A Plan For Growth
One consistent pattern I saw in my 2024 classes is that students who had a heart for learning improved their photography and found greater rewards in the process.
If you are looking to grow in 2025, I have some suggestions that will help you know where to put effort.
Vision - Above all, photography is about vision. Strong vision is more important than the right lens or camera. Capturing a moment that communicates to a viewer and captures the essence of a moment is what draws us to photography. There are always photos out there; our challenge is to develop our senses to find them and our vision to encapsulate them in the four borders of our frame. This is an area every photographer can work to grow in.
Craft - Vision is more important than craft, but when vision is expressed well through craft, more expression is possible, along with more rewarding results. Musicians know this, and the best musicians are always practicing and performing to maintain their craft and push it further. Knowing what decisions to make about focal length, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO in the moment makes better photos and makes you a more effective photographer.
Fluency - Photos are fleeting, and if you are fumbling with the controls of your camera, you are likely to miss things, even that all-important vision. The hard truth is most photographers struggle with fluency when it comes to adjusting their cameras, or just throw it in auto and abdicate part of the creative process. Becoming fluent with the camera you own is more important than upgrading to the latest wiz-bang model with features you don’t even need.
Be Teachable - To improve, you have to want to learn, and you have to admit that you don’t know it all. Even if you are an expert in one area, there are other areas you can improve. The heart of a master is to always be a student. Be flexible and willing to learn new things to apply to what you already know.
Mentorship - One of the biggest problems in photography is the tendency to be self-taught. It works well until it doesn’t. Working with an experienced teacher can help you see things in your own photography that you are missing, and encourage you to keep growing. Every photographer can benefit from meeting regularly with someone more experienced than themselves. You'll find personalized instruction and will craft a plan to help you achieve your goals.
If you’re ready to dive in and start growing, join me for a one-on-one mentorship session. I’ve set aside one Friday a month for mentoring sessions as a way of highlighting this opportunity and creating a regular time to meet— but other times are available, as well. The growth I see through mentorship is tremendous, helping many enjoy their photography more.