Watching the world

A former student wrote yesterday: "I am still struggling with critiquing my own work, just because nothing is ever really good enough, and I am still wondering as to what is a 'good image' that I took versus one that is not meaningful. With 'good', I mean: do my images ever really say anything or are they considered just snapshots of the moment? I am thoroughly confused..."

This kind of confusion, it seems to me, is the point of learning photography. I usually begin a course with demonstrations and instruction in the basics of cameras and computer imaging. A short history of the camera and of photography follows immediately. And then the main point: long weeks of making pictures, showing them to each other, and talking about them. My hope is to shove the apparatus to the background and focus on the process of the making meaning, which emerges from the conversation.

The camera and computer will become a massive distraction for the new photographer unless a robust conversation about the activity of picture-making itself is actively and enthusiastically encouraged. Repeatedly, I find, we already know enough about the apparatus to start watching the world; it's the watching that needs encouragement.

Unfortunately, we procrastinate real photography by swamping ourselves with doubts and questions about the machinery. Which shuts down the larger and more important purpose: engagement. My goal is to coax people past their machine-doubts and urge them out into the world of picture-making so they can touch the doubts that matter.

Once the discipline takes hold -- pick up the camera, bring the camera with you, pay attention to your experience, respond, make the picture -- the deeper confusions can surface and a conversation about meaning begins to make sense.

Thanks for writing yesterday. This is the moment you start to be the photographer you've wanted to become.