Part Two - Narrative: Reflections

Wow - my feet haven't touched the ground!  But instead of feeling tired, as I did at the end of Part One, I feel inspired, energised and ready for Part Three.  I did have a bit of a blip though during Part Two, maybe a part of the come down from my trip to India, but I went through a bit of block with my course work, as in not wanting to do it.  I kept asking myself why I'd chosen this academic route, when basically all I want to do is get out and take photos!  I've resolved that now (yesterday actually), the bigger picture is that one day, I'd like to make a living from photography, and that will include teaching, so I need the broader understanding and skill set and have to be careful not to lose sight of that.  I do however need to revise my timetable a bit, as I'm not getting out as much as I'd like, and at the end of the day, I need to practice to progress my personal ambitions.  I currently allow 2-3 weekends a month to complete my course work, and then I read/research/surf on my daily commute.  I think I need to try, as hard as it is, to "work after work", to put in one evening a week for course work.  That means also putting it on my office calendar to avoid staying late at work.  I will start doing this in the New Year, and this will free up a bit more time at weekends for practicing my street photography :)

So, during Part Two I have (in no particular order):

• Taken part in a week-long Street Photography workshop in Varanasi, India with Maciej Dakowicz 
• Learnt a lot about different ways of supplementing images with text and what that achieves
• Learnt about loss of authorial control
• Learnt about the difference between relay and anchor text
• Understood how images can be ambiguous if not supported by text
• Learnt about photographing the unseen
• Met Dougie Wallace again at his Shoreditch Wildlife launch event
• Reviewed 2 exhibitions
• Read 0 photography books!!  (ooops.....)
• Won a photography competition at work!  Yay!
• Had one of my photographs used by Maciej Dakowicz on his website :o)

But, most importantly, a while ago, I wasn't sure where my photography was heading.  I was flitting between street, travel, wildlife, landscape, conceptual, art, documentary, trying out photojournalism....I had no idea where I was going.  Following my experience in Varanasi, I now known for certain exactly where I'm going.  I found this blend of street/travel photography very exciting and challenging - and this is what I want to do - every day that I can!

Finally, I need to do something about the tag list for this blog -it's getting a bit long....not quite sure what to do about it, but I'll give it some thought.