20 March 2011
Having received course material yesterday, thought it appropriate to set out what I hope to achieve from this course, as well as what I do not hope to achieve!
I got a digital SLR in 2005 and immediately commenced learning more of how to use the camera.
I was told once that my pictures were “more than those of a happy snapper”. A compliment surely but it struck a chord – I had reached a point where I can take some good images with sound composition, can record and manipulate them and present them for competition. As a member of Hanham Photographic Society, I have been reasonably successful with images in competition; won second prize in a local views competition (out of over 100 entries) and had a couple of minor paid assignments.
Much of what I have taken recently is on https://picasaweb.google.com/chris.sims3/
BUT, I have never felt that I get the “art” of photography, that I have not felt confident to break out of established norms. After 5 years of HPS, I have exhausted the usefulness of this club and need a new challenge.
So I am aiming at two major things:
• Do a revision almost of what I already know – “back to basics” if you like. I don’t tend to use aperture and shutter modes enough and changing this alone would improve creativity;
• Get some more imagination in what I do – put some more art in it, to coin a phrase.
And two relatively minor things:
• Get a qualification – aiming for LRPS (and need to establish what is required for that) and may move on to BA though that is likely to take a very long time;
• Get better at competitions. I am competitive and capable of taking some “winning” images. But I also get some very low scores, including comments like not sure that this is a competition image. Realistically one judge’s 10 out of 20 can be another’s 19 but the better photographers tend not to get the really low scores so perhaps (and it is perhaps) I can get some better indication of what works and what does not.
