photography - Where Am I?

It has been a hobby of mines for years, usually expressed through point & click digital cameras or the camera attached to a phone but in the last year, photography as a hobby has wedged it’s self into being a bigger part of my life than expected.

Since I invested in my DSLR and have been really getting into this skill, I find myself obsessively searching every day life for photogenic scenes, looking at sunsets, skylines and light in new ways, finding myself inspired by the simplest compilation of colours and depth. I have bought 4 lenses now, a grip for my camera, tripods, a flash and every photography magazine or e-book and I get my hands on.

I haven’t yet found my “thing” though. There are so many “genres” of photography I need to figure out which one suits me, So many conflicting personalities in the photography community side track and intimidate me at times, from the educators to the elitists who’s opening thoughts exude from there personality to tell you whole-heartedly how better their attempt at your picture would have been.

While I try to figure this out I reflect on my own experience and in contrast, I am a musician; I am used to the community of musicians. You get the 3 main types of Musicians, particularly in online & social communities.

· Musicians With talent
· Musicians who think they have talent
· Musicians who Wish they had talent

Might be subject to debate if those who “think” and those who “wish” are the same people but there are distinct differences, usually manifested in how malevolent their comments or criticisms are.

I find that no matter what sub-category the personalities seem to be they can be summed in one the 3, wish, think and have.

My point is, with drums I’d be inclined to categorise myself in the “think I have talent” box, as I can look at another drummers work – break it down and see both the successful parts and the areas that could use improvement. I could identify parts of a fill where I’d wonder if “x-stroke roll would have sounded more consistent than y-stroke roll” but I rarely ever question it in such a way.

Judgement Vs Inspiration
The art of music is to be inspired by someone else while developing your own style, your own feeling and most importantly, your own sound. So when I look at other drummers work and find myself inspired to try their lick but to change y-roll to x-roll and see how it sounds. If I find that my approach sounds better I know that this doesn’t make me any better than them, it certainly doesn’t make my fill any better or worse than the other drummers.


Another distinction I’ve noticed with the photography community is their strict enforcement of practices. Composition, lighting, arrangement etc etc.. In drums, there are similar “rules” so to speak about creating beats, solos or arrangements in general but no one ever enforces them. I am a sucker for Linear Drumming so I’ll use that as an example.

Take the 6 stroke roll – RLLRRL with the Accents on the first R and last L the sound you get is delicious (and probably one of my favourite fills around the kit). I’ve seen other drummers pull this fill off JUST as well with RLRLRL – best practice would be RLLRRL, yes but doing the same effect with RLRLRL requires more practice, you need serious speed and control to do it right. Neither way is “wrong” though (in my opinion, that is).

With photography, submitting to sites like Flikr and so forth you get two main types of comments “wow that’s gr8!!”, not very helpful but always lovely and “composition is off here, stick to drums monkey boy and learn the rule of thirds!”

Now personally, I like criticism. Although until my first time in a recording studio I’d never had any decent criticism from a fellow drummer other than a pat on the head and “keep at it, you’ll be awesome when your older” – (I was a kid) – until I met this percussionist of which I can’t remember his name and while I repressed his name and replaced it with a derogatory alias of the nether-regions of human anatomy I respect that guy more than most drummers I’ve met.

Felt like a fraud
He took my ego, my self belief and he tore it apart. By the time I left the studio I felt like a fraud, like I didn’t deserve to be holding drumsticks or even looking at a drum kit. I suddenly became the “I wish I had talent” drummer, and once I got over the trauma of discovering I was rubbish I begun addressing the areas he criticised most.

Photo-Snobs
Photography seems to be similar however and I feel I am getting off on the wrong foot with “elite” photographers from the moment I introduce my work. There appears to be a mindset of qualification. To qualify as a “photographer” you really must have had some formal education on it. Without a representative qualification in photography the academic community will barely humour your work if not just disregard it and write you off as a “trendy” –

A “trendy” being someone following photography as the “in” thing, associating a DSLR camera with Ipods, Ipads, Apple mac computers, Café-lattés and respected about as much.

I am, however not a “trendy” – Photography doesn’t seem “cool” or “in” to me. I couldn’t care if I was shooting on a 1D or a 500D (which is what Im shooting on) – I don’t “need” an expensive L lens, or lowepro bag to cary my camera in. I don’t need an Imac attached to my camera via HDMI to show how cool my photos look as I take them. I love photography for a whole other reason.

I love being in the moment, a part of an event or notable instance of life worth capturing and that’s what photography is for me. I have no interest in glamour shots, actresses posing in perfectly lit studios in front of a £10,000 cameras operated by a 6-figure paid photographers that have their assistants take the shots for them, all so that a photoshop wiz can completely alter the final image anyway.

I’m not a painter, taking a picture doesn’t have to be perfectly posed, lit and balanced in a confirmative fashion that blends in perfectly with the seven million other shots uploaded per minute on these web sites. I don’t have to define my photographs as fine art or manipulate a caption to invoke “interpretation”.
I am not into birds, not keen on getting models and doing portraits for a website no one will ever look at. I am not an artist or interested in getting up at 05:00 in the morning to capture a misty landscape picture which again, will be much like the thousands of other misty landscape images around there.

Perhaps the lack of formal education, a mentor or some peers from which to beg approval is inhibiting my progress. Maybe it’s the lack of physical evidence that bothers me. My pictures sit in a virtual archive spread across my laptop computer and desktop computer.

So where am I going with photography?
To find this out I have decided to spread my wings a little bit and explore some horizons. Like any time-invested skill, I know I’ll get better at photography the more I do it.

To achieve this, I have volunteered my time and equipment to some charities, I will be the official (volunteer) photographer at some up-coming charity events in Aberdeen and surrounding areas for 2 very large charities.

I don’t get to keep any of the photos, I am supplied a memory card and at the end of the event, I hand it in and will probably never even see my pictures so I wonder how rewarding that is going to feel.

I know it’s going to be a challenge for me, as I can’t post-process, select my “best” and theres a good chance I’ll be given a 1gb – 2gb card so the “shoot 1000 pics and pick 2 good ones” philosophy that’s working for me now, won’t be available.

I hope that this kind of environment gives me some direction in my photography, challenges me to improve and gives me a rewarding reason for doing it. I won’t get paid and to be honest, I don’t want paid for it. I want to see my photography Improve, I want to feel the fun and energy I did when I first begun.

Hopefully, one day when my skills are as good. I won’t evolve into the snob that so many people on these social image sharing websites seem to transform into.