Week 10: Photography with a Beginner's Mind.
It started as a wet week!
This area cannot be so lush and green, supporting flocks of sheep and the
odd herd of cattle along with a booming tourist industry based on tramping the
fells, without at least some rain, but it can be really horrid weatherwise.
On Monday having consulted the regional weather forecast we
set off in a direction of clearing and clear weather. What we experienced was constant heavy
rain. At one point the sun broke through
the clouds, we parked the cars, jumped out, tripod in in arms, set up on the
side of the road and down came the rain.
We moved seeking shelter in a nearby forest, but the rain pounded on the
roof of the car as we waited inside, while the windows fogged up. Eventually we sort refuge in a small, very
simple Anglican Church.
For me it was an opportunity to learn some of the simple
controls on my new camera. The electronics
on the camera I left home with, had been playing up for some months, but
eventually stopped altogether when I was in Winchester and with the help of the
staff at the London Camera Exchange in Winchester I selected a mirrorless
camera with a wide angle lens- “good for landscape photographers”, the salesman
said. The next day, realising that I
relied heavily on the zoom capacity of my old Canon bridge camera, I returned
to the shop and purchased my first ever telephoto lens.
So back in the St Bartholomew’s at Loweswater without too
much entanglement of tripods nine of us, eight participants and our host John,
exposed every corner of the church to our various lenses. After about an hour
we were joined by a group of drenched walkers who had been out in the hills as
part of navigation training. One by one
they would come to the door of the church and squeeze out the water from their
drenched walking gloves before settling down to eat their pack lunch. Soon after our group, aware there would be no
picnic in the woods today, opened our lunch boxes. A new experience of “breaking bread” in
Church. Maybe one of the reasons the
local churches are not locked is that they are a place of refugee for those
tramping the hills in inclement weather or following misadventure. I had noticed that the classic red telephone
box next to where we parked our car had been converted to a defibrillator
storage point.
I approached this Landscape Photography workshop with a beginner’s
mind. Despite having enjoyed photographing
for some five decades and having participated in some photography courses I have
never really mastered the technical aspects of photography, rather leaving the
camera set to auto mode and I have relied on my eye for creative
composition. With mixed success. But one of the advantages of digital
photography is that the shutter may be depressed 1000’s of times but only the
“good” images are shared.
However, this was a week where I needed to get to know my
new camera and to do so by moving off “auto” mode. I have been learning about “f” stops, depth
of field, shutter speeds and ISO. Terms
I new about but now I was beginning to understand within the context of photos. The other participants are members of photo
clubs, possess big stable tripods, carry a bag with multiple lens and some even
use multiple cameras throughout the day.
In one sense I am the “novice” in the group and intimidated by the
technical jargon and level of critique.
But I surrender and accept my sense of vulnerability and embrace the
beginners mind. And what a rich learning
experience it has been despite at times inclement weather.
With gratitude to John
and Deb from Lakeland Photographic holidays and my fellow participants, Chris,
David, Elaine, Fred, Ken, Roger and Sue (from Melbourne).
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