Telling a story: my struggle with Mr Self-Doubt

This week, I finished an eight week online workshop with https://www.facebook.com/pages/Finding-the-Light-Workshop/159966014084273. This workshop is about finding the natural light and using the light to your advantage. I have always been in love with natural light photography, and this course has fuelled my passion.

However, I struggled with this course. It was not the quality of the workshop, the course content, or the instructor, but with myself and my photography. Each week we had to submit two images; one straight out of the camera(SOOC) and one edited. Each week, it felt like the critique I received for my SOOC photo was “underexposed”.  I was not letting enough light into my camera and the sensor. Each week, I would use the histogram, use the metering, and check my display only to find it was underexposed once I downloaded the images to my computer. Talk about frustration!

Then, Mr Self-Doubt came and sat on my shoulder for a while. He helped me question my ability, he helped me compare my work to the other students, and compare their critiques to mine. I did not like his visit at all.

So yesterday, I gave myself the task of creating inspiration boards on my pinterest account http://pinterest.com/image421/. I wanted to see the images that appealed to me and what I instinctively liked, without pausing. It was a fascinating learning experience. When I look at the images on the boards, I can see what I like best……natural light, sun flare and warm colour!

I have two choices:

1) Continue to admire other photographers work but leave natural light photography to the experts.

2) Give Mr Self-Doubt the flick, and keep pursuing this area of photography that I love.

I said goodbye to Mr Self Doubt and I picked option 2. I know the direction that I want to take my images, and this course has helped me to clarify this. The struggle has helped me to develop, and I will be forever grateful for that.

And I will be forever grateful to my models and their endless patience….

Here, are some of my favourite “edited” images that I captured during the workshop….and hopefully next time I will be able to share the correctly exposed SOOC images 😉