Sometimes bigger is better!

Sorry for the extremely late blog post. A lot of stuff has been going on lately not just on the career side of things but personally aswell.

I’ve finally moved into a studio! But at the same time I’ve been transitioning through houses aswell. So it’s like moving x2. Never pleasant. On top of that I had my exams aswell so basically it was a pretty stressful time needless to say. But it’s all in the past and I got my results (Thank you 3 A’s and 2 B’s)

So I’ve got through the first year of uni and now just awaiting my second year to start in September. Meanwhile I’ve got plenty of things to keep me busy and just trying to build up my portfolio aswell as follow on my personal projects.

Photography’s one of those art forms that you never really reach the end of. There’s always something just ahead of you. More work that you can create. There isn’t an end and really all the great masters never finish with their work up until they stop breathing. It’s just how captivating it really is.

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts and reading up on photography not just on technicalities or aesthetic reasons but academically aswell. Within academic discussions you really start to get to the heart and emotion of subjects.

One certain podcast however from Chase Jarvis always breaks this boundary. Great talent and exceptional quality coming from him aimed specifically at other photographers and helping them out. This guy never ceases to amaze me.  Catching up on one of his old podcasts there was a discussion with an art director that was with him on CJ Live. Something that he said really struck me. “Working on your art, is like working on yourself from within”

That connected with me on a lot of levels and it just shows that you’re only doing this for yourself. It’s a selfish reason at the end of the day. We’re not curing cancer, only really following our dreams. And while that’s not a bad thing you can’t burn yourself out especially with a creative art form. You have to take it easy and mature as a person before you can really create wonderful work.

Whatever you are – A model, painter, writer, photographer; you’ve got to pace yourself. You push as hard as you can creatively but make it so that the work is consistent and true to what you want to achieve.

Now to finish off this blog post with some work that I haven’t been able to post but I’ve been really proud of!

Get rid of your pride – Sometimes it helps

The pride that makes you self conscious, makes you think of who you want to be instead of who you are.

While this is not bad and is more than necessary, sometimes you just need to take 2 steps back and discard that pride.

Why would you ever need to do that?

Asking for advice – simple yeah? Actually not really. It’s not just asking for advice, it’s also taking critique on board. Being emotionally attached to your work is not a good way of working. You will take any sort of critique to heart and there isn’t a need to defend your work. You have to be your own harshest critique and even if someone belittles your work you have to ask yourself why? In the end being a sponge rather than a rock will take you a lot further and improve your work tenfold.

You need to know which are your best images and which are lacking.

You might love that photo of that model you took on the beach because it was a difficult shoot and even though the image didn’t turn out great you want to use it because you don’t want to make out as if it was a wasted effort.

Guess what? Nobody knows that’s the case. All they’ll see is a flawed image that could be better. Not good. Nobody else will care about your images like you do. So be proud of your work but don’t be clouded out of neutral judgement. It’s taken me around 2 and a half years to get to the point where if I go on a photo-shoot and all my images are failures not destined for my final portfolio I can accept it (Another great post on this by Chase Jarvis here). It hasn’t gone to waste because I’ll grow from that experience and based on that failure I will have realised what went wrong and next time amend that ahead of time.

You want people to tell you that they love your work. To put your work on Facebook and get loads of likes. To show your work and for everyone to say wow! It’s easier; I get it, since I was once there aswell. But you won’t become a better photographer or anything else.

Don’t take it to heart.

New Blog – Temp

Hey there everyone,

Thanks for jumping on to my new blog. Hopefully this is just temporary for the time being as I get my another blog running as for some reason my other blog has failed functions so its accessible at the moment.

I’ve got lots of blogging to do since im so far behind. In the meantime check out my website http://rameez-rk.co.uk

Stay with me and you’ll hopefully see some more posts soon!

RK