I longed for snow while we were staying there, but just then I had to go home to my parents. Two days after retiring from the Court a great snow came. The old familiar trees of my home reminded me of those melancholy years when I used to gaze upon them musing when the colours of flowers, the voices of birds, the skies of Spring and Autumn, moon shadows, frost and snow, told me nothing but that time was revolving, and that I was menaced with a dreary future. ~The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu (cited: Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan)
When I first saw the “Stages of a Photographer” graph, I laughed with the memories of expectations that came with my first Nikon purchase in 1984; in no time, I would be creating images equal to those in the National Geographic. Cringe.
2013
The Stages graph inspired me to explore Youtube videos of photographers who share their learning journey and this search led me to the website, Japan Camera Hunter who features Dan K’s, A Learning Framework for Photography.
2014
Step IGet an Eye for Photography
A reasonably acute Artistic Eye should be the fundamental foundation upon which your photography should be built, rather than something you will get round to once you’ve topped out on your technical expertise.
If possible find a mentor, or a teacher who will show you their best work and critique it together.
Look at photo books and images in photo collections. Find the images that speak to you and go over them with your mentor.
Learn to appreciate a good image, be it a photograph or a sketch.
Pick a genre that can be done with basic skills and focus not on the equipment, execution or look, but on making the image engage the viewer as intended.
Focus, sharpness, depth of field, lightening, color, all that kind of thing is embellishment. Even composition is subordinate to the engagement, to the message and to the reaction that you hope to elicit…
Go through the whole classical learning cycle with each photo, each session, each project:
Take the photo.
Decide what you like or don’t like about it.
Consider what you could have done better.
Ask yourself how this learning applies to other photos you took or have seen
Apply this to your next photo and repeat the cycle.
Feedback and learning is what separates an improving photographer from someone that sprays-and-prays but never improves…the learning process never finishes.
When you have reached a plateau in your learning curve
Don’t let your photography stagnate
Consolidate your learning
Prepare a project of your learning journey
Consider what other fresh avenues you can pursue to improve your work
At the end of this step you should have a fair understanding of what an interesting and compelling image looks like and how to make one, even if the execution is rudimentary.
By starting out right, with an understanding of what a good photo looks like, confidence may take a beating at first but you’ll be on the right path with less time wasted with follies into unnecessary gear or special effects.
2018
Dan K’s learning steps 2 through 7 guidelines will be covered in next week’s A Photo Study. If yo wish to share, I would love to hear about or see examples of your personal photo journey. Let’s tag with #aphotostudy.
I hope you enjoy Sean Tucker’s personal narrative of his journey
“We must look deeply to identify the real suffering of our times and to understand how it has come to be. Our modern way of living brings tension, stress and pain to our body; we are exposed to anger, violence, and fear; we live with the threat of terrorism, the destruction of the ecosystem, war and famine, climate change, the economic crisis, recession, poverty, social injustice, broken families and divorce, and so much more.
Toy Store… Nikon D750 f/1.8 1/25s 35m 100 ISO
How are we living? How are we consuming? What violence, fear, and anger are we ingesting every day through the media around us? How is our lifestyle polluting the environment and creating a toxic level atmosphere for our bodies and our minds, for our families and for future generations? If we can call the suffering, the real ill-being of our times, by its true names and if we an see how it has come to be, we will know exactly what kind of medicine, what kind of healing we need in order to deal with it. The truth of ill-being will reveal the end of ill-being.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh (The Other Shore)
a meditative journey 
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