The Immature PhotographerWriten by Eric Hartwell
I like to think that I am a bit more mature now. Don't we all? I'm not sure it is really true, perhaps it's just a change of perception.
Thinking back, I was very naive and, yes, immature in the past. My first camera was a Zenit E. It weighed a ton but it took photographs. After I had bought it and loaded the film, I set about taking photographs.
I didn't stray far. No further than my house really. The result was a hundred or so pictures of my cat, the garden vegetation and any human that dared to come near me.
I felt on top of the world. I had made it at last. When, a few months later, I set up a darkroom in my bedroom, I felt that my talents were complete.
Only ther weren't. because my pictures lacked sparkle and charm. They suffered from overexposure, underdevelopment and poor composition together with every other possible photographic mishap you could name.
I couldn't see it then, but I can now.
And so the trend continues. I convince myself that I am open minded and certainly can see and appreciate the superb works of others. But I still wince a little when constructive criticism comes my way. I laugh it off and take it full on in the face of course, but inwardly, I seethe. A bit.
I don't like to be told the best way to do things because I think I know it. I have read books and gone on courses. I even teach photography. But I still find that others can improve my images. I just don't always agree with their efforts.
Although 30 years on from my Zenit E, I still retain the skeleton of that same immaturuity that blighted me then. I guess it will be with me till I die. I just won't really notice it.
Eric Hartwell runs the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums as well as the regular weblog at http://thephotographysite.blogspot.com