Dear Me

Dear Me,

Six months down the line and I feel both elated and depressed about my contribution to the course. Elated because I can see genuine progress with my photography, and depressed because the progress is, I feel anyway, too slow.

Too slow because of professional commitments that do nothing but distract me from immersing myself in photography (ie. I still need my day job). One of my main goals for the next few months is to reinvent my day job, and start getting serious work taking photographs. This may mean moving back to Lithuania, a country five times cheaper than the one I currently live in.

I took this course because I wanted to work professionally in non-fiction-based photography, ideally but not necessary (nor exclusively for that matter) as a photographer. I was helped along the way by the professional encouragement of picture editors I was working with at the time in travel publishing as well as a few other people that matter. I knew my pictures were good enough to take them one step further, but it’s always good to have support, especially professional support.

When I started this course I didn’t fully understand how one photograph can contain so much information. This is something I’ve learnt and am using already.

When I stared this course I didn’t fully understand how it was possible to support one’s ‘serious’ photography with working in a more commercial area of photography. This is something I’ve learnt and am starting to put into practice.

When I started this course I didn’t fully understand how important multimedia was in contemporary photojournalism and documentary photography. This is something I’ve learnt and am trying to come to terms with.

When I started this course I didn’t fully understand what kind of photographs I was good at taking and what kind of photographs I wasn’t so good at taking. This is something I’ve learnt and am trying to apply to my progress.

There are lots of other things that I don’t have time to mention at the moment.

In a strange way I rather like the fact that I’m producing work on this course under such pressure, with barely any time at all to work on projects. It feels almost like a real working environment.

My two picture assessments were so hugely different I wonder if anybody understood what I was doing. Both were serious. The Douglas pictures, horribly unfinished, have the potential to be turned into something powerful and packed with meaning for anyone from a national newspaper to a charity. If I have a serious problem on the course, it’s how to take the next step with projects like this. Homer has been a brick with his help on the Douglas project, but now it’s up to me to move it forwards. Homer even liked the Eastbourne Pier photographs. This is the man who not so long ago told me to never take photographs with a mobile phone. About the mobile phone work, I’ve trademarked the word Nokumentary™ and am seriously looking into developing documentary photography projects with a mobile phone manufacturer (not necessarily Nokia). I did have a brief email session with Anne Williams (Programme Director for Photography, LCC) about hooking up with Nokia, but Anne hasn’t replied to any of my emails for a while. Time to send her another I think.

At the start of this course I was eager to learn, share experiences, work on projects, debate a bit and generally wallow in education for a couple of years. I was also as already mentioned eager to work in the professional. A third of the way along do I think I’m achieving everything I set out to do?

I wonder.

Assuming that my first term assessed work made the grade then I believe next term will really show whether I can do it or not. My travel publishing clients are all aware of my photography, most are enthusiastic about it, and some are actively finding commissions for me. I’m started to build a body of work I can show people too. I’ve also set up an Alamy account. All of these are signs that I’m serious.

Waffle. No time to seriously think about this. I may come back and edit. Comments very welcome indeed.

Oh, and composition is everything.