Learning to Learn Photography

Intentions

I bought a DSLR camera not long after I first became a mother. I bought it with the intention of taking beautiful pictures of my sweet baby’s every move and every expression.

I splurged on this camera thinking that it would take better pictures than my old hot pink, compact Sony camera – the one that I would carry in my wristlet with my flip phone, lip gloss and twenty bucks for a night downtown. This was my new, grown up camera.

That camera didn’t magically take better pictures the way I’d thought it would though and after one attempt at figuring out what all the buttons did, I put it back in the box and put that box in the top of my closet and that’s where it stayed.

I get to

As soon as I seen the photography basics course advertised by Nate and Nicole Photography, I desperately wanted to do it. This course cost double what the camera did though and it was a full two day, in person thing, which normally would have made it an absolute no.

What made that no turn into a yes? Well, I was married to a man who didn’t ever hesitate when it came to spending time and money on things he wanted. That inequity in fun spending (that he did), and figuring out how to pay for that spending (that I did), was a huge issue in our relationship. One that only got bigger and bigger the more our family income grew. This course was honestly a ‘Fuck this. If you can spend money on, and take time to do shit you want to do, so can I.’

Simply deciding to say yes shifted something inside me for the better. Looking back I can see it was an important turning point where I started to prioritize what I wanted and needed in that relationship, as opposed to being the one who only got what was left over, if there was anything left over.

What I took from that course (and from the subsequent workshops and groups I took part in) was so much bigger than learning to take better pictures, too. It changed how I saw the world – quite literally.

Learning to learn

The Overfalls, Conception Harbour, Newfoundland and Labrador

Order prints here

The first thing that photography taught me was how to be shitty at something and not quit trying to get better. This was harder than it sounds.

I didn’t grow up with a growth mindset. In my world, you were either good at something or you weren’t and those assignments were made early. I was good at numbers, not good at art – or so I came to believe about myself as a very young child.

Now I know that I can be good at anything that I decide I’m willing to work at being good at and that sucking is just part of the process. The road to that belief was paved with millions of shitty pictures.

Nicole would often say, ‘We aren’t making art right now. We are practicing concepts.’ She would push us to share our shitty pictures and to discuss as a group what made them shitty so we could learn to make them better. Basically, it was exposure therapy for my perfectionist self.

I paid to be in her monthly photography group after that first basics workshop though, so no matter how uncomfortable I got, I was determined to do all the assignments and to share them in the group for critique.

I learned to notice when I started getting frustrated, and to purposely stop, take some breaths, and talk myself down. Basically, I was doing nervous system work before I ever knew what a nervous system was and that practice made me a far more patient and capable person.

Turns out, it’s also really, really satisfying to do something that you know you couldn’t have done just a little while ago. Being able to suck long enough to finally ‘get it’ brought a sense of satisfaction and personal pride that I didn’t know was possible to feel until I started challenging myself with stuff I couldn’t do.

Over time, and after challenging myself with lots of things I thought I couldn’t do, I have developed an utter faith in my ability to figure shit out. This has opened my world up in ways I could never have imagined when I was cursing on that camera for not doing what I wanted it to do.