Think your life with a camera is getting out of control sometimes? You’re not the only one! One day we swing from a gear geek, to a time we think we have a shot at National Geographic and then bang, we are sometimes too ashamed to bring out the camera. Got this from the internet one day and I think it’s a humorous and good reflection of what photographers go through, amateur or professional.

Let’s start with Knowledge.
At the beginning, we’re born with zero knowledge of photography. At least I am. So we have a new camera, things are set to auto mode (unless you’re like me who started without auto modes). Then you learn about properly exposing your images and wow, you can actually take pictures and then you drool over the pictures in National Geographic and you’re convinced all you need is gear, and more gear. So break your piggy bank, starve a bit, work part time, and then you enter the gear geek stage. You improve on techniques, attend workshops, and then your knowledge just increases from then on.

And then Quality of Photos.
Does having better knowledge means better photos? Well there’s a correlation. Again we start at zero. And then as knowledge increases, the quality of our photos increases naturally. And then wham! New advances in software especially in dealing with HDR means you start from scratch with this new understanding – learning to increase the dynamic range of your images. From here onwards, your pictures will improve in tandem with your knowledge.

So how good do you think you are?
Many of us start off thinking the world of our images. We live in our own world. Everything looks pretty but as we improve, we begin to see cracks in that. We can swing to the extreme and say that the more we learn, the worst we think our pictures can get. But with Photoshop and sharing our pictures on Flickr and Facebook, people start telling us how amazing a photographer we are. And we believe that..until a certain point of realization then we start all over again.

Do I believe in this completely? Maybe not. But what I do believe is we go through ups and downs in photography. I went through an experience when I stayed away from it for many years until I rediscovered it. And improved from then on. So it’s perfectly normal.

2 Responses to “STAGES OF A PHOTOGRAPHER’S LIFE”

1. Joel Seah says:

   30/04/2010 at 5:42 pm

   I think i’m at the Damnnit! I suck stage. Sian….
2. Alex Wong says:

   28/06/2010 at 2:58 am

   Definitely at the “Dammit I suck stage”. Unfortunately this also coincides with the “Dammit I have no time” stage….