Last Saturday I spend most of the day in a church yard. The wild weather on the coast was too much so it was our second choice location for the photography course field trip. Conditions were less than ideal for photography but that didn’t stop our teachers putting us through our paces. After a day of working through our assignment we had to hand over the shots in their raw form. Yup, no chance for editing out the duffs or making them sparkle in photoshop. Our camera’s precious cargo was whipped away warts and all to be evaluated and a selection of edits to be critiqued at class tonight. I can tell you I had sweaty palms waiting for the slide show to begin.
As the lights dimmed and we got underway I was totally blown away by everyone’s work. I kept thinking as I watched other people’s photographs roll by whether I had been in the same place as them. Each photograph was used as a learning point with James and Dave offering feedback on what worked and what didn’t. It was small subtle things that I would never have noticed before that made me see each photograph in a new light.
Now the worry of the critique is over I’ll process my shots and blog about them. I wish I could blog about some of the other pictures too from others – there was some truly great photographs that brought out a depth of feeling about some of the perspectives of the church yard I had not considered worthy of a photograph.
I am fired up more than ever now to step up my efforts. Not in a competitive way just wanting to look deeper into what I’m seeing and find ways of expressing that more clearly.
