Is photography social?
If you like to photograph wild life, and sitting in a hide for weeks on end to catch a timid mountain lion and her cubs then photography is not that social for you, but if you are an out going person and likes to take images of other people then no doubt you will find it a very social profession where you are going to meet amazingly varied and interestingly different people.
Recently I attended 2 different environments in the photography world and was amazing how friendly and welcoming the photographer’s are. Ok there are some people who want to keep things to their chests and will snub others and try and put people down to make themselves feel big, but lets be honest you will find this in any profession, industry, sport, career etc etc…
I am a viewer of a photography podcast and one evening was watching the show, the presenter announced that he will be flying from Dallas to spend a weekend in London for his birthday and would like to do a photo meet up with his viewers that could make it on the day.
I was very skeptical at first about attending, as it’s the unknown. Will the others be better then I? Am I going to be judged? What will happen?
After much thought about it, and after taken a massive Mickey taken from the Mrs. I managed to persuade her to come with me and along we went. Luckly I didn’t pack the anorak this time….
It’s was great! We met such a huge mix of different photographers. Different in skill levels, images they like to shoot, and even format what people like to use.
Everyone who met has the same goal, met others who shame the same passion and like to talk about the common subject.
My second meet wasn’t really a meet but more of workshop full of other photographers. The workshop was to teach how to studio light a portrait ready to extract, and composite this nicely lit image.
It was on this workshop I heard an interesting comment, which inspired me to come up with post.
One of the attendees on the course was talking to me about how he is very new to photography. He compared this new hobby to his others; he plays golf, 5-aside football and couldn’t believe how friendly other photographers where that he had met. When playing golf its obviously competitive but also it comes along with a lot of stigma and strange aura.
There is just something about meeting up with others who share your passion and enjoy speaking openly about what they do, how they do it really inspires you and is interesting to learn new things. If you are thinking about attending a workshop or even a random meet up, I would strongly suggest that you go. You will no doubt meet some cool new people and come away feeling inspired to try new things and be creative.