Recently, a photography friend and I stepped up to fill an evening’s 2-hour spot at our local camera club, at very short notice due to a cancellation.  Over the last couple of years, we have designed and run some one-off ‘no fluff-just stuff’ photography courses.  The Creative Toolkit was one of the courses I had pushed for us to develop and we spent a considerable time getting it to a deliverable standard but then only delivered it a couple of times, so we gave it another airing, albeit a bit rusty, for the club.

Before working on the photography courses with my friend Brian, I used to quake at the thought of public speaking.  My mind would empty.  My mouth and brain would cease to connect so that I couldn’t form coherent sentences, let alone present and communicate ideas to a room full of people looking at me.  I have learnt to control that now – not completely without nerves but at least so I can function …once I get going.  My mantra is ‘I can do this.  If others can, there is no reason why I can’t too.  Just do it.’  And so it is. Stepping out my comfort zone again.  Trying to push my boundaries to keep the little grey cells going spurned on with the old adage ‘use it or lose it’, I keep pushing on.

At the break time, I was asked by one of our club’s longest-standing members ‘What is your thought process as you take these beautiful simplified images?’.  I didn’t know how to answer him.  To start with, I am not used to people telling me how much they admire and enjoy my photographs.  I said I’d think on it and get back to him.  So I needed to describe what it was I did as I took these images …but I just do it!  I answered him later by saying that when I started out entering club competitions, many judges found my images too busy and the subject was confused and unclear.  So I practised honing the subject matter to dominate the frame and clear away all the clutter.  I guess. But again, what is it I do?  …I get into my zone as I pick up my camera and just work a scene or a subject.  I cannot articulate what I think - I just work it.  I practise it.  I feel it. The sum of everything I have absorbed visually up to that point of pressing the shutter goes into the flow.  All those unspoken influences play a part to inform the choices I make as I create the images …and I play.  I don’t always keep it simple and I’m sure my style changes, ebbs and flows, but I grow my visual vocabulary with more photographic experiences and exposure to different influences; looking at others’ work, exhibitions, research, digesting all sorts of approaches, styles and techniques, absorbing them into me, allowing them to influence me.  

The course that we delivered, the Creative Toolkit, starts by suggesting above all other considerations, what is it you want to convey in your image that you are making.  Then we introduce various visual techniques for guiding the eye of the viewer to see what it is we want to impart/suggest to effectively communicate that message/sentiment/moment or whatever.  Really it’s like painting by numbers once you have the visual vocabulary at hand to use.  Maybe I have intrinsically learnt these techniques so that they have become second nature to me, like many other photographers.  Maybe they too just let it happen and don’t think too hard about it so it flows and feels as natural as breathing.  I believe though, this is innate in all of us who are able to see and take in the thousands of visual prompts bombarded at us every day.  Guess it’s practise. 

So that’s the answer - practise and practise some more.   We’ve all heard that one before!  As I am due to become the Communications Officer for Raleigh International in September to tell the world about their good works in Costa Rica, practising putting into words, instead of into pictures, really is something I need to get skilled on!  And this is where I publically start with the start of my blog.  Please bear with me as I practise putting my thoughts and ideas into these strings of words.  I need to extend my language skills and play with styles.  Here starts my journey learning another new skill.  

…Now, what is it I want to say?