andrew gibson: moving to the next level
andrew s. gibson ©
How would you describe your ability as a photographer? Do you think of yourself as a beginner? Competent? Expert? I came across an interesting post on Seth’s Blog. He talks about the five stages people go through as they learn (formally known as the ‘Dreyfus model of skill acquisition’). Here’s how I see them applying to photography:
Novice:
Needs to be told exactly what to do. Wants precise instructions for everything. Doesn’t want to make any decisions for themself.
Advanced beginner:
Starting to get to grips with photographic technique and theory, but lacks in-depth knowledge and the ability to place the theory in a wider context.
Competent:
Has the ability to assimilate and cope with what can be vast amounts of incoming information. Sets goals, makes plans and creates routine ways of working.
Proficient:
Has a good overview of photographic techniques, theory and practise. Is adaptable and can apply theoretical knowledge in practise. Knows when someone isn’t doing something the accepted way.
Expert:
Transcends the rulebook – experts make new rules and beat the paths that others follow. Has a deep knowledge and understanding of photography, combined with creative vision and the ability to cope with whatever is thrown at them. Experts are writing books and giving workshops – think Joe McNally, Vincent LaForet, David duChemin and so on.
Where do you fit in this hierarchy? I’m sure every photographer will be able to categorise themselves and recognise the stages of learning. The big question is, once you’ve realised where you are, how do you progress to the next level? I think there are two key areas – knowledge and practise. Read and learn as much as you can. Look at the work of expert photographers. Then go out and put it into practise. It may take time, but you’ll progress.
When it comes to learning, photographers have never had it so good. Digital cameras give instant feedback – no more waiting for a week for a box of processed Kodachromes to come through the door. The internet gives instant access to the images and thoughts of the world’s best photographers. Want to know what Joe McNally is thinking as he takes photos? The answer is right there on his blog.
There’s another factor, implicit in most learning material but not often spoken about – mentality. Knowledge is one thing, mindset another. The world’s top photographers think differently. What would you have done if Canon lent you a pre-production EOS 5D Mark II for a weekend? Vincent Laforet made Reverie. That’s the difference that mindset makes.
Growth and improvement are challenges that every photographer face. This is my call to action: what do you need to do to move towards the next level? Sit down and write a list of five things. Share them with us. Then go out and do them.
Andrew Gibson is the author of Craft and Vision’s “Magic of Black & White” series of ebooks. He covers seeing in monochrome to using digital tools such as Photoshop to convert colour images into black and white. His most recent ebook looks at advanced techniques to create more powerful images.
Craft and Vision has a limited number of gift coupons available during this holiday season. Buy this $20 gift coupon and you’ll get a code to give to someone special to use on the Craft and Vision site when they select 4 or more books from the collection. And because my friend Matt Connors asked so nicely, I’m going to give one coupon to someone who takes up Andrew’s challenge in the comments below. The winner will be chosen by random draw on November 30.
Sabrina on
I don’t have five things to share with you but I find myself going back and forth on that scale whenever I try to learn something new.
Or – at the top of the stairs there is a door, I open it and find myself on the bottom of a new flight of stairs
I like your metaphor for learning here, Eli and it’s true about going back and forth on the scale. I hadn’t thought about it in that way.
Excellent read Sabrina, what a brilliant blog post. I am basically out there now all the time doing a lot of stuff on my list wanting to get to the best level I can possibly get and some of the experts you mentioned are dear inspirations. Steve McCurry and other NG shooters are presently what I am really into. I have almost perfected my landscapes, they no longer hold a challenge, I wish to tell stories in every frame like the master Steve McCurry.
My list is too long and has more than five points, I might try and do a blog post about it one day inspired by this great post.
Thanks for stopping by Flemming. I agree with you, Andrew wrote a great post here. I’m delighted that you are looking at story-telling and I’m really looking forward to seeing the results.
I’ll bite. I got called out by a friend yesterday about procrastination, and it’s still smarting. Smarting because it’s true.
What do I need to do to move towards the next level?
1. Carrying my camera everywhere isn’t enough. I need to use it! And the times I find most painful are when I’m rushing to get somewhere, because I inevitably see beautiful things I’d like to capture along the way. So… I will build more time into my schedule so I’m not rushing and can stop and shoot.
2. Intentionally build in more time every week to shoot (apart from traveling).
3. Work through all the eBooks I’ve already purchased. I have a ton of resources sitting in a file on my computer, and most have great exercises and questions to work through. Even tackling one exercise or question a week would be an improvement.
4. Use the online training sites I’m paying for but not using enough.
5. Make prints of my images. I rarely do this, and am sometimes disappointed when I do (things always look so good on the screen. Ha!). But I’m missing out on perfect learning opportunities!
Okay, I could go on, but I suppose that wouldn’t be very realistic. Looking back over my list here, it seems that intentionality and time are the two key factors.
I really appreciate you posing the question, Andrew. And thank you for providing the venue, Sabrina!
Thanks for sharing your plans for moving to the next level, Erin. Everything you’ve written here resonates with me and what I really like is that you’ve looked at the reasons for the procrastination: time and intentionality. I think when I address the fundamental barriers for moving ahead and work on those, I have much better success.
Wishing all the best for moving forward…I’ll be checking in with you
Great blog post Andrew! I’d never seen Reverie before this. Whoa!
What do I need to do to move to the next level? Simple – shoot more. And not shoot on the bus, on the way to/from work, or relegating it to the back seat like I have always done, but set aside specific time to go and shoot just for discovery.
I have done this only once in the 3 or 4 years that I have been interacting with photography, and that was during the Magnum Workshops in March because, well, that was the whole point. Aside from that, there have always been other, more pressing things to do. I’m pretty lucky that 4 – 5 months of the year I get paid to shoot weekly, which keeps me sharp and I learn new stuff from it, but again it’s a cop-out that i’m generally more than happy to use
Thanks for some great food for thought. Must starting acting on it now.
Reverie is brilliant isn’t it? The making of video is well worth watching too.
I bounce between Competent and Proficient depending on the situation but every now and then I bump back to Novice (although I make my own decisions).
I finally bought a compact camera (Canon S95) to replace the one that died about 6 months ago. I just wasn’t taking my DSLR with me when I was leaving the house and I was constantly wishing I had a camera with me. On the one I hand I can’t really afford a new camera, but on the other I can not afford the loss of creativity and inspiration I have been experiencing. Now I know that every time I go out, I will have something with me and it will be easier to give myself assignments.
I want to get more comfortable taking photographs of people. My DSLR always seems so “in your face” in casual situations. People are used to compacts and iPhones. So now my challenge is to make the best (technically and creatively) portraits I can using this smaller tool.
Thanks for popping by Liisa. I’ve heard so many great things about the S95 and I’d be interested to see what you are able to do with it as your “take everywhere” camera. I’m especially excited to see the people stuff!
I also like Eli’s metaphor above. I alternate between all of the above levels depending on my project and goals. On occasion, I’ve been through many of the levels within a single project.
My List
1. Slow down. This may be the hardest one for me. There always seems to be something else to do, somewhere else to be, someone waiting on me. My time always seems rushed.
2. Shoot more. I need to concentrate more on working a subject from various angles and orientations. I forget to shoot the horizontal, then the vertical; to move the camera to a new position. I lock on a composition and then forget to move on to try other one. The next angle could be worse or better, but I never know if I don’t move.
3. Play more. As I struggle to improve my photography, I occasionally loose sight of the joy and curiosity that made the endeavor fun to begin with. I put undo pressure on myself that each shutter click needs to produce a “keeper”. I need to shoot more just to answer my “what if” questions, to experiment, to simply have fun.
4. Collaborate. I’ve recently begun to collaborate on projects with other photographers I’ve meet through Twitter and the Web, and it is great! The exchange of ideas, critiques, and goals is very inspirational. But I could use a more local community that exists off the web to do the same with.
5. Actually DO #1 − #4. This may be the hardest for me for the reasons mentioned separately above. I realize the changes and actions I should take to continue my photographic growth, now I need to follow through and actually act upon them.
“Slow down” seems to be a theme I’m seeing this week (see Andrew’s reference below to Matt Brandon’s post).
Finding people in my local area to go out and photograph with has made me do 2) and 3). I hope you’ll be as lucky as I’ve been with my group Dave, David and Mary, and also my friends Chris and Simon.
If there is one thing I learned while I was in the Photography program the the University of Colorado is that Photography cannot be forced. When we were given an assignment there was always the pressure to come up with special photographs. Now this is where the problem lies. You could see this at crit, some of the images were “forced” and some were not. I just depended on the person. I believe that It had to do with their raw talent, artistic background, and will to make it in the industry. All of my classes focuses on the art of photography. Now When I was in school I was held back my the time constraints put on me with assignments. But since I have graduated. I have had a lot of free time. What I found out was that my photography has improved the last few months. So I sat down to think about this today when I read the article about moving to the next level, about what I have done and what I am going to do. I used to shoot film in my entry level classes, but then the digital classes came around. Film is very important because it allows me to really think about the subject , lighting, composition. I have just recently go a cheap medium format camera, and I think this is going to improve my photography ten fold. While in school we had an assignment to shoot 4×5 film, and I could not believe how much detail came from that camera, While I still love to use my digital camera, btw nearly everyday, I think that its just to easy to be trigger happy and fire away 1000 shots in a day, to only have 5 keepers in the end. Photography is a journey and should be taken one step at a time. Having photography in my life is a great thing, and I am thankful was was given the opportunity to experience was it has to offer. Brett.
Welcome Brett. I couldn’t agree more that this is a journey and a wonderful one at that. Thanks for sharing your story too.
I like this blog post alot, and enjoyed reading through it to see where I “fit”. I think I’m somewhere between “Competent” and “Proficient”, but it’s all relative because of the number of categories, sub-categories and aspects of (and within) photography.
Here are five things I am working on that I feel will get me further along than where I currently am:
1) Beside manner. Most times I get too caught up in what “I” am after, when I should be focusing more on my subject’s needs and what they are experiencing. I’d like to flip-flop my current mentality during the shoot so that my subjects respond better during the shoot and walk away feeling awesome about themselves and their experience. One thing I’ve considered doing to start facilitating this is to put my camera on a tripod occasionally, to get it out of my hands so that my attention can be 100% about the subject.
2) I’d like to be more outgoing regarding acquiring permission to shoot at locations (other than my own home). I’m so intimidated to ask permission to shoot at businesses or other properties, that I miss out on many good location opportunities. I just need to suck-it-up and ask… even if they say “no”, someone will eventually say “yes”.
3) I’d like to stop being so afraid of asking questions from the people (photographers) that I really admire. Too often I think they are too busy (or important) to help me or answer my questions. I think the reality though is that many of them are extremely helpful and willing to offer advice. And much like #2, some will say “no” but some will say “yes”.
4) Website, website, website. I have a basic website, but I currently do nothing to promote it. I need to promote it more by providing the links to it on Flickr/Facebook/etc…
5) Blog more. I do blog every once and a while, but not as much as I’d like to. I’d like to keep the blog more tech-related and use it as a tool to collaborate and discuss photography (as opposed to appealling to potential customers). I’m not ruling-out a customer-facing blog, but right now I’m more interested in technical blogging and relationships I might be able to make with that. Much like #4 though, I don’t currently promote my blog, and need to start doing that by having links to it on Flickr/Facebook/ect… and publishing new posts.
Hello Andrew. I really appreciate you visiting my blog. What you’ve said here resonates with me on so many levels. I have the same fears as you and I’ve been working on them but it is still a challenge for me. That you’ve been willing to share them with us here is admirable and I wish you all the best as you move forward. Perhaps you’ll come back and let us know how you are doing?
Matt Brandon has some practical advice on his blog at Digital Trekker. There are some excellent tips even for experienced shooters.
Very nice post Sabrina. I think to get to the next level I need to:
1. Take a couple of courses
2. Interact more with photographers, especially those at the next level
3. Improve my smugmug page
4. Slow down and think when I am taking my pictures
5. Buy a wide angle lens
Hey Ken, nice to see you again. I’ll second #5 and want to see your results when you do!