“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
Vincent Van Gogh

“I bet the same thing applies to photography.” Jamie

I’ve never understood the numbers of photography, the technical aspects: f-stops, apertures, shutter speeds, ISO. I have talented photographer friends who have patiently tried to educate me but my eyes go fuzzy and my brain just kind of shuts down. I give them the good old *blink blink* stare of a deer in the headlights.

What’s up with that?

For several years now I’ve been carrying my camera with me everywhere. I take photos every single day. I’m always looking for a moment to capture, a morsel of the day, an expression of a place or of myself. Until recently, I hadn’t realized how much photography has become a part of the way I experience life, a way I engage in the world around me, a way I express my creative self. I kind of got it when my sister Suzie was looking at a project I’m working on and she responded with, “I totally recognize your photography.” My photography?

That inspired me to pick up my copy of Expressive Photography: The Shutter Sisters’ Guide to Shooting from the Heart with the intention of reading through it slowly, actively trying to engage, bit by bit, with what I learn. When Tracey Clark was on Creative Living with Jamie, she really inspired me to be more playful in my explorations, to try a setting, take a shot, try another setting and see what happened. This was going to be fun.

I opened the book. And then I read “aperture” “f-stop” “exposure” “ISO” and felt myself numbing out again…

Closing down…

But then…

This determination showed up in me. I thought, “Heck, I’m smart. There is no reason I can’t figure this out, maybe not all at once but piece by piece.” And I remembered this video and how Alice Herz Sommer’s mother had told her to learn something every day and thought – today I’ll learn about apertures. Not “Today I’ll learn photography.” Just apertures.

So, I read the definition of aperture in the Expressive Photography glossary. I took notes and tried to summarize what it meant in my own words. I found this really clear article by Nasim Mansurov. I found the aperture settings on my camera. I took photos at the lowest range and highest range and tried to see the difference. I was totally engaged and kind of getting it.

And then… I started to get confused about how my camera works. I tried to figure out how the aperture interacts with other settings and what I can control and what I can’t. I tried to figure out what range of aperture is normal for digital point-and-shoots and wondered, is this useless if you don’t have a DSLR? And…. and… and I started to convince myself, once again, that this is too hard, too confusing and I’m never going to get it.

Take a deep breath, Jamie.

In fact, the truth was that in that moment I understood more about aperture than I ever had before. I discovered that the aperture is the opening that lets light into the camera, just like our pupil lets light into our eyes. And, like our pupil, it can get bigger and smaller, letting more or less light in. I know now that f-stops refer to the size of the opening and though it may seem counter-intuitive, the larger the number, the smaller the opening. I learned also that when the aperture size is smaller, the foreground and background will be in focus and when the size is larger, the background will start to get fuzzy, creating a sense of depth of field. And that’s enough for now. (And if I have any of that wrong, please feel free to let me know in a kind and gentle way. If it’s more complicated, I’ll get there.. or not. For now, baby steps and basics is where I’m at).

I don’t know how much I’ll want to learn about photography. I’ll figure that out as I go. What I do know is that I want to stop telling myself that I can’t do it – and the best way to do that is to dive in.

This week’s podcast is 18:50

This week’s guest: Susannah Conway, writer, photographer and creator of Unravelling e-courses

website: susannahconway.com
blog: ink on my fingers
Etsy store: www.unravelling.etsy.com

From Susannah Conway…

I’m a photographer, writer and creator of the Unravelling e-courses, and I live in Bath in south-west England. I studied photography in the early 90s and then went on to become a fashion editor on a national newspaper. I lost my partner in 2005 and it was this sudden bereavement that turned my life inside-out. I left London and moved to the south coast, and from there i stepped onto a painful yet ultimately healing path; while working through my grief in therapy I discovered blogging and met some incredible people online. A trip to the States to meet up with blog friends inspired me to take up photography again and, really,  that was when life started blossoming once more. After setting up my own photography business I began teaching self-awareness workshops locally that used the camera as a way to see ourselves, drawing on everything I’d learned on my grief journey. I now lead these Unravelling classes on-line; it’s such an incredible honour to be able to share this with others.