Starting Out

Well, this is my first ever blog!

I've never even kept so much as a diary before. I'm attempting to record my thought and learning process, along with some of my better shots from the Art of Photography course I have just taken up with the OCA (http://www.oca-uk.com). This is my first distance learning course and I have been dying to get back into some form of education for a while. I really feel I need to do something to make a difference to my future, and my abilities have always been in anything that lets me get creative :)

So I guess I should start by saying I don't have a lot of experience in photography, but I seem to have a lot of 'luck' in producing fairly good photos. Now I'm going to learn to turn luck into something of a skill that I can use for myself. I hope by the end of this first course I should have a better idea of what I like to shoot and where my strenths are. I'm just a little tired of being told I'm good at everything, I know I'm not. Ok to be fair I'm 'good' at most things I put my time and effort into, but that doesn't make me the best at them, or good enough to be taken seriously. This is what I'm hoping I will achieve, that I will be good enough to use my new skills as a career, not just 'good' as a hobby or 'good' because my parents like what I've done. I'm doing this because I don't want to end up as just another cog in the machine, I want real proffesional recognition for the effort and progression I make.

Sounds a little depressing I suppose, feeling frustrated because people like what you do but personaly you don't feel its enough. But its giving me the fuel I need to tackle this issue, and if you don't strive to achieve, than you don't get any where!

I would like to explore as much of photography as I can, I'm not afraid to try things that look difficult or unusual, and I'm hoping when I get settled into my work I will be able to let my imagination run free and produce images that are beyond my own expectations.

So for now I'm off to buy stationary (you've got to love the shopping element to all this!) and prepare to start my first exercises, and in the mean time I will get some of my previous shots uploaded so I have some kind of bench mark to view how far I have come in the future.

Sarah :)