Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
a couple weeks ago I was sent a question by a lovely guy calledf peter and
he asked me, hi Mike
does it happen with photography like music, that you could be
a professional and/or great photographer if you start at an early
age?
does age matter when it comes to becoming an excellent photographer?
Well the thing is, how much do you want to become
an excellent photographer, is it something you want to do
or is it something you're going to do? But what's the difference?
well I've been running my photography business for a long time
and many years ago I chose to turn my hobby which was photography
into my income and that's a whole other story but part of that was
I wanted to be able to travel and to see some of the wrold to sort of experience
some of the amazing things that go on out there
in the world, but it was always something I'd like to do
and time passed and the business started to grow and i was having a good time, i didn't
have to work terribly hard to cover my expenses and i could play on my motor bike
and then last year something happened,
my brilliant, awesome, inspiring, funny and witty
incredible mum died last september,
and it was very devastating despite the fact I knew it was coming
but something in me changed then.
I kinda realized how old i was, i kinda realized that hey
you're in your fifties now and you've always wanted
to go off and see some more of the world but that's all it was, i wanted to.
When my mum died it changed from i want to,
to I'm going to, you may have already seen there's some workshops starting to
appear in other countries and many of you wonderful people have been inviting me to
come in your country,
but it's because i got committed
I got dedicated to doing whatever it takes
to make that happen, now whether that's
in what sort of photo's you're taking or wanna take, you wanna take great amazing pictures
well you need to become dedicated to doing it
and that means giving yourself the time it means
dedicating time to doing it not sort of saying ok, i've watched all these
videos on youtube that mike does or serge does or many
of the othere
awesome photographers put out there into the world,
or going on courses, you have to become dedictated
to giving yourself time to go and put into action
the things that you've been taught about. last year
I was teaching at a local nights school, i was just teaching an adult
education to a bunch of people who were all paying a fairly reasonable fee
to come on a photography course, and it was for the college it wasn't me doing it at the
college , i was employed by the college to do it for a short time.
But something which really amazed me was that i would give poeple some homework to do
which was assosiated with the leson which we just done and then
the following week quite a large percentage of people would say I didn't have time this
week
or I could see that they had sort of come home and they maybe had half an hour
before they jump in the car because they had to go and they sort of done their
homewo because mike would grizzle at them. Well i don't
mind if they do their homework or not, and i don't mind if
you guys did the homework or not, i don't mind what you do so long as you're happy,
but here's the key if you want to take
excellent photographs well or maybe become a professional photographer
you've gotta do the homework, you've gotta put in the hours, you've gotta dedicate some time
to doing stuff you have to get out there and practice
and get experience now when I say dedicate and put time into it you know
what time you can dedicate to it I mean
when I dedicated time to becoming a professional photographer I did it in a
slightly unusual way
as in I went on income support I told my local
a employment services office what i was doing because i didn't want ant trouble
i wasn't gonna sort of like
try and defraud anyone and they were amazingly helpful, they
gave me access to various courses and training so I spent a year
not working and everyday i was reading books i was practising, i was going out
there i was taking pictures, wondering why it didn't work and then trying something else
until eventually I got to a point where I could take pictures that people would pay me
money for,
and that was an amazing feeling but it's within the dedication
so whatever that may look like for you
now that could be maybe an hour a week because I know normal people they have
jobs to go to every day they have to pay their mortgage they have to pay their rent,
their electricity bills and all that kinda stuff.
They've possibly gots kids and they're mega expensive things to own aren't they.
So you've got calls on your time already
but in order to get the experience that's needed for you to take the
excellent photographs or to become a professional photographer
that any of you guys not just peter you do have to dedicate some of your time
in order to do the exercises to practice stuff
so that you get the experience because photography's experiential learning
most things in life are you have to experience it
and get experience so that you know what to do in a given situation
much as I would love to be able to put my hand up here and a clip unplug
knowledge
and then insert into your head for you for a fee of course
then it would be awesome but i cant
do that wouldn't that be easy I wouldn't have to webmaster the site, i wouldn't
have to keep thinking up new ideas for films and
shooting stuff and having lorna stand out in the cold and
rain and all that kinda stuff while we're making films
the thing is it's a dedication thing so what ever that may be for you
I would suggest it's a case of go on a training course if you know you're going
on a training course, book some time into the diary
the next day so that you can go and practice whatever it was because if you
put it off and think oh we're going on holiday i a couple of weeks
in a couple of weeks time you would have forgotten all about it.
It would have just kinda vanished into thin air like scotched mist.
if you watch a video on YouTube, one of my videos
make some notes maybe? go outside and then practice that and kep practising.
dedicate time to it until you have your head around that particular technique
or building block as i like to call them, there's a whole new course on that coming
fairly soon.
Because that's where you're gonna get the knowledge you need
to be fulfilled as a photographer and become excellent
and/or professional.subscribe to our YouTube channel to be notified
each time we upload one all cool photography videos
orfor more great photo tips workshops and training
come and see us at our website photographycourses.biz