Study schedule
My study schedule is Saturdays. I have two Saturdays ear-marked a month that I will ruthlessly reject all social invitations for. This gives me a minimum of 20 hours a month for shooting. Up to now this system works ok. I also quite often have Sunday mornings, which works out at about another 10-15 hours a month. After that, I probably go to at least one exhibition, event, or seminar a month minimum, so let's say 2 hours (research!). Then, I read on the train (or look at photos on my ipad) so that's another 40 hours a month (but can't really count that towards course work, as is mostly surfing). The extra 10 that I am missing for course work come out of time after work (which is rare), or Saturdays that are longer than 10 hours' work, or the occasional day of work (also rare). So it's a bit of a jumble, but I get through ok. I do want to complete C&N in a year though, so I need to step up a bit!
I work outdoors for shooting - wherever I need to go - and for processing / blog writing on my laptop on the sofa (very bad) - and for reading, usually on the train to work.
Assignments
As I'm aiming to complete within a year, my assignment schedule looks like this:
- Assignment One - end September 2014
- Assignment Two - end November 2014 (India?)
- Assignment Three - end February 2015 (Japan?)
- Assignment Four - end April 2015
- Assignment Five - end July 2015
Hoping to make significant progress in travel / street photography this year and have trips planned to Varanasi, India in October (workshop with Maciej Dakowicz) and Japan in December (holiday including snow monkeys inspired by Jasper Doest!). I'm not sure either will help with assignments (two and three) - and there is always the risk of needing to reshoot - which is not possible with travel), but we'll see nearer the time. As I aspire to being a travel photographer (well one of the things I'm aspiring to at the moment) - I do want to use as much material as I can from travel experiences.
Maybe for Assignment Two, my list of things un-photographable could be emotions that I experience being on another continent, far away from home and husband, and then how I deal with the poverty, kids in the street, sick dogs etc that I will see in India?
Keeping the diary for Assignment Three during my two weeks in Japan might be an interesting exercise as I will be away from the routine and pressure of going to work everyday and more able to be "myself". I can then try to take images later to represent how I felt in Japan - that would be an interesting twist! Or try to capture a photographic journey both physically and emotionally. I'm expecting Japan to be a mixture of wildlife, landscape and street photography (including street portraits).
So actually, I've already answered my own questions! This is how my left-brain kicks in!
