breakfast with ken

© Ken Udle

One of the things I love about blogging that I hadn’t anticipated, is the opportunity to connect with others in a meaningful way. Somehow we’ve been able to cross the miles virtually and even in person to come together and share our love of photography. A couple of weeks ago I was excited to meet Ken Udle over breakfast as we have been corresponding for the last little while and in particular on a subject I wrote about a few of weeks ago, namely image critiques.

The story begins on Ken’s blog with a post called “A Postcard from the Edge” or perhaps even long before then. When Ken was eleven, he was given a camera and a basic darkroom kit and nothing but the Kodak guide sheets for information. His darkroom was a space next to the oil furnace in a corner of his unfinished basement and he practiced on 20-year old exposed rolls of film that had been stored for years in his uncle’s trunk. As Ken explains “In a way, photography chose me. There was a Zen about opening a roll of exposed film and loading it into a developing tank in complete darkness, adding chemicals and eventually discovering moments of time captured years before. It felt special being the only person in the house who knew how to do this, and for a young boy, that made a lasting impression.“

At 16, he bought an SLR and motivated by his desire to accomplish more, continued his learning journey by reading magazines and experimenting on his own. Life rolled on and photography became too expensive a pursuit as family priorities took over. Nearly 30 years later, while helping his son with a school project, he rediscovered photography. “I was reminded of how much I enjoyed creating images of how I see things and it didn’t take long before I had a DSLR and found there was a whole new set of skills to learn. The motivation wasn’t all that different even after all those years.” This time around though, with the internet an important resource for learning and sharing, Ken took a “more formal and more collaborative” approach to learning with his brothers and their cousin who lives in another city. He finally signed up for a weekend workshop at a local photography school where there was in-class and on-site instruction on the basics of exposure and composition for landscape photography. “What I learned is that I didn’t know as much as I thought I did about exposure and specifically how to use aperture settings to the best advantage. I also found I enjoyed the feedback from classmates and the instructor.”

Ken went on to take three other courses at the school where he explored the technical side of photography and was exposed to different styles and genres of photography such as portraiture, photo-journalism, street photography, landscape, panoramic, etc. He also spent time on creativity and using photography for artistic expression through weekly assignments and discussions on the use of colour, creating a sense of space, creating a portfolio. In retrospect though Ken realized “that instead of sparking creativity, taking consecutive courses with weekly assignments, sometimes on similar themes, was oddly limiting. I could take decent pictures of reflections on glass but that’s not what I really wanted to be doing.”

Two months ago I dropped by Ken’s blog and read about his experience having his images critiqued. The photographer was also the instructor and the feedback was given with other students in an open setting. I asked Ken what he learned from this experience. “The adage, be careful what you ask for applies here. Looking back, I realize what I heard was more personal opinion than helpful critiquing, and I wasn’t as ready for that as I thought I was. To be honest, the experience led me to question if I’d somehow missed the point of the courses and to wonder what was I trying to create, art or commercial product? I thought I wanted to create art, I thought that I was creating art. What is art? Ultimately, I realized I wanted to create pictures that pleased me, if they appealed to other people in some way, that was a bonus. The standards I’m aiming for are ones I set for myself. This doesn’t mean I’m not interested in feedback, quite the contrary, I do want to know what people think, I just have to remind myself it’s okay if opinions differ.”

As you know I am a big fan of the discussions Ray and I have about my images. Those conversations give me pause to think about things from a whole different perspective, one that is transforming my approach to photography. I offered to put Ken in touch with Ray to see what would happen. First Ray had Ken share a sample of his images and then they discussed them a few weeks later via Skype. During that time Ray read Ken’s blog and took at look at his Flickr photo stream to get a better sense of Ken’s voice and where he was photographically. Ray also mentioned to Ken that “he likes to live with the images for a while before discussing them.“

I asked Ken to tell me about the image review and to compare Ray’s approach to his previous experience. Here’s what he had to say:

I decided to limit my selection to 9 pictures, 5 from the course portfolio and 4 that were favorites of mine. Four of the 5 had received negative comments during the class critique, one earned positive comments with a suggestion on how to improve on it. I liked each one and thought there were good representations of my work. On three of them I’d spent some time preparing the shot – of course this made it all the more difficult to hear the negative comments. In a way, I felt I was taking a risk throwing them out again for examination.

Ray’s approach was different. The conversation wasn’t limited to just the 9 pictures. I had posted some new pictures during the intervening weeks, and Ray included them in the discussion. I don’t think I heard personal opinions on the artistic or commercial value of the the pieces nor were there suggestions for technical adjustments. Rather Ray pointed out those pictures that seemed to “speak” to him or convey a story in one way or another. He encouraged me for example to explore the corners of the frames as some of my stronger shots used that approach. In class I had felt like I wanted to defend my work, this time the conversation was more inclusive and therefore of more value.

I was a little curious if Ken was surprised by anything that he heard in the review. It brought a smile to my face when he mentioned that Ray was able to pick out the images on his Flickr stream that were not made for a class assignment. To be able to recognize a photographer’s voice in their images is something of a gift Ray has and I would like to be able to do one day. Ken was also pleased that Ray had a different take on a few of the images that had not received positive feedback in the class. This reminds me of an ongoing conversation I’ve been having with Ray on how images are received by an audience and what each of us brings to an image when we view it. More about that later, I think.

I thought about Ken’s original post and I wondered if this experience had changed the way he viewed his work and if it had given him any insight into what direction he would take next. I was pleased that Ken felt more positive about his work and interestingly enough he feels that the experience “confirms a recent decision not to pursue more formal training but to rather explore photography on (his) own terms for a while...Some of Ray’s comments validated what I’m doing, but also suggested I explore some new elements that I hadn’t considered. I can use that to set new or different standards for myself and I think that’s part of growing as a photographer.“

One of the final questions I had for Ken was what’s next–this is after all a journey about learning photography. I was excited to hear that he is going to explore storytelling and recently he has been drawn to black and white photography–coincidentally I have a post lined up on that subject too! Like some stories, the ending is still to be written and there will be many more postcards from Ken. I believe we all need encouragement and support to find our voice and I hope I’ve been able to help another fellow photographer on this shared journey.