Some Backstory

I don't even recall how I came up with this idea. I do know that I felt that if I was going to re-engage with photography that I should be more thoughtful about it. The idea of seriously studying photography arose from my frustration of, frankly, just not being very good at it.

A bit of backstory: When I was a kid, I wanted to make photography my life. I intended to go to a photography school—Brooks Institute (the only one I knew of at the time)—and I set about in that direction. I did some modeling photography. I got a job at a photo lab and as an assistant to an AP photographer. I was mostly loading film and getting to run around with a camera and a press pass when I was done with my assistantly duties. I was dismayed by the run-and-gun approach of this professional and I wasn't very good at the newsy stuff we were doing. My young self didn't understand that one has to work at things to get good at them, sigh. At the same time, I got pulled in to the business side of the photo lab company, because they thought I was "management material."

I resolved then that photography should be an art and that's what I wanted to do, and let the path take me where it should. Was the combination of my frustration with the pull of the universe of business a sign, or a cop out. We'll never know. The rest of the story is decades of job and family and being your average lover of taking pictures, but, as I said, not very good, because being really good at something takes all the energy you can muster, a wholly giving over toward a thing where there are few rewards.

And now we're up-to-date.

I looked around at low-residency photography programs and understood quickly that I would not be able to afford or accomplish them with my work and family life priorities. Besides, I'm a quiet self-study type. However I didn't even think there would be much out there. You really have to look for photography books beyond those ones that everyone seems to reference.

Once I started to dig in, I found a lot of books. A lot! Given that I'd really like to have attended a formal program, I decided to create a curriculum of sorts to focus my energies on topics outside of pure technique to deepen my understanding and appreciation of the field while all along doing the work of getting out in the world and trying things, allowing for failure, and pushing myself.

Am I better photographer today? I think so, but even if not the journey so far as been life changing.