| I think one of my strongest suits as a person (across the board of my life in many areas) is my ability to intensely focus on things that are important to me, read, explore and learn about them at a pace that it suitable to me. Photography has certainly been one of those things.
It has been my habit for many years to pick a topic and spend a year exploring it. One year I chose to teach myself image editing in Photoshop, one year it was studio lighting, one year it was high key studio lighting, one year it was mastering black and white printing. One year it was doing 50 crunches every night before going to bed. One year it was learning to play the Irish whistle (I'm now into year two of this one). One year it was bicycling, one year it was nutrition. As I've gotten older I realize that mentors are huge on the path of learning and I've had some good ones…Phil Wayner of this list being who I consider a great mentor; we've never met, only ever visited via email and a couple of phone calls. When I was starting out in photography there weren't a lot of women in it, and because I was so young I wasn't taken as seriously as I could have/should have been when I went to my local shops and asked questions. Most of the employees were men who didn't really take the time with me to clearly answer my questions. I found a few who did and I was always so appreciative of them. Several months ago I took some prints to a local photo shop and showed them to a friend who works there. She shoots film and prints in a darkroom. She looked at my prints and said something along the lines of, "Yeah. But they're digital." I was stunned that anyone had that attitude in this day and age…especially someone selling high end digital camera gear (I bought my 5DM3 from this person) looking at some lovely black and white prints. The workshops I've taken have expanded me greatly, yes. I wish I'd been in a financial place to do most of them sooner than I did. But we tend to find what we need when we're ready for it. I'm exploring another workshop I'd like to take next summer. In the meantime I do some mentoring for younger shooters and I work like crazy on my personal images…yesterday I printed fifty-three 8.5" x 11" black and white prints on my Epson 3800 using Canson Platine Fibre Rag. Man oh man are they gorgeous. Lea your kids . my camera . we'll click www.leamurphy.com On Sep 10, 2013, at 12:10 PM, Randy Little wrote:
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