(I took this photo March 2011 of my little sister right after we got caught in rain.)
“ You’ve got to push yourself harder. You’ve got to start looking for pictures nobody else could take. You’ve got to take the tools you have and probe deeper. – William Albert Allard
We all have fears, but in order to get over them we need to face them. We need to step outside our comfort zone. We need to take a deep breath and jump.
When it comes to photography there can be all kinds of fears because you have to know so much technical information in order to get that one GREAT shot. You need to know about measurement of exposure, light, f-stops, and aperture. There are numbers involved and settings to understand. Learning to use a camera properly takes effort, commitment, tenacity, and most of all trial and error.
The first thing you need to do is identify your fears. Is it...
Technical Fear, creative fear, confidence fear, accuracy fear, in-the-picture fear, or can't-put-my-finger-on-it fear? Shimelle wrote a good post on facing these fears.
Homework: Make a list of all the fears you have in photography and then once you are done making your list--pick one thing and go for it.
I feel that if we stay in this little box we live in (our comfort zone) we cannot push ourselves to be great. We will take average photos and live an average life. I am not saying that where we are right now is bad, I am saying that there is so much more out there to see and to take photos of. If you live behind AUTO mode, you will never truly know what it is like to take a great photo.
Here are a few fears that I had in the past.
(outtake: Self-portrait. Alameda Beach, 2011)
I used to have a fear for shooting in public, but the only way I got over it was to take my camera out everywhere I went and just shoot. Most of the time no one is looking at you. No one really cares what you are doing and that is the hardest thing remember when you are in public.
If someone really wants to know what you are doing they will ask. If you feel weird saying "I am taking photo for my blog," you could say "I am working on a school project." Once you say school most people just say "Oh" and move on. I am not saying this always works ;)
(2nd Street, San Francisco, 2009)
I have a fear of other people taking photos of me. I am more comfortable if I am in control of the camera. I get really shy and lose focus of what I want trying to do. I make funny faces and sometimes I can't stop laughing.
I am not sure that I will be fully comfortable with other people taking photos of me because I rather take them myself.
(Polka Dot Robot photo shoot 2009. Photo taken by Volker Neumann)
Because of this fear I over came another fear I had and that is taking self-portraits. I used to feel silly taking photos of myself, but I wanted to take photos like hers. The more self-portraits I did the more confident I became and then one day I was able to take this...
(this was my first attempt at cloning.)
One thing that motivates me to step outside my comfort zone in photography is that I don't want to just take good photos, I am want to take GREAT photos.
There are so many great things that we miss in life because we are afraid to try something new. Don't miss out on a great shot because you are afraid. You may have to take a hundred photos in order to get that one photo, but the other 99 are so worth taking because you did not miss out.
(taken at the Mother's Cookie Factory. Oakland 2012)
Check out my other post in the Oh Snap! series.
photography for blogging// part one
Self-portraits
Getting to know your camera
Photoshop actions
Spring Photo Challenge 2012
