My creative lesson 7 - You will learn things that you didn’t know you didn’t know
15 February, 2020
This week’s creative lesson was brought to my attention again by one of the Framers on the 52Frames Photographers page on Facebook.
(Unashamed plug: If you join 52Frames.com you get free access to some very cool advice and insights from photographers from around the world!)
This photographer wrote about how this week’s challenge “Intentional Color Palette” challenged him and made him really pay attention to the colors of the objects that he photographs.
His post totally struck a nerve in me that I had actually forgotten about. As newbie photographer (and after joining 52Frames) I learned about so many things that I have never heard of before. My goal was to take out my camera more than once every six months and to improve my photography.
Along the way however, I have learned a bunch of new stuff I never even knew existed. Wabi-sabi and light painting and the exposure triangle and the blue hour and many other things were brand new concepts to me.
Some of the stuff that I learned was photo related, for example working with a photo editor. There were also many non-photo related things such as how to work with Mailchimp to help with the weekly emails and how the color wheel works.
I learned how to check when the sun rises to plan an early photo shoot and how to save my photos to the cloud.
At the beginning of my photography journey I was also astounded that so many things exist and are right in front of my eyes and yet I never SAW them. The world is filled with leading lines, complementary colors, textures and patterns just waiting for someone with a camera to discover them.
As serendipity would have it, I came across this video of Stefan Mischook this week. He teaches code development and talks about why it is never a bad thing to learn something new.
The worst thing that can happen is that you have created some new neural networks. And the best thing, that usually happens, is that you not only learn a bunch of new stuff but the new stuff enhances even the old stuff that you already know. For example me writing about photography has definitely improved my photography AND writing.
Doesn’t this make you want to learn something new just to see what other unknown and unexpected stuff will pop up along the way?!
The world of photography is a world of discovery. We are constantly going on photo shoots and have learned to keep our eyes open to see old things in a new light. I have however learned that it is not always JUST about the photo.
There is a whole unexpected world behind that photo that got discovered along the way.
I belong to a photo group called 52Frames where we have to take a photo and upload it every week. (It is 100% free to join but take note that the deadlines are strict.) Plodding along every week getting my weekly photo has taught me a lot about creativity.
Here is the 52Frames’s Intentional Color Palette album.
