Photographic goals are important and very easily overlooked in this busy world, so, let’s take a moment to think about yours.
From buying a camera to your chosen end point: Photography is essentially a journey.
Whilst it’s a personal journey it follows a number of common steps such as:
- starting with flowers or inanimate objects,
- progressing to landscapes and discovering the sunrise is far too early a commitment,
- finally being brave enough to find a genre with people in such as Street Photography,
- entering competitions,
- completing a qualification or panel, etc.
It’s also reassuring to know that we are all on a similar journey.
Why not celebrate where you are now?
It’s that time of year for contemplation, to consider what you’ve achieved over the last year.
This is exciting and should be celebrated with the creation of an annual showreel to commemorate your favourite photographs.
The great news that undertaking this is not only fun, but it does so much more than this.
It begs the question, what next? Which we will come back to in a moment.
Personally, I create mine on my iPhone with the in-shot app albeit there are many free apps to do this too. The fun part is looking back and deciding which of your images make the grade and discovering the odd one that you’ve even forgotten about. It’s highly motivating!
Here’s mine for 2022-3:
SO, I highly recommend that you spend some time looking backward at the last 12 months, putting together something to celebrate that and thinking – where next?
Where Next?
This is always the tricky question, because in any art form, you don’t know what you don’t know!
This is where I believe that eduction plays a crucial role.
So whether it’s time to work on composition, engagement and building narrative with Gestalt theory, or taking a deeper dive into a specific genre, eduction is fun and equips you with the tools to progress.
This is one of the reasons that last year I introduced longer form workshops as a structured route for clients interested in my passion genre: Street Photography. That, and I love to build long term relationships and watch you develop and grow.
So, for Street photography the current route from beginner to artist is:
- If you’re UK based, a practical in-person one day workshop is a brilliant way to get hooked and build your initial confidence. That said, I had many customers who come on these regularly, one client even names them “Simon’s Human Safaris” as we see different things each time.
- The next step, or a first step if you cannot physically attend a workshop is my new Street Photography Masterclass with 6 hours of video at 5 x shoots. This really builds on the in-person workshop as you get to see every image I take as I narrate my artistic vision.
- The first of the long form workshops is the 6 x week long Ingredients of compelling street photography which is a thinking persons approach with weekly image research home work. This’ll really change the way that you see the world and enable you to significantly up your game. It’s also where community and friendships start to form both online and in the groups dedicated what apps group) and often entire groups then move to steps 4 and 5 together.
- Artist Development Level 1 is a more hands on practical workshop with 7 x projects to shoot over a 16 x week period. These are topic or ascetic driven with the opportunity to make each your own and develop some long term projects. This is the stage where I will help you find your own voice.
- Artist Development Level 2 is an inspiring journey of self discovery and world class education, we will look at the work of 7 x of the great master of street photography.
For each of the 7 masters, I’ll explain their strengths and you’ll be set tasks to discover which elements of their work, philosophy and artists intent personally resonated with you as an artist. - Artist Development Level 3 will be announced later this year.
So I hope that has at the very least given you a creative task to make a showreel and some thoughts and ideas on your next steps for 2023.
Si x