We (at least always should) start with why
No matter what are we doing, we should always ask ourselves why are we doing something. This question should help us to find our small reminder, our driver that will drive us through the journey and motivate us to keep up. In the terms of biology and psychology brain has a paleomammalian cortex (limbic system) part which is responsible for motivation, emotions, and attention among other functions. It resonates with the photos that we like and don’t like, cameras, styles of photography, etc. It’s the starting point of waking up early in the morning to go out and shoot. A place where why we do photography every day live, or let’s say our driver for doing photography lives. So we should be focused on building or as I like to say finding a good driver for the journey. A good driver will show us the beauty and importance of photography in everyday life, and bring us rewards in photo competitions or even world fame. But there is one catch, it’s not only necessary to have a good driver, but it’s also necessary to remind ourselves of his existence during the journey! Without a reminder of why we are doing it, our photography voice can become silent, driver exhausted, and that’s when we start to think about abandoning photography. The second important part of our brain is the neocortex – it’s responsible for the selection and coordination of goal-directed behavior. It manages complex processes such as task switching, reinforcement learning, and decision-making. Let’s say what are we doing during our photographic journey. A compass that directs our driver toward the goals we set for ourselves.
And now you may ask yourself “But how did these two help me to become a better photographer?”. Let me explain when our why, how, and what are synchronized we become authentic people, and when the person is authentic he lives what’s called a meaningful life. Lives through his work and stands out from the group by having photos that spread his message, and his why. It’s very important to pay attention to the order of these three, why should always be the first, how second and what the third! If they are not synchronized our photos won’t convey a clear message, resulting in people not knowing what we’re trying to say. Moreover, people will not follow us or buy our products. The secret is in biology, they don’t follow us nor are interested in our work because of WHAT we do, they follow us or buy our products because of WHY we do it. Why is the driver that drives action (to like, purchase …), pure science! The golden circle from the book “Start with Why – Simon Sinek” explains this connection with the brain perfectly. And now when we understand these things let me introduce our base for creating a photography voice:
WHY: Your purpose, cause, or belief? Why do you get out of bed every morning and take photos? Why should anyone care about your photos?
WHAT: Every single photographer knows what they do.
HOW: Hows are often given to explain how something is different or better, done.
Where many of us make a mistake is usually by starting with what instead of why. Lets for a moment instead of asking, “WHAT should we do to compete on Instagram?” ask the question “WHY did we start doing WHAT we’re doing in the first place, and WHAT can we do to bring our cause to life considering all the technologies and market opportunities available today?”. The second question opens a million ideas and directs our focus on creating the value that people appreciate, you will agree.
And now, most notably during this time don’t forget to remind yourself why, how, and what you are photographing, or motivation will exhaust!
How to find your voice
Our photographic voice, the why does not come from looking ahead at what you want to achieve and figuring out an appropriate strategy to get there. It comes from looking in the entirely opposite direction from where you are now. Finding why is a process of self-discovery, not an invention, and guess what, every single person has why!
I’ll turn to psychology once more time, and give insight into the thing known as “the script”. Our script represents all the things we experienced during the grown-up period and now live as adults. If we look deeply insight our memories we will find out that there are some a-ha moments when we felt good, inspired, or motivated to do things. It’s not so easy task but this trick may help.
Take a sheet of paper and a pen.
- List all the subjects you like or would like to photograph.
- List the scenes or places you like to photograph or would like to do.
- List all the reasons why you want to photograph these scenes or subjects. You must be precise, simple, and concrete.
- It is helpful to also list everything you do not like to photograph. This is an essential step.
Then you can return to each of these lists, prioritize your ideas and try to identify 3 strong ideas. For each of these ideas, you should write a sentence with a subject, a verb, and a predicate. Combine these sentences together in a single paragraph and you will end up with a small text that is readable, read it out loud! This will allow you to see the strong points. Simplify this paragraph into 3 or 4 sentences. Reread the text again, and voila, you have just defined your photographic vision.
Work on your how and what
After finding why we should focus on our how and what. How we shoot photos, from techniques and lenses up to the paper which will be used for printing our photos. There is no single way, to mix, match, think, and what will come up. For example, I’ve started my journey with what instead of why, because I forgot it deep inside me. And that’s ok at the beginning but if we want to create and deliver better, meaningful photos we should find that why as soon as possible.
Let me show my photographic journey through how and what:
Year 1-3:
- Attend a photography course/school. (How)
- Experimenting with different photo styles. (What)
- Watch many youtube videos about photography. (How)
- Try to learn about principles of design (How)
- Try to learn about elements of design (How)
- Experiment with different camera gear (filters, lenses …). (How)
- Read photography books. (How)
- Try to find people with similar ideas. (What)
After some trial and error, I made a salad of nearly 10.000 different photos. Landscapes, nature, travel, woodland, macro, and ICM fed my hunger for photography. It was a good feeling but over time I felt the need to direct my work toward something higher, which would arouse various emotions in people, to find my why. That was the beginning of my transition into my photographic voice, which was initiated by switching my camera system from Nikon to Fujifilm.
Year 3-5:
- Switch to Fujifilm. (How)
- WHAT shown up as “Finding special moments in ordinary places”.
- Focus on landscapes and nature in general. (What)
- Use different tools and techniques to capture better those special moments. (How)
- Printing photos. (What)
- Attending photo workshops. (How)
- Creating photo books. (What)
- Started to hike and camp like never before. (What)
Photography has changed my perspective of the world around me and how different people see it. It will change yours too if you wait enough.
If I need to start from the beginning this would be the best way for doing that:
Attend a photography course/school:
There is no better way to start photography than attending a photo course or school. A good teacher will have a content structure that will help you to understand the basics of photography and show how to use the camera, Photoshop, Lightroom, and all other tools that will help you in the future. There will be people like u, who love photography which is good for establishing connections and inspiration.
Experimenting with different photography styles:
The key point of this part is that after many trials and errors, if you are persistent enough, your style will find you. Maybe you heard that the key to mastering something is in spending 10.000 hours doing it. It’s fine, but one simple question arises, how do we know then that our photos have a value that people understand, share, and recognize us based on it? – We don’t. In this stage, each photo may represent a simple technique or idea which resonates with us, and that’s totally fine. Experiment as much as you can!
Photography books, galleries, and exhibitions:
One most underrated things which everyone does at the beginning of his journey is not read books, or visit galleries and exhibitions. That’s a big mistake because they not only inspire us but give us a door into the world of photography where we can find ourselves and build our skills faster.
Social networks:
People who we are following are not accidentally there. We are more likely to trust those who share our values and beliefs. When we believe someone has our best interest in mind because it is to their benefit to do so, the whole group benefits! I’ll talk about this much more in the second part of this post.
Ending words
That’s all for the first part of “How to find your photography voice”. In the second part, I’ll share how our environment shapes our work, and how we can get the most out of it. And before you close the tab let me share some ideas that might help you to find your photography voice faster and easier:
- Trust in your work and yourself!
- Review your photos as much as you can. Look at the light, colors, emotions, composition, and other stuff that forms a photo.
- Have a good and honest friend that will help you by looking at your photos and expressing what they feel when they look at them.
- Have a pause between the capture period and the edit period, and let your emotions fall into place. Edits will be much better!
- A number of likes are a perfectly legitimate measurement of goods sold or services rendered. But it is no calculation of value. Just because somebody makes a lot of them it does not mean that he necessarily provides a lot of value!
- Turn off social networks as much as possible, they will only harm you and distract you from your why, and the things you like to do. Protect your time!
- Learn as much as possible about the principles and elements of design.