just happens? Is it unconscious? Do we ask ourselves when we take up the camera - What Kind of photographer am I? Or does it just come naturally? I tell students that even if the subject is not something that interests them, they should try the workshop anyway and venture outside their comfort zone, they might find it will enhance what does interest them.

What kind of photographer am I? The kind that wants to grow and enjoy photography.

Bringing it together

In today's tough economic times, it can be somewhat of a challenge to plan a workshop. What? Where? When? Who? How much? There is also the challenge of, how to make a workshop stand out from all of the others. When I think of a workshop I try to think about; Who would take this? What do they need to learn? What would interest them? Is it the location? The subject? The instructor? How much do I need to charge? How much is too much? How much is too little? What would someone be willing to pay for it? How long should be? Do we include critique time? How in depth should we go? What is the end goal in this workshop? These are pretty standard questions, but what I really look for is; How can I make this workshop different? To me that is the most critical. What will make this workshop stand out and how can I make it a fun experience, as well as, a learning experience? Sometimes you just need to listen - so what do you think would make a fun workshop? Where would you like to go? What do you want to learn? All you need to do is suggest.......

A Visual Journey - A road to find our creative self

As artists, much of our creativeness comes from within. It is then somewhat influenced by external flashes of inspiration.

We take many paths during our Visual Journey. Some paths take us on a high road leading us to places that allow our creative energy to flow and taking our work to some of the highest peaks. Other paths take us in a downward spiral, zapping us of our creative energy and we may sink into some abyss.

These past few years, so many of us have been on that downward spiral,traveling downhill either emotionally, spiritually, financially and/or creatively. For a period of time (thankfully a short one) I found my creative spirit gone. There was nothing within me. Not only did I not feel creative, I couldn’t be creative.

To find the path leading back up the hill, I surrounded myself with creative people that I admire. This sort of energy helped pull me from the abyss and showed me the way to starting a new journey. I can now feel the creative energy starting to swirl around me again, increasing the creative juices from within. Once in awhile our creative energy needs to be inspired, to get that creative blood pumping again. I look forward to my next Visual Journey.

Ultimately we have to look within, but a little outside influence doesn’t hurt. Sometimes it may just be what we need to give us that nudge towards a new Visual Journey.