Pikapika20's Blog

Slogging onwards in the Photo 365 April 17, 2011

It’s been a year and something months, and I’m taking a picture every day, but not posting it. It’s hard because I think I’ve hit a bit of a hump in terms of growth. The thing is, I hang out with a large community of photographers, so there’s a lot of potential for discussion and challenge and creativity and growth… but we never take advantage of it.

Today, I proposed that we do some photographic exercises to help us improve. Here’s the idea:

One subject/theme, 20 pictures in a week and then we bring them, show them, and pick our favourites from each others’ sets.

I think it’s such a great idea. It forces you to push yourself a little bit, take yourself out of your comfort zone. It’s positive and fun. After all, the exchange of ideas is interesting and informative. It teaches you to think in different ways. I’d love to see other people’s creativity and the different interpretations of a theme. And who doesn’t want to hear how other people like your work and what they think is best? I’m so often prejudiced about my work, it would be great to be in a community of people who can talk about what they’ve done.

Sound simple? Sound fun? Well, there are so many excuses. “It takes too much time.” “It’s too difficult.” “I’m not a great photographer.” “I don’t know what I’d do.”

But honestly, before I can say anything to anyone about the amount of work that photography is, I have to take a real look at how much time and effort I’m putting into my photography. Am I really trying to improve? Am I trying to interpret and push and work? At the very least, am I putting my photographs out there and looking at them seriously to see what is good and what is bad?

Therefore, despite all my trepidation and dislike for my only photograph of today.. here it is.