Winding road.

The journey we take in our photography is an interesting one, one that starts with the purchase or the borrowing of a camera. I started pretty young, not really sure exact age, but I believe it  was around 6 years old. I have a B&W image of me with a camera and I guess I look about 6. We are often encouraged by friends and family in the early days of our photography, who often tell us what we want to hear, not the truth.  During our discovery in photography we take many roads and hopefully survive many hurdles, which if we work hard, practice and study will lead us to creating creative images which are recognizable as our work, unique. It is a long and winding road that will take us to this point and along that road we will fall off the track at times. We will often get obsessed with one style of photography, but to get our stronger subjects stronger we need to get our weaker subjects stronger. Whatever you find in photography to be difficult, should be your next challenge. If you are not pushing yourself into an uncomfortable area you will not grow, improve or shine. I was asked during last weeks Samoan Photo/ Cycling tour, how do I decide what images to play with from the thousands we have taken during the trip. I have a list of five elements that I look for in an image that help me make the decision to which ones I play with. These are , Gesture, Light, Colour, Story and  Impact.