I am celebrating!
It is three years since I started this blog and I have persevered!
I have managed to keep writing, to keep taking photographs and to enjoy both activities through the ups and downs of the past three years.
What started out as a blog documenting my journey as a beginner photographer has turned into a vehicle not just for improving my photography but also for developing my creativity.
So how does writing a blog improve your photography and develop your creativity?
Surely a blog and photography are very separate things.
Actually no.
It is said that creative writing exercises the same part of the brain as photography, so it makes sense that they complement each other.
There are many ways in which writing about photography improves our photography process as well as our creativity as photographers.
Here are just some of them.
A blog allows you to share your story. You can share your photography journey, share stories about individual photographs, share your process for capturing images, share information about the locations you visit for your photography, and so on. And in sharing you are revealing part of yourself and your process to others.
This is an image taken in my local park. I love this place and it offers lots of opportunities to develop my photography through the seasons
You develop your thoughts about your work. As you write about your images and the process you go through to capture them you are developing your thoughts about photography and your way of working.
It gives you an opportunity to look back. Your blog is a place to document your photography journey. It allows you to trace your growth over time and to see your development as a photographer.
You can share your learning opportunities. In a blog you don’t have to only show your best photos. You can show your mistakes, present images that have taught you something and illustrate through your images your growth as a photographer.
It keeps you motivated. Writing a regular blog keeps you out of a creative rut. You will want to share different aspects of your photography, and this will inspire you to continually look for new opportunities. It will encourage you to keep exploring new genres, new locations, new styles to keep your writing (and your photography) fresh and interesting.
It helps you analyse and evaluate your work. Most of us don’t present our work to be analysed by others but through our writing we can, to some extent, do this for ourselves. As I look through images to illustrate a point in a blog post I assess each one to see if I like it, if it can be improved, if it is worth showing publicly. I am often my own best critic, but this serves to send me back out with my camera to capture an improved image.
When I look closely at this image I can see that it is weighted towards the left. Something to balance the image would have improved it
It helps you understand your strengths. Analysis of images does not have to be negative. It is very powerful to be able to show those images that we are proud of and to understand why they make us proud. I often learn more from harnessing my strengths than by being too critical as it is the things we do right that are the building blocks for further progress.
You can inspire others. You might not feel that you have developed enough in your photography to teach others but often the simple act of sharing your process, your successes and failures, can be an inspiration to others to get started or to keep going.
It builds rapport. Sharing personal stories, sharing about difficulties you encountered and how you overcame them, sharing information about your images – where, when and how you captured them - all helps to show your personality and build a rapport with your reader. If readers like your style they will keep coming back to read more.
It helps define your style. It can be hard to pin down your own personal photography style, but when you begin writing your style emerges in your words and through your images. As you look through your images you begin to see what connects them. These are the images you are drawn to capturing, the images you want to write about and share with others.
You write about the things you like to photograph; you photograph the things you like to write about.
It can double as a gallery to chart your progress. Your personal blog can also be home to your personal gallery where you can display your images. Displaying your images for others to see is a good motivator to become more creative, to curate your images and to constantly seek to grow and develop as a photographer.
It helps you develop a map for your future journey. By helping you understand where you have come from and where you are now in your photography, your writing can help you develop your future path. When I look at how my writing and my photography have evolved over the past year, I notice that I have many posts written about mindful photography and about landscape photography. These are areas of strong interest for me, which I would like to develop further. Without my writing I may not have clarified my interests in the same way.
How do you write a photography blog?
There is no one way to write a photography blog. Blogs are as individual as their writers.
· A blog can be reflective about your photography – notes on where and why you took a particular photograph, what you like/dislike and what you might do differently next time
· A blog can be a posting on what currently inspires you, taken in any direction you choose
· A blog can be about your learning and the discoveries you have made as you progress in photography
· A blog can be a series of helpful articles sharing your experience
· A blog can be an online diary and your approach can change to suit your needs.
Blogs can have a mix and match style – it’s your blog and your choice of content, so present it in a way that suits you.
Essentially,
your blog
is about
sharing your journey
in whatever way you wish.
There is no right
or wrong way.
your blog
is
uniquely yours
This image of mountain heather was taken from the top of Carrigoona looking towards the Sugar Loaf mountain, Co. Wicklow, Ireland
I have discovered that if I write as I feel motivated to write I am being true to myself and trusting that my words might inspire, help or just reach someone who wants to read them.
My primary aim is not to gain readers, it is to develop creatively as a photographer, hopefully to bring some readers along on parts of the journey, and just to enjoy the ride!
Before you go, you might also like: