About The Raven's Photo Workshop

Updated: 01/24/2008

I'm a novice photographer, and this blog is about my ongoing self-assignments... my "personal workshop" to keep me working on developing my skills. It's mostly here as a personal journal of my progress, but it's public to share with my friends and family and my immediate photographer peers around Wichita, KS.

I welcome any and all feedback, whether you know me or not.

I started photography with a Pentax K-1000 over fifteen years ago, and I fell away from it when my family acquired a point-and-shoot digital. Film was too expensive, the digital was too restrictive. At the end of 2006, I purchased a Canon Digital Rebel XT (EOS 350D) and a couple lenses, and set out to rediscover photography. I thought working through a formal set of assignments and keeping a formal journal of the process would help me improve and keep a record of my improvement.

I started working through John Hedgecoe's Complete Guide to Photography, but found it less than useful. Instead of getting me out and working, I found it frustrating. It doesn't actually contain clear assignments, despite being a "workshop" and I found myself working too hard to do things like, "shoot something that shows texture". I keep trying to turn simple ideas into "art" and get frustrated with the assignment not being inspiring enough. So instead of encouraging me to get out of my chair and shoot, I sat in my chair and pondered the "perfect" shot for the vague assignment.

I'll probably return to the idea later, but for right now, I'm hanging out with the Wichita Flickr group and shooting whatever they guide me into, and I'm working on projects shooting things that interest me.

I also found a book I like much better than Hedgecoe, (The Photographer's Eye, by Michael Freeman, a revision of an earlier book I own) and I may work my way through it, applying the ideas to the current projects I'm working on.